Organic Jet Fuel

I seem to be on a crusade as of late to dig down to the reality of things, the real cause and effect. With so much political and commercial demagoguery it is excruciatingly difficult to filter out what really matters.

For example...

I took my daughter to the National Zoo for the Guppy Gala, which is a kids event that is largely sponsored by every major commercial vendor in the area. It is basically a grab-all-the-handouts-you-can type of thing. Starbucks is there handing out samples of their latest drink, Amie's is hading out their "organic" mac and cheese, McGruff the Crime Dog was giving away pamphlets, etc., etc.

One thing caught my eye. Whole Foods was giving away organic Gala apples. My kids love apples and we had visited all the booths with chocolate bars so we took a few apples. Then I noticed that these "organic" apples were from New Zealand. New Zealand? That's a heck of a place from which to be importing produce.

So I did some thinking. How much Jet A did we have to burn to get me this apple? Apparently a Boeing 747 on 10 hour flight will consume 36,000 gallons of jet fuel (which is high grade kerosene). I've been to New Zealand and it took about 20 hours flying time to get there. So that means 72,000 gallons of jet fuel for my apple. Suddenly I had to contemplate what "organic" meant.

Sure, I could use all sorts of rationalizing mathematics and say the plane was hauling 10,000 apples, so now my apple "only" took 7.2 gallons of high grade kerosene to get to the Guppy Gala. I could rationalize further and say the place was hauling 500 passengers and the apples were just cargo so, really, those 72,000 gallons of fuel have been put to marvelously efficient use.

Perhaps the economics of jet fuel as applied to my apple have no bearing at all. It did get me thinking though that the term "organic" is becoming essentially meaningless. The original intent of sustainable farming with little environmental impact has met the modern supply chain phenomenon. Organic peaches from California are useless on the east coast.

What we really want to be doing is buying local. For me, that solves the problems of having my food participating in the global economy a little more than I'd like. The local farmers' markets are everything that organic is supposed to be and without the hidden environmental impact of thousands of miles of travel.

Comments:

I'm pretty sure produce is shipped by sea, in those containers used for Black Boxes as well. I share your feelings about the "organic" label on food products, as I've never really had the urge to eat rocks or metal.

Posted by Mikael Gueck on July 23, 2007 at 07:11 AM EDT #

Interesting, but I think you're confusing "organic" with "environmentally friendly": I eat organic food b/c I don't like pesticides. Better yet if they're locally grown, but if not, I'll still buy it over non-organic.

Posted by dilly on July 23, 2007 at 02:06 PM EDT #

Dilly explained this well. Organic and then local. Local is important, but not if they're using Agent Orange style pesticides to keep weeds & insects down.

Posted by Ben on July 23, 2007 at 02:11 PM EDT #

Dannyboy, Only one problem here. 99.75 percent of New Zealand's primary exports are exported by ship, according to NZ Trade Minister Phil Goff. That’s why the Brits were sold a pup: anyone wanting to reduce their environmental impact in the UK is better off with Anchor – even when it has chugged 17,000km to get to Tescos. ** Problem one with food miles: by merely taking into account the distance travelled from field to fridge, they fail to distinguish between sea, air and road freight, and the pollution from the latter two is hugely disproportionate. It’s estimated that 50 percent of the UK’s food-transport emissions occur on the drive home from the supermarket – shipping all the way from New Zealand to the UK is roughly equivalent to that short drive home. ** Problem two: the underlying assumption is that all products are produced with equal efficiency everywhere and the only difference is the transport, something that a Lincoln University study comparing New Zealand and British primary produce debunked last year. Comparing dairy products, sheep meat, apples and onions produced here and in Britain – and including the impact of shipping to the UK – the study found that lamb had about a quarter of the impact of its UK counterpart, our dairy products had about half and the levels for apples and onions came in below their UK-produced cousins, too. Why? Thank low farming subsidies that force efficiencies, and our climate. New Zealand sheep and cows live mostly outside, eating grass. British animals spend part of the year in heated barns eating mass-produced food. Power generation in New Zealand is less reliant on fossil-fuel burning than in the UK, too. regards, Mike Employee in the southern-most office in the Sun Empire Wellington New Zealand

Posted by Mike on July 26, 2007 at 04:57 AM EDT #

I can understand wanting to wave the flag and defend an export, but man, we are talking about apples. There is a limit to how much efficiency can be gained, and I will take a wild guess that it is all used up in the transit from New Zealand to Northern Virginia.

I also get the bit about "organic vs. environmentally friendly", but surely the OP's point was in the vein of "this apple is good for me because it is organic, but if pollution was created in bringing this apple to market, and pollution is bad for me, does the apple's organic goodness outweigh it's environmental badness?" Whether the produce was shipped, flown in, fired from a rocket or catapulted across the ocean, my unscientific WAG is: no, the apple incurred more toxic naughtiness then it was worth.

Buy local.

Posted by Steve Harris on July 30, 2007 at 01:45 PM EDT #

Here's the link from the NYT, it looks at "food miles" in a different context. You may have to fly lamb in from NZ, but the lambs produced in NZ have a lower net of CO2. In the end this may be a problem with too many variables for us to ever find the answer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/opinion/06mcwilliams.html?ex=1188532800&en=6c6c4e6990d9c688&ei=5070

Posted by ZFS Girl on August 29, 2007 at 11:08 PM EDT #