Taking Issue with Food Miles

A UK Times eco-columnist’s suggestion to reduce food miles by drinking French rather than NZ wine has stimulated a response by NZ winemakers and politicians. She argued that transporting wines from France results in fewer greenhouse gas emissions because of its closer proximity to the UK. “Our basic concern with the food-miles issue is that it is looking at only one aspect of the energy budget for production, marketing and sales of a product,” says NZ Winegrowers CEO Philip Gregan. “Focusing just on transport, as food miles does, is not the way forward.” Many NZ winemakers are involved in a sustainable agriculture initiative designed to reduce the environmental impact of their industry. Dave Pearce, winemaker for Marlborough’s carbon neutral Grove Mill vineyard, argues that the NZ practice of shipping wine to the UK by boat produces less carbon emissions than “trucking a container of wine from Italy to London, and half the amount I would generate if I fly to London to do a presentation [on global warming].”