Food
Note: this document is written from the viewpoint of the year 2015.
Back in 2008 the UK food chain (production, processing, transport, and consumption) accounted for 18% of UK’s GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions. Now, in 2015, it is much the same proportion of a smaller total.
The biggest cuts have been in domestic road freight, which was the largest element of the transport emissions. A combination of consumer pressure and higher fuel costs (including carbon tax) have caused the supermarkets and wholesalers to increase regionalisation of distribution, so that UK produced foods no longer travel to and fro across the country before reaching the Winchester retail store. The use of expanded rail freight facilities has reduced emissions for less perishable goods on longer journeys to the new Solent distribution hub.International road freight has fallen rather less; when items which can only be grown in the UK with high energy inputs, it continues to be more GHG favourable to grow these in more southerly latitudes. The same is true to some extent of longer-haul air and sea transport but increased consumer awareness of the GHG costs, especially of air transport, has reduced demand for out-of-season products. The extra cost of fuel (and, in some areas, irrigation water) has already pushed some of these products towards the luxury end of the food market.
Improvement in on-line ordering and (electric vehicle) delivery is one factor cutting trips to Winchester’s out-of-town supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury and Waitrose) - these vehicles also deliver milk regularly in re-usable containers. The improved economy and use of smaller and hybrid private vehicles has meant that consumer journeys to these stores, which are not far from most Winchester city people, has not fallen so much as for the more remote stores. The provision on buses of carriage for ‘superwheelies’ (adapted trolleys) has helped those who use public transport to bring home their supermarket shopping this way. People bring home less because they have reduced their food wastage, partly due to higher food prices but also because supermarkets no longer promote excess buying through their offers. Prompted by the rental charge levied on possession of a waste bin scaled by its volume, many people now use the proprietary kitchen waste composters; the waste bin charges have also made excess packaging very unpopular and the supermarkets been able to use food sales area more efficiently because there is less packaging!
The scenery around Winchester has changed because it has become uncompetitive, even at higher food prices, to use large inputs of increasingly scarce and expensive artificial fertilisers and pay associated levies for GHG emissions (including nitric oxide) to grow arable crops, especially on the chalk downland where natural annual fertility losses are high if there is not continuous vegetation cover.
The fortuitous pause in temperature increases in the UK, as predicted for 2010-2020, has however meant that otherwise climate change has not had much direct effect on locally produced food. But the increase in livestock pasturing, in particular, following the changes just described, has meant that free-range meat, of low carbon impact and with lower fat content, continues to be popular at Winchester’s farmers’ market. Additives are given to the feed of ruminants to reduce methane emissions. Poultry and game, living off the revegetated downland and having the lowest energy demands, are especially popular locally.
As in the second world war, extensive lawns are increasingly regarded as anti-social where they can be cultivated for fresh food (and a conservation attitude to water has meant that remaining lawns are not watered). Nut trees are often used for tree plantings, in private and public spaces. The development of the previously existing animal smallholding at Highcliffe allotments (Bar End) as a demonstration farm has been popular and some redundant areas of the Bar End park-and-ride are earmarked as an extension
The food buying policies of local authorities, institutions such as the University, and Winchester’s increasing group of eco-restaurants has re-inforced the changes discussed here. In particular, the sale of bottled water has almost dried up!
Back to 1. Seven years of cultural change in Winchester. Forward to 3. Transport and Travel.
