Locovore's make a small difference

I used to read ES&T regularly in grad school, but haven't seen it in years. Here is an interesting article on what it really means to only eat foods that come from a short distance around where you live.

Do food miles matter? | ES&T Online News

Bottom line is this: for an average American eating locally makes as much impact on greenhouse gas emissions as switching away from red-meat for one day a week. Red meat production represents 30% of the greenhouse-gas emissions, while shipping food to market is about 4%.

So what does this have to do with India? A couple things.

First, I suspect that the vast majority of Indians are locovores already. They simply cannot afford to buy food that has been trucked or shipped around the globe, let alone across India. In Bangalore we do see apples from Shimla in the north, but the vast majority of the food that is normally eaten in Bangalore can be grown within a 250km radius of here. We can reach the coasts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu to get the most tropical of things, even though bananas and coconuts grow right in town. So we're fortunate in that respect. This part of India is VERY wealthy from a food-growing perspective. Lots of rain, mild climate, no frost, and some good soil in areas.

Second, the majority are vegetarians. And those who are not vegetarian typically don't eat much beef. They do eat goat (mutton) which qualifies as a red meat but isn't industrially grown like cows are in the US. I have never seen an industrial goat farm here. I have seen single herders tending to their herds of 30-50 goats. I have seen goat markets in the medium cities like Hosakote where it seems these herders bring their animals for sale and shipping to market. But I'm not sure there is a "feed-lot" concept in the production of mutton in India. This is probably why the mutton here is very stringy, chewy and rarely thick and tender like New Zealand mutton (sheep). And just outside of town (east of Whitefield, for example) you see many small chicken farms. These are what would probably qualify as "free-range" even. Certainly they're not "organic" but I doubt they're pumped full anti-biotics like the super-industrial chickens in America and Europe. And they don't travel far to market.

And with oil prices climbing higher, the economic drivers for local eating are even stronger.

My only real complaint about the veggies in Bangalore is the lack of variety. It seems that if it doesn't go in sambar, they hardly sell it.