Tuesday, July 03, 2007

No New Zealand Wines........!!





Food-Mile Researchers are on a roll.
Who would have thought a few short years ago that you could earn an income by becoming a "food-mile researcher". There is a whole new industry out there funded by your tax dollars. In a recent article by British journalist Anna Shepard she suggested to : "Buy a bottle of French wine instead of a New Zealand vintage" to reduce "food miles" This of course had New
Zealanders up in arms.
According to professor Gareth Edward Jones, a
"leading" researcher on food miles the answer perhaps in saving the planet is "don't drink any wine". Not so fast says Dave Pearce, chief winemake of the New Zealand Wine Company.
"Don't be fooled by food miles".
Meanwhile according to a report published last year by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the global livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transport. But if you are a potato farmer in the UK, things are looking up. According to Julie Sloan "With potatoes on our doorstep, there is little doubt that more modern carbohydrate alternatives, such as rice and pasta, cannot compete with the clear conscience
shopping of buying home grown potatoes"
So if you are a "meat and potato" kind of person, like myself, you will only get half the enjoyment. Lots of potatoes but no meat please! Now I am all for cleaning up the environment and not just for future generations. Lets start with fines for people who spit their gum on sidewalks and an equally repulsive habit by those who throw their cigarette buts there as well.
And all you food mile researchers, I am sure the bike pictured above is available in a beautiful environmental green. So get a group of you together and bike to work. And perhaps you can have your local wines delivered by this energy saving mode of transportation. Click on the picture to the right to get the idea. But PLEASE, lets not get carried away. I love my meat, I love my potatoes and above all, I love my wines. But an even more important issue is that people are going to suffer badly because of an over-enthused approach to this "food-mile" fad. Now that I have got that out of my system, I am going to enjoy a delicious glass of Spanish Tempranillo, all the way from Spain.

1 comment:

Nick said...

Hi Wilf,

I quite agree with you! Sometimes even the best intentions are not properly thought through and the food miles argument has not got me convinced - like you I think we would gain more by cleaning up the act on our own doorstep rather than worrying about transporting foodstuffs.

As usual your sound sense quite rightly points out that a lot of people could suffer if decisions to curb food miles were made in haste.

Keep up the good stuff!

Cheers

Nick