Endnotes

¹An earlier version of Vanzetti and Wynen's 2002 paper, the topic of which was the effect of food transport on the environment, was presented at the 8th Conference of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements in Budapest, 27–30 August 1990.

²Energy intensity on road freight transport in the United States halved between 1960 and 1990, and has continued to decline slowly (Bureau of Transportation Statistics 2008). However, recent increases in oil prices are likely to have a dampening effect on trade, particularly of low value goods (Rubin and Tal 2008).

³With the rise in oil prices, freight prices have increased. The October 2007 rate for shipments from the Gulf of Mexico to the European Union was $75 per ton (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2008b).

⁴See Section 6 below for a detailed review of New Zealand as a case study for remotely located countries affected by the food miles concept.

⁵See Vanzetti and Wynen (2002) for further discussion on the issue of reallocated pollution effects caused by the food miles concept.

⁶The DEFRA-funded study concluded that carbon emissions were 2,394kg/ton for locally produced tomatoes, and 630kg/ton for imported ones (DEFRA 2005).

⁷The preference shift is modeled as an 80% loss in New Zealand exports, and lesser losses for other countries depending on distance from market. This is the so-called "iceberg" specification, where the good "melts" with distance (see Hertel, McDougall, and Itakura 2001 for a description of this specification). In the model, any increase in satisfaction consumers may enjoy from knowing they are contributing to improving the environment is not taken into account.

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