Food Policy 37 (2012) 171–178

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Food Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpol

International trade related food miles – The case of Canada

Meidad Kissinger
Department of Geography and Environmental Development, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: At the beginning of the 21st century imports of agricultural and food commodities have become a major
Received 17 March 2011 part of many nations’ food baskets. Indeed the global food system has several merits for nations, busi-
Received in revised form 8 December 2011 nesses and individual consumers’ well-being. However, as increasing evidence suggests that we are
Accepted 4 January 2012
approaching an era of climate change and scarcity of cheap energy sources the sustainability of that sys-
Available online 15 February 2012
tem must be examined. One part of any food commodity chain is its ‘food miles’ – the distance the com-
modity travels from point of production to point of consumption, the required energy and resulting
Keywords:
emissions. This paper presents a 1 year ‘snapshot’ of Canada’s total import related food miles. It presents
International trade
Food consumption
an analysis of the distance imported foods traveled from around the world to major points of consump-
Energy tion in Canada and documents the equivalent carbon dioxide emissions related to those imports. It pre-
Carbon dioxide emissions sents both a macro scale picture of the equivalent emissions related to transportation of imported food
Food miles and a micro scale picture which focuses on specific commodities consumed in various parts of the coun-
Food policy try. It then discusses policy implications for food sustainability. Overall the research highlights that about
30% of the agricultural and food commodities consumed in Canada are imported, resulting in ‘food miles’
of over 61 billion tonnes km, leading to annual emissions of 3.3 million metric tonnes of CO2. Of the var-
ious agriculture and food commodities studied, fruits and vegetables had the highest food miles related
emissions.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Geographic and climatic circumstances combined with socio-
cultural and political arrangements have determined the diet com-
position and access to food of societies throughout human history.
While trade always existed as a means of food supply it was mostly
supplementary to domestic sources. In recent decades processes of
globalization, combined with technological and shipping develop-
ments have allowed international trade to become a central means
of supplying the needs and wants of billions of consumers all over
the world. At the beginning of the 21st century the diet of people in
all wealthy nations and increasingly in other parts of the world has
very little to do with their geographic locations or climatic circum-
stances. Food commodities are being grown and shipped from one
part of the world to markets in another.
While the global food system has several merits for nations, busi-
nesses and individual consumers, several constraints to this system
should be considered. Evidence for peak oil (Campbell and Laherre,
1998; Nashawi et al., 2010), suggests we might be approaching the
end of the cheap energy era. Consider also, rising energy prices as a
result of political unrest in different parts of the world, increasing
processes of climate change, and the degradation of agricultural/
food supplying regions (MEA, 2005). All are undermining the sus-
E-mail address: meidadk@bgu.ac.il
tainability of the global supply system and raise some questions
about food security (e.g., Ericksen, 2008; Godfray et al., 2011; Huang
et al., 2011). All suggest he need to examine ways to develop more
efficient and sustainable food supply systems.
In response, some emerging national and international food pol-
icies are acknowledging the need to consider not only domestic pro-
duction and supply issues but also international ones (Huang et al.,
2011). Ideas for such policies include for example the integration of
carbon taxes, the implementation of carbon footprint standards and
commodity carbon labeling. All can alter the relative prices of com-
modities according to their carbon content, can influence consum-
ers’ choices and thus may discourage or foster trade flows.
However, to support the development of such policies to create
more efficient and sustainable food supply systems, it is essential
to increase our knowledge of various parts of the current food sup-
ply system. In response to some environmental and sustainability
challenges, researchers are investigating different dimensions of
food-environment linkages. One particular linkage investigated in
recent years is the use of energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emis-
sions along the food commodity chain (i.e., the carbon footprint)
and throughout the life cycle (LCA) of food from the field to the
landfill (e.g., Andersson et al., 1998; Roy et al., 2008; Garnett,
2011). Within that literature one component that has received
some specific attention is the energy and GHG emissions related
to food shipping – or what has come to be known as ‘food miles’.

0306-9192/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2012.01.002
172 M. Kissinger / Food Policy 37 (2012) 171–178
‘Food miles’ refers to the distance a food commodity travels
along the chain from the point of production to the point of con-
sumption and the related energy and CO2 emitted along that chain.
While travel distance is not and should not be considered the
only indicator for the environmental impact of food, it is part of
every food commodity chain, and analysing it can support
researchers, consumers, and policy makers with valuable informa-
tion on one part of the food life cycle, highlighting the extent to
which they depend on food from global sources, and identifying
some points for potential intervention. Further, as energy costs
continue to rise, energy costs related to shipping distance will be-
come a more significant part of the commodity chain and therefore
should be analyzed.
Two approaches for natural resources, energy, and emissions
accounting are widely explored in academic literature – produc-
tion and consumption. The most common one, embracing a pro-
duction perspective, documents the results of the economic
activities within a study area (nation, city, etc.). Following that ap-
proach the documented ‘food miles’ would be those connected to
food produced within the study area and transported to domestic
or export destinations. The consumption approach would docu-
ment the ‘food miles’ of commodities consumed within a study
area, tracking food supply from points of production, either domes-
tic or international to points of consumption within the studied
area. A growing number of studies embrace this consumption per-
spective and its importance is increasingly being recognized (e.g.,
Princen, 1999; Jackson, 2004; Dauvergne, 2008; Peters, 2008; Kis-
singer and Rees, 2009).
This paper presents a 1 year ‘snapshot’ of Canada’s external food
miles. It presents an analysis of the distance imported food trav-
eled from a wide range of points of production all over the world
to several major points of consumption in Canada, and it docu-
ments the CO2 emissions related to those food imports. It presents
both a macro scale calculation of that part of Canada’s external car-
bon footprint and a detailed breakdown of food commodity types
and sources information which highlights the relative share of spe-
cific food items. I then discuss some policy implications of the re-
search for food sustainability and highlight some directions for
future research.
Background
Canada, the world’s second largest country, is a major producer
and exporter of a wide range of agricultural and food commodities
including cereals, legumes, meat, and oils (FAOSTAT, 2010). Many
people all over the world are now consuming Canadian sourced
food as part of their food demands (Kissinger and Rees, 2009).
However, analysing food consumption in Canada highlights that
despite its abundant resources and relatively small population
Canada’s reliance on external sources (i.e. imports) for food is sig-
nificant. On average during the last decade more than 80% of fruits
and about 45% of vegetables consumed in Canada were imported.
Some specific commodities such as rice, coffee, tea, peanuts, cocoa
and a wide range of tropical fruits were entirely imported (FAO-
STAT, 2010). Even in the case of agricultural and food commodities
that Canada produces for domestic and export markets, imports
play a role; for example 35% of oils, 17% of legumes and 15% of
meat consumption are imported (FAOSTAT, 2010).
Several factors need to be considered in order to explain Can-
ada’s food imports: (1) Canada’s geographic location and climatic
conditions limit its ability to grow many products (e.g., coffee, ba-
nanas); (2) the diverse ethnic make-up of Canadian society influ-
ences and shapes food preferences (e.g., rice, seafood, legumes,
different types of bread); (3) a high standard of living, combined
with the influence of strong commercial marketing campaigns
have generated a system that demands fresh food commodities
(e.g., fruits and vegetables) year round with no connection to
domestic growing seasons (e.g., apples imported from New Zea-
land or Chile in the winter); (4) the attempt to diversify commod-
ities, increase consumer choice and increase profit means that
quite often grocery shops will sell a domestic commodity as well
as competing import versions of the same commodity (e.g., Cana-
dian and US origin potatoes).
As a huge country, strongly engaged in agriculture and food
trade, Canadian agricultural and food commodities travel long dis-
tances from the field to consumers within Canada and to ports for
shipment to other countries. According to data from the UN Food
and Agricultural Organization (FAOSTAT, 2010), in 2006 Canada
grew and produced the equivalent of over 75 million tonnes of
agriculture and food commodities, out of which about 55% was ex-
ported.1 According to Statistics Canada (2007a), shipping agriculture
and food commodities within Canada for domestic consumption and
to ports for export, resulted in just over 65 billion tonnes km (22% by
truck, 70% by rail and 8% by ship). That figure represents the produc-
tion approach to calculating a nation’s food miles.
Food miles
The use of the term ‘food miles’ goes back to the 1994 UK ‘Safe
Alliance’ publication (Paxton, 1994). Ever since, the concept has at-
tracted a lot of attention from a wide range of nongovernmental
organizations as well as some governmental agencies in the EU
(mostly in the UK), North America, Australia and New Zealand
(e.g., Pirog, 2001; Garnett, 2003; ATTRA, 2008; TDT, 2008; Smith
et al., 2005). To date two Canadian projects focused on the Water-
loo region (Xuereb, 2005) and Vancouver Island (LCPS, 2008) have
documented parts of that country’s food miles. All of these studies
intended to generate public awareness of food miles and attendant
CO2 emissions, and promoted the need to ‘go local’.
The food miles concept has also attracted the attention of sev-
eral academics who have explored different dimensions of that ap-
proach, including Carlsson-Kanyama (1998) who introduced the
‘Weighted Average Source Distance’ (WASD) measure, and studied
the case of grapes, tomatoes and carrots imported to Sweden. Pret-
ty et al. (2006) studied the UK food consumption full costs includ-
ing the food miles. Sim et al. (2007) studied the relative importance
of transport in determining an appropriate sustainability strategy
for food sourcing.
Some recent studies have criticized the notion that domestic
sources of food supply (i.e. shorter food miles) are necessarily more
sustainable. For example Saunders et al. (2006) studied New
Zealand food miles and the relative energy and CO2 emissions of
New Zealand’s agricultural sector. That study compared the life
cycle emissions of dairy products originating in New Zealand and
exported to the UK for consumption against those of dairy products
produced and consumed in the UK. The results showed that despite
the shipping distance, it is more efficient for British consumers to
have dairy products produced in New Zealand. Weber and
Matthews (2008) used an input–output life-cycle assessment
(IO-LCA) to explore the relative contribution of ‘food miles’ to the
sustainability of overall US household food choices. The study
found that shipping is not necessarily the most significant factor;
for example, changing diets (e.g., less meat) can achieve a more sig-
nificant reduction in the carbon footprint. A recent study in the UK
(Coley et al., 2009) has illustrated that shopping for food products
at local organic farms can result in larger carbon footprints than
purchasing food from a box delivery system.
1
This figure reaches the 65% when including animal feed required for growing
livestock for Canadian meat export (see Kissinger and Rees, 2009).
 M. Kissinger / Food Policy 37 (2012) 171–178
Methods and data
The analysis included the following steps: (a) documenting the
quantity of various food commodities imported into Canada and
documenting their sources. The study covers hundreds of food
commodities (using HS 10 codes) originating in 100 countries
and from each of the US states; (b) documenting the major modes
of transportation associated with each source–location; (c)
documenting the travel distance from points of production to
major cities in each Canadian province; (d) calculating the energy
inputs and CO2 emissions involved in delivering food from points
of production around the world to Canada. For detailed background
data included in this research (commodities, sources of supply, dis-
tances, etc.) see the supplementary materials.
The year 2006 was studied for reasons of comprehensive data
availability (Statistics Canada, 2007a). For the sake of presenting
the research results I aggregated the data into HS2 food commodity
groups (e.g., vegetables, grains). The following paragraphs explain
the different research stages, the calculation procedure and
assumptions I had to make.
Commodities and sources
The main data source used to document the food commodities
imported into Canada was the Canadian CHASS (Computing in
Humanities and Social Science) ‘Trade Analyser Database’ (2010).
That database documents detailed trade data of Canadian mer-
chandise imported from all over the world based on the ‘Harmo-
nized System’ (HS). Canadian imports are classified at the HS 10-
digit level featuring the annual import at the province scale, from
specific nations and from individual US states.
Distance
Two kinds of distance measures were taken, land and sea. The
measured distance for land transportation was the shortest road
or rail distance from the centre of any exporting US state to the
main cities in each of Canada’s 8 main provinces (the study did
not include the Northern provinces and territories). I used the on-
line ‘Google maps travel distance calculator’ for building a full US–
Canada distance matrix (see ‘Supplementary materials’). Sea dis-
tance for shipping food commodities from other parts of the world
are assumed to be the shortest shipping route from the main port
in each exporting country to six main ports in Canada (including
ports of Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, Sydney, and Char-
16%
6%
1%
6%
8%
Fig. 1. Canada’s food miles related CO2 emissions by specific food group.
173
lottetown). I used an online shipping distance source (www.port-
world.com) to build a full world ports distance matrix.
Mode of transportation
Several data sources were used to determine mode of transpor-
tation. Statistics Canada (2007a) documents merchandise im-
ported by sea and highlights the portion of containerized items
imported from specific sources. Statistics Canada (2007c) docu-
ments merchandise imported by rail. The US department of trans-
portation documents US exports to Canada by mode of
transportation (RITA, 2010). The two main modes are truck and
rail, however it is obvious from that source that most of Canada’s
food commodities import from the US is by truck. Imports from
all other parts of the world, except Mexico, were assumed to be
by sea. I did not document import by air as it represents a very
small portion of food imports (Weber and Matthews, 2008).
Carbon dioxide emissions
After having the data on the imported quantity, distance and
specific mode of transportation I multiplied that by the equivalent
carbon dioxide emitted in tonnes/km. Data used for that conver-
sion included 0.18 kg of CO2 per tonnes km for trucks (Davis and
Diegel, 2007), 0.018 kg of CO2 per tonnes km for rail (Davis and
Diegel, 2007), 0.011 kg of CO2 per tonnes km for bulk sea freight
and 0.014 kg of CO2 per tonnes km for containerized sea freight
(Corbett and Koehler, 2003).
Assumptions and research limitations/what this study does not show
This research takes a conservative approach to calculating the
food miles and related CO2. While it does cover most of Canada’s
external food miles there are several shortcomings that will have
to be developed further in future research. The study does not cov-
er food miles of domestically produced food commodities, only im-
ports. It documents the final leg of transporting a commodity from
the exporting country into Canada and does not include any fur-
ther distances that some commodities have traveled along the
commodity chain (e.g., the food miles of coffee imported from
the US did not include the extra food miles from growing areas
in other countries to the factory in the US). More specific assump-
tions and limitations are related to each major source of supply:
US–Canada food miles – (a) as mentioned above the import dis-
tances were measured from the geographic centre of each export-
9%
7%
25%
174 M. Kissinger / Food Policy 37 (2012) 171–178

Table 1
Canada’s import related ‘food miles’ CO2 emissions by food category.

Quantity imported Major sources of supply Overall Overall CO2 Average CO2
per unit
Tonnes % of weight imported 1000s Tonne km Tonnes g/kg
Fresh Fruits 2,289,800 US (45%), Latin America (36%), Mexico (6%), Asia (6%) 13,348,600 739,100 323
Fresh vegetables 1,948,900 US (81%), Mexico (11%), Asia (4%) 6,347,700 807,700 414
Processed fruits and vegetables 1,044,200 US (65%), Asia (16%), Latin America (9%) 6,283,930 471,980 452
Coffee and tea 243,900 US (25%), Latin America (49%) Asia (18%) 2,034,080 47,510 195
Cocoa 287,900 US (42%), Africa (27%) Europe (18%), Latin America (7%) 1,597,730 38,170 133
Red meat and poultry 378,880 US (75%), Asia (15%), Latin America (8%) 2,042,450 110,520 292
Meat products 186,100 US (61%), Asia (35%) 1,385,800 39,980 215
Fish 449,200 US (67%), Asia (24%), Europe (5%) 2,498,150 56,270 125
Oils 1,335,950 US (85%), Asia (8%) 4,066,040 242,620 182
Grains 2,343,900 US (94%), Asia (4%) 4,587,800 311,490 133
Flour 330,500 US (87%), Europe (6%), Asia (6%) 895,880 50,910 154
Grain products 766,370 US (84%), Europe (9%), Asia (7%) 2,243,840 167,170 218
Sugar 1,691,800 Latin America (66%), US (25%), Asia (8%) 12,497,400 186,320 110
Dairy products 204,900 US (66%), Asia (19%), Europe (10%) 1,364,300 41,620 203
13,502,300 61,193,700 3311,360

Table 2
ing US state. I did not measure the distance from a specific field or
Canada’s import related ‘food miles’ CO2 emissions by modes of transportation.
food processing factory; (b) the measured distance included was
the shortest. The study presents a calculated measure not a full Weight Truck Rail Sea
tonnes tonnes tonnes
measure based on documenting each truck or train.
Canada’s food miles from countries other than the United Grains 1,530,230 691,970 121,690
States: I used the distance from a selected main port in the export- Grain products 700,120 129,660 168,400
Vegetables (fresh) 1,506,280 78,080 363,940
ing country to each of the major ports in Canada. The study does Fruits (fresh) 1,019,950 15,880 1,253,940
not cover the extra mileage traveled in each country from the field Oil products 1,060,220 77,330 198,400
to the port. Meat and Fish 692,300 6470 315,550
Dairy products 134620 – 70310
Sugar 200,420 216,320 1,275,070
Other Ag + prepared food 755,010 107,140 715,040
Research results
Total 7,599,150 1,322,850 4,482,340
The study traced and documented the food miles and CO2 emis-
Tonnes Km Truck Rail Sea
sions related to more than 13 million tonnes of food commodities tonne km tonne km tonne km
imported by Canada in 2006. Overall that food traveled more than
Grains 1,462,606,320 1,104,080,440 2,021,110,750
61 billion tonnes km and generated about 3.3 million tonnes of Grain products 1,042,199,520 262,046,600 1,835,467,850
CO2. Fig. 1 displays Canada’s total CO2 emissions from import food Vegetables (Fresh) 3,776,537,570 195,759,400 2,375,427,050
miles and presents the share of emissions related to each food Fruits (Fresh) 2,910,783,140 45,324,760 10,392,457,420
commodity group. The commodities with the highest CO2 related Oil products 1,270,202,300 92,649,220 2,703,189,700
Meat and Fish 781,253,340 7304,750 5,138,871,970
emissions are fruits and vegetables, followed by grain and oil
Dairy products 135,661,800 – 1,228,639,850
products. Sugar 262,063,730 437,138,300 11,798,216,860
The calculation of a commodity’s food miles energy and related Other Ag + Prepared food 1,372,520,130 194,771,580 8,352,807,400
CO2 emissions, integrates the quantity imported, distance traveled, Total 13,013,827,850 2,339,075,050 45,846,188,850
and mode of transportation. Tables 1 and 2 present a detailed anal-
ysis of the food miles related CO2 emissions of specific commodity CO2 Truck Rail Sea
CO2 (tonnes) CO2 (tonnes) CO2 (tonnes)
groups. Table 1 highlight major sources of supply of each food cat-
egory and the average food miles related emissions of each food Grains 263,270 19,870 28,350
category. Overall, the US is the major source of supply of Canadian Grain products 187,600 4720 25,760
Vegetables (fresh) 679,780 3520 124,370
import food, almost 70% of the imported weight involving more Fruits (fresh) 523,940 820 214,350
than 15 billion tonnes km and resulting with 2.4 million tonnes Oil products 228,640 1670 40,380
of CO2 (76% of the overall) were related to import from the US. Meat and Fish 140,630 130 65,010
The rest of the food was imported from several sources, mostly Dairy products 24,420 – 17,200
Sugar 47,170 7870 131,280
Asia (17%) and Latin America (9%). For detailed breakdown of those
Other Ag + prepared food 247,050 3510 276,320
sources of supply and specific destination in Canada see the ‘Sup-
Total 2342,500 42,110 923,020
plementary materials’ of this paper.
Table 2 breaks the overall ‘food miles’ into specific food catego-
ries and modes of transportation. Overall, approximately 50% of the
food imported (in weight terms) was transported by truck, 43% by
ship, and only 7% by train. In terms of the overall tonnes km (i.e., with less than 2% of out of the overall CO2 emissions. This is a result
the integration of quantity and distance) 68% were transported of mode of transportation – mostly sea and rail freight.
by ship, 28% by trucks and 4% by rail. It highlights the carbon re- Of the variety of food commodities documented in this study,
lated differences between modes of transportation. For example fruits represent a category in which Canada is mostly reliant on
as shown in Table 2 while sugar account for about 13% of the over- external sources. On average during the recent decade about 80%
all imported weight and almost 21% of the tonnes km as result of of fruits consumed in Canada were imported (Statistics Canada,
the location of sources of supply (mostly Latin America), it results 2010). As documented in Table 1, a total of 2,289,800 tonnes of
 M. Kissinger / Food Policy 37 (2012) 171–178 175

Table 3
Analysing the composition of fruit ‘food miles’.

Distance range Quantity imported (metric-tonnes) % of fruit imports Quantity of CO2 emitted (metric-tonnes) % of fruit miles related CO2
Under 500 km 91,520 4.00 5080 0.71
500–1000 km 63,300 2.77 8250 1.15
1000–1500 km 14,580 0.64 3430 0.48
1500–2000 km 145,150 6.34 45,780 6.36
2000–3000 km 378,920 16.56 172,280 23.94
3000–5000 km 493,450 21.57 368,470 51.20
5000–7000 km 583,570 25.50 46,030 6.40
7000–12,000 km 257,980 11.27 32,260 3.58
12,000–15,000 km 184,690 8.07 33,570 3.77
15,000–30,000 km 74,880 3.27 23,940 2.43
2,289,800 100 739,100 100

Map 1. Fruit related food miles of specific Canadian regions.

fresh fruits were imported into Canada in 2006 generating 739,100
tonnes of CO2 emissions. Table 3 disaggregates the food miles of
fruits into several ranges of distances. It reveals that more than
92% of the fruits imported to Canada travel a distance larger than
1500 km. The vast majority of imported fruits (47%) traveled be-
tween 3000 and 7000 km, and 22% traveled more than 7000 km.
While, 21% of imported fruits traveled 3000–5000 km, that travel
generated 51% of the CO2 emissions related to fruit’ food miles,
the equivalent of 740 kg of CO2 for each tonne of fruit. The expla-
nation is mode of transportation: import by truck from the US
and Mexico.
Analysing the food miles of such a large country as Canada high-
lights differences in food miles related CO2 emissions for different
parts of the country. The following Map 1a and b illustrate the
176 M. Kissinger / Food Policy 37 (2012) 171–178

Table 4
Major fruit miles and sources of supply.

Average distance Average CO2 Major sources of supply

2
km/kg gCo /Kg US States Other countries
Apples 4990 360 Washington, California, Michigan New Zealand, Chile, South Africa
Bananas 6566 75 – Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras
Pears 7970 350 California, Michigan, Oregon, Washington Argentina, China
Peaches 4100 480 California, New York, Washington Chile
Plums 5400 530 California, Michigan, Washington Chile
Strawberries 3250 580 California, Florida, Michigan Mexico
Kiwi fruit 10,700 190 California Chile, New Zealand, Italy
Dates 13,800 130 California China, Iran, Tunisia
Pineapples 6300 160 California, Hawaii Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras
Avocados 3200 450 California Chile, Mexico
Oranges 5500 500 California, Florida Mexico, Spain, South Africa

range of distances fruits travel to reach Ontario, Canada’s largest
province, and British Columbia on the Pacific coast. The maps show
that the travel distance compositions are different. For example
while B.C imports 17% of its fruits from a distance under 500 km,
Ontario imports only 0.1% of its fruits from that distance. Further
in both cases about 40% of the fruits travel more than 5000 km
(15% and 10% in Ontario and British Columbia respectively travel
over 10,000 km).
Beyond measuring the food miles of an entire nation or specific
region the study results can also be used to present the CO2 emis-
sions related to transport of specific commodities. That approach
allows highlighting commodities with ‘higher mileage’. The follow-
ing Table 4 presents a detailed analysis of Canada’s fruit food miles
by specific fruit category.
Discussion and policy implications
Analysing a nation’s food miles from consumption approach re-
veals the amount of energy inputs and CO2 outputs involved in
delivering peoples’ food needs and wants. It also highlights the ex-
tent to which that nation depends on far away food sources. Doc-
umenting external ‘food miles’ can therefore help a nation in
monitoring the sustainability and security of its food system and
inform related policy; a useful practice in an era of peak oil and
increasingly unstable environments resulting from processes of cli-
mate change and environmental degradation. Furthermore, analy-
sis of food miles highlights a part of any nation’s carbon footprint
that is generally not taken into account in current formal GHG
accounting frameworks. All are just starting to be acknowledged
in policy making circles.
Several researchers have called for the need to look at environ-
ment and sustainability beyond domestic boundaries (e.g., Princen,
1997; Norgaard, 2001; Conca, 2001; Rees, 2004; Dauvergne, 2005;
Young et al., 2006; Kissinger and Rees, 2010a,b). All argue for the
interests and moral responsibility of consumers, producers and
governments in overseas commodity sources. Analysing external
‘food miles’ can contribute to generating awareness of that
responsibility.
The need to document GHG emissions produced is now widely
accepted and developed throughout the world; some researchers
are calling for the need to implement a consumption approach,
also quantifying emissions embodied in trade (e.g., Peters, 2008;
Peters and Hertwich, 2008; Wiedmann et al., 2007). Documenting
a nation’s external ‘food miles’ and related CO2 emissions as done
in this study contributes to that emerging approach.
While the focus of this paper is on import related food miles, the
case of Canada’s food miles energy and CO2 emissions is also rele-
vant to domestic food supply and exports. Canada is a major expor-
ter of agricultural and food commodities and a breadbasket for
consumers in other parts of the world. Also, the large size of that
country implies that food shipping within its borders involves a
significant amount of energy inputs and CO2 outputs as well. These
factors all emphasize the interest Canada should have in address-
ing the issues raised here. As highlighted earlier in this manuscript,
by using data from Statistics Canada, domestic food (for local con-
sumption and for export) involves approximately 65 billion ton-
nes km, out of which about 55% is for export purposes. My study
highlights that another 61 billion tonnes km’s are related to food
supply through imports. In other words, approaching food miles
and CO2 emissions accounting from a consumption perspective im-
plies that there is a good chance that most of Canada’s food supply
(i.e., domestic production plus imports) food miles and related CO2
emissions are connected to food imported from around the world.
The case of Canada implies that future food miles driven policy
should not necessarily suggest only the use of domestic food
sources as is commonly promoted and was the logic behind the
development of the food miles concept in the first place; rather
policy design should lead to a more energy efficient supply chain.
While reliance on domestic food is important for reasons such as
food security (i.e. self-sufficiency), as well as for social and eco-
nomic reasons, from an energy and GHG emissions reduction per-
spective, in some cases food imports can achieve better and more
efficient results. Consider for example the case of apples consumed
in Canada’s province of British Columbia – imported apples grown
across the border in the US state of Washington will travel fewer
miles than ‘domestic’ apples from the Canadian province of
Ontario.
To date, however, despite the work of several Canadian NGOs
promoting the food miles concept, and despite the need to consider
the issues raised and discussed here, official Canadian agri-food
policy has mostly focused on finding ways to establish Canada’s
role as a major player in global agri-food business – e.g., increase
Canada’s food sector competiveness and increase exports. Issues
of food supply focus mostly on food safety issues and food security
for specific populations. Not only have those policies not reduced
energy inputs or the CO2 output related to freight in general and
food shipping in particular, but Canada’s freight related CO2 emis-
sions have increased in recent years (Environment Canada, 2010).
According to Natural Resources Canada (NRCan, 2009), emissions
from heavy-duty diesel vehicles (large trucks) rose by 18 Mt be-
tween 1990 and 2009, a 91% increase. This is a result of the ongoing
rise of free trade (i.e., NAFTA) and the deregulation of the trucking
industry. In addition, the quantity shipped by truck (as opposed to
other modes of transport, such as rail) increased as a result of cus-
tomer requirements for just in time delivery and cross-border
freight.
One drawback is that issues of energy and GHG emissions pol-
icies related to freight transportation in Canada are usually ad-
dressed separately from food policy. Instead they comprise part
 M. Kissinger / Food Policy 37 (2012) 171–178
of transportation policy in the context of climate change policy
promoted by the Canada Transportation and Environment Minis-
tries. However, rising energy prices combined with increasing
awareness and regulation in different parts of the world in recent
years suggests that food policy should be more comprehensive,
exploring ways to promote more efficient and sustainable food
supply systems – i.e., in the context discussed here, exploring ways
and relevant policies to reduce food miles related energy inputs
and CO2 emissions outputs. Indeed some recent Canadian food pol-
icy documents recognize the need to plan comprehensive food sys-
tems, and to consider various dimensions of the sustainability of
food supply including food shipping and distribution (e.g., FSPG,
2010; CAPI, 2011). Analysing food miles can contribute to the pro-
motion of such planning and policy development; such policy can
contribute to encouraging suppliers as well as consumers to at
least consider that issue.
The results of this research reveal that focusing on domestic
freight characteristics is insufficient as a base for developing na-
tional food miles related policy. Integrating a consumption/import
approach as suggested here, reveals differences in freight composi-
tion between domestic and import food miles. For example unlike
domestic food miles, in which approximately 70% of agriculture
and food commodities traveled by train, in the case of imports only
7% traveled by train because trucks and sea shipping are the main
modes of transportation.
As highlighted in other studies and acknowledged in this paper,
food miles related GHG emissions is just one component of the en-
tire food life cycle, and in some cases a relatively small part of a
product’s carbon footprint. Nonetheless it is necessary to analyse
this component to determine full life cycle emissions. Further,
the analysis can identify commodity specific emissions character-
istics, such as commodity source, domestic or import; and food
miles as a share of overall life cycle emissions which in some cases
will be more significant than in others. This analysis can also flag
specific commodities for which the food miles related CO2 emis-
sions are relatively high.
After documenting and analysing import related food miles and
CO2 emissions, it is possible to consider means to reduce this com-
ponent of a product’s life cycle. Specific policies should be pro-
moted toward various ends: regulative, educational and more
technical. Each approach on its own, and of course all three to-
gether, can contribute to reducing the CO2 emissions related to
food miles.
(a) Regulative – as widely acknowledged in the literature, the
present economic system does not sufficiently reflect the
external environmental costs of food consumption, particu-
larly shipping as discussed here. Internalizing some of the
environmental costs into product price (in the form of a car-
bon tax for example) will make domestic, or at least con-
sumption from closer sources more appealing. The ability
to rely on cheap agricultural and food commodities gener-
ates the illusion that we do not necessarily need to maintain
farm land near our cities. Indeed according to Statistics Can-
ada (2001) from the 1970s to mid-1990s Canada lost
1,200,000 ha of agricultural land to urban uses, a process
that is continuing. Further, even existing local farmland is
quite often being used for other uses (e.g., leisure) than
growing food for local consumption. By promoting policy
that will benefit locally grown (or at least short food miles)
or even taxing food that could have been grown locally but
has been imported from larger distances, maintaining local
farm land for food production can be made more attractive.
(b) Educational – consumers informed of food miles analysis
may voluntarily change their food purchasing habits. Gov-
ernments should promote eco-labeling of commodities, so
177
consumers can make more sustainable purchasing decisions.
To date in Canada that educational approach has not been
promoted by governments, only by international and
domestic organizations. However, in other parts of the world
(France, the UK and Germany) we can see more active
involvement of governmental policies to encourage volun-
tary (and slowly even mandatory) reporting on commodity
carbon footprints including food miles.
(c) Technical – this can include, for example, promoting more
energy and GHG efficient modes of shipping, such as increas-
ing the share of food delivered by train as opposed to the
current dominant use of trucks; or by investing in technol-
ogy to increase energy efficiency in land and sea transporta-
tion. Indeed in recent years Canadian governments have
promoted a variety of relevant policies to address the chal-
lenge of climate change and reducing GHG emissions. In par-
ticular freight transportation has received some specific
attention including such measures as: promoting regulation
around heavy vehicle emissions standards (Transport Can-
ada, 2011), generating the Freight Efficiency and Technology
Initiative (FETI), which stimulated such projects as truck dri-
ver training programs (e.g., optimization of tire pressure to
reduce friction, use of information technology, etc.), and
the Freight Sustainability Demonstration Program aiming
to examine the potential of different new technologies that
can reduce GHG from freight. The Canadian freight market
is also influenced by environmental policy in the US because
vehicle manufacturers sell into both markets and thus pro-
duce vehicles to similar environmental and technological
standards. Therefore in several cases Canadian policy and
regulation follows that of the US.
One of the reasons trucking has become the main mode of
freight in general and for food delivery in particular is connected
to the nature of existing infrastructure in North America. While
both the US and Canada have fairly advanced rail networks within
each country the connections (South–North) are not as advanced.
Through mutual promotion of bilateral rail systems food as well
as other commodities can easily be shipped with significantly low-
er GHG related food miles.
Summary
The continuous globalization of the food system at the begin-
ning of the 21st century means that food policy should consider
environmental implications related to food production and con-
sumption along the entire commodity chain. One component
documented in this paper is the ‘food miles’ and related CO2
emissions along that chain. While consuming from local sources
can have some advantages, after years of getting used to certain
food items (coffee, tea, bananas, etc.) it is hard to imagine the
willingness of consumers to change their habits; therefore
perhaps instead of thinking about a fully local diet, a first step
would be to find ways to make the existing food miles and their
CO2 related emissions more efficient. It is important to acknowl-
edge that measuring ‘food miles’ cannot and should not be used
as the only indicator for the environmental impacts of food com-
modities, and that other ‘parts’ of the commodity life cycle
should be considered as well. Also, as shown by some studies,
the assumption that locally grown food is better for the environ-
ment is not always true as some regions of the world employ
more energy efficient practices than others. Furthermore, in the
21st century many nations cannot grow enough food domesti-
cally even if they would aim to do that and therefore must
import their food.
178 M. Kissinger / Food Policy 37 (2012) 171–178
As shown in this research and highlighted in the results section
of this paper analysing food miles can signal the relative ‘perfor-
mances’ (i.e., distance traveled, mode of transportation, variety of
sources) of different food commodities, and identify some direc-
tions for sustainable policy. While this paper focuses on Canada,
the research is relevant to any country and population in this glob-
alizing world. By monitoring the food miles component of the food
system we may determine ways to increase food system
sustainability.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank colleagues at the University of
British Columbia for their useful comments on the manuscript, as
well as students and colleagues at the Ben-Gurion University for
their help with the extensive data analysis involved preparing this
manuscript. Especially I would like to thank the following: Jennie
Moore, Cornelia Sussmann, Zeev Shtesel, Shira Dickler, Roni Blue-
stein-Livnon and Itai Goldman. All errors and omissions are, of
course, the responsibility of the author.
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.foodpol.2012.01.002.
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