Fruit and wine industries release emissions report

The quickest way to reduce pollutants associated with food miles travelled from the source of an agricultural product to market is not by improvements in clean transport technology alone but more importantly from better farm and orchard management. In a new report, “Confronting Climate Change”, the South African fruit and wine industries seek ways to reduce carbon emissions per food mile to conform with EU environmental regulations and the demands of world consumers for more ecofriendly products. It’s not just fossil-fuel burning trucks, ships and planes that are pollution sources considered in a product’s carbon footprint, but pollution associated with the production of wine, dairy, produce and meat products. There seems little to do to control the digestive systems of cattle – methane emissions from livestock farming (i.e. – gas released from burping cows) are 25 times higher than carbon dioxide emissions globally. But the report says there is a lot that can be done to control nitrous oxides released into the air from over-fertilisation and bad land management. Worldwide, nitrous oxide emissions are close to 300 times greater than carbon dioxide emissions. While much nitrous oxide emission comes from deforestation – the burning of forests to make way for cropland – the climate change study found that farm and orchard operations in SA could become significantly “greener” if scientific management systems were employed. For consumers seeking the “greenest” product, the report found that amongst similar studies, “the general consensus is that transport distances cannot be the only factor evaluated in the environmental audit of product choice.” However, transport pollution cannot be disregarded. The report stated: “Transport choices such as air freight versus seafreight have the largest impact within the supply chain and therefore should be prioritised for emissions reduction interventions.” EU consumers assume that locally produced products have lower pollutant quotients because they travel less far than African imports. However, the study noted that the labour that goes into the production of African agricultural products is manual and thus less polluting than European mechanised production systems fuelled by electricity or petrol – one consideration that mitigates the transport pollution factor.