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Do the Carrots on Your Dinner Plate Travel More Than You Do?

Artwork By Cherie Chan

 

Most of the fruit and vegetables you see in the shops and served on a plate in your local cafe or restaurant have been grown here in Australia.

When we talk about locally grown, we don’t simply mean the farms on the outer fringes of Melbourne, we’re actually talking about Australia, a country of over 7.5 million square kilometres.

Melbourne’s food bowl is important. Carrots are grown in Cranbourne, oranges and grapes are grown in Mildura, apples come from Bacchus Marsh and Shepparton, and those crisp lettuces are trucked in from Werribee. One problem today is that the farmers growing all this fabulous food can now fund an early retirement by selling their land to clamouring developers, creating more and more housing estates on the outer fringes of Melbourne’s urban sprawl.

Many people consider healthy eating and a balanced diet a necessary part of their lifestyle. The local vegan might well realise that their spiky-topped pineapple must be travelling south from tropical Queensland, but it’s also likely that their cucumbers, eggplants and zucchinis are doing some serious distance as well. Just think of all that veggie pasta on Instagram, those green noodles started their life in the west and had a road trip of 10 hours from South Australia.

Fruit and vegetables are seasonal, so not everything is available all year round. Yet, when we walk into the supermarket fresh produce section it can seem like we can buy whatever we want, whenever we like. We’ve heard about apples being stored for up to 12 months (will a science degree explain how that works?), but where are those summer cherries coming from in the middle of June? I’ll make it easy for you, those cherries are flying in from sunny California.

That healthy lifestyle may not be as sustainable as you think. Fruit and vegetables are increasingly imported from overseas to fill gaps in local supply. At different times of year, your local greengrocer could be stocking oranges from Egypt, garlic from China and Argentina, pomegranates from the United States and kiwifruit from Italy (this one seems especially strange, because surely it should be coming from New Zealand).

There is an increasing awareness of the impact our consumption habits have on the globe, and rising vegetarianism and veganism are part of this. Sure, eating more fresh fruit and vegetables is good for the environment, especially in terms of generally lower greenhouse gas emissions and water usage in comparison to meat production. Nevertheless, your healthy lifestyle may have other consequences. Imported foods are transported to Australia by air, a mode of travel with a huge carbon footprint and thus ecological impact. So in this sense, local produce is more sustainable than imported. As consumers, is it reasonable for us to expect all types of produce to be available all year round?

Imagine if our fruit and vegetables could talk to each other. First, you’ll need to disregard the fact that this would be extremely weird, and might put you off your salad, but can you imagine the conversation? How do you think a locally grown bunch of carrots that had only travelled 10km in its life would react to a globetrotting orange?

What about the Peruvian asparagus? He’s stuck greeting everyone with “Hola, ¿qué tal?” While the locals respond with “What are you on about, mate?” Maybe those Australian carrots would need to seek out the Californian oranges rather than the Egyptian ones.

Think about it, as a student with a HECS debt and needing to budget for rent, food and transport, your food might be travelling more than you.

What can we do about it?

Our local farmers need our support.

Visit your local greengrocer.

Make friends with local, seasonal produce, even if it doesn’t talk back.

Think twice about where your fresh food is coming from.

You could discover new foods and your lifestyle might just become more sustainable!

Lot's Wife Editors

The author Lot's Wife Editors

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