When I was a young boy , our family used to consume organic food items largely produced in our own fields – rice , coconut oil , vegetables , pulses , fruits and the like . The only exception was tea ,coffee or sugar which were bought from the neighborhood provision store . The surpluses if any were bartered at the market for manufactured items of food stuff not available locally . However , almost all items of daily use were available from within the state or within India. Some of the items imported were Baby Food [ Cow and Gate or Glasgow brands] , some medicines or liquor .
Globalization has changed all these. Now we have apples from Washington , pears from China , coconut milk from Malaysia , dates from the Middle East , prunes from California , olive oil from Europe and canned meat/ fish from USA , Europe and the Far East . Organizations like Walmart have created efficient supply chains globally and reaped rich dividends arising out of low prices at the source coupled with real time monitoring of the ” Food Miles ” using technology.
The concept of food miles was originally adopted to gauge the impact of costs when the producer and the end customer are geographically separated – the plough to plate factor . subsequently , environmentalists advocated lower food miles to minimize the carbon foot prints and impact on global warming arising out of transporting food globally .
Today , it is a “given ” that food reaches the plate from wherever it is produced globally based on purchasing power of nations and scant attention is given to the side effects affecting climate change . Surpluses are warehoused for monetizing during scarcity or to beat the food producing cycles – frozen food is available globally throughout the year .
Very soon , technology can facilitate monitoring the state of fitness for consumption of any food items while in transit automatically through sensors and may be destroy those consignments which are found unfit for human consumption. Such steps coupled with globally acceptable standards for transportation using minimum energy can result in reduced carbon food print and finally the negative impact of food miles itself .