Evaluating farmer perceptions to the environmental cost of local versus overseas food production

Elizabeth York, University of Wales, Bangor

Link to project: Comparative Merits of Consuming Vegetables Produced Locally and Overseas

Currently, many foodstuffs are imported from outside the UK to sustain consumer demand for seasonally produced commodities such as fruit and vegetables at times of year when domestic production is not possible. The environmental consequences of this strategy, however, remain poorly understood. It is clear, however, that food consumption is one of the major polluting everyday activities, and it is recognised that greenhouse has emissions from the food sector are substantial and need to be lowered to help stabilise climate change (Carlsson-Kanyama et al., 2003). The environmental damage associated with a particular foodstuff remains controversial (e.g. see differing perspectives of Reijnders & Soret (2003) and Carlsson-Kanyama (1998)). The difference in opinion is due amongst other things to different assumptions about impacts along the life cycle and also due to the country-specific nature of the study (e.g. consumers, economics, climate etc: Sonesson & Berlin, 2003). A recent Environment Agency 'state of the nation' report on soils, the main source and sink of greenhouse gasses, and lifeblood of agricultural sustainability has identified farming as being the major polluter and degrader of this valuable resource. Not surprisingly, the UK farming community has met this report with rhetoric of its own denouncing the Environment Agency's findings as being grossly naïve, unbalanced and unjustified (Farmers Weekly, 21-5-04).

This Relu studentship will address this topical issue by critically evaluating farmer perception of environmental resources and rural policy in local versus overseas food production systems. It will directly compare farmer attitudes and perceptions with experimentally derived greenhouse gas emission data collected at the farm-scale level.