We all know that carnivores eat meat, herbivores eat plants and omnivores eat both animals and plants. But what about locavores? Locavore is a relatively new term, but a very old, in fact, the oldest form of eating – locally. Locavores eat food produced as locally as possible to their home. While there are obvious benefits to being a locavore, such as eating fresher food, travelling shorter distances to shop and supporting local businesses, there are also greater benefits to our planet by becoming a locavore. These include most importantly reducing what is called ‘food miles’ – cutting the distance our food travels, which ultimately cuts pollution, congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, reconnecting consumers with their food and communities and saving other resources.

The further our food (or any product, for that matter) travels, the more it is contributing to GHG emissions, further and faster increasing climate change. One example is kiwi fruit: for every 1kg of kiwi fruit flown to the UK, for example, 5kg of carbon emissions is released into the atmosphere.

Here are some alarming figures about food transport:

• Food transported to Australian consumers produces over 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year
• At least 10 million tonnes of this is emitted within Australia – almost all from road transport
• The road transport industry produces over 10% of total emissions in Australia
• Almost a third of all road freight transports food, farming and agricultural products

While people need to eat, and all the people involved in the growing, production, processing, transport and sales of our food and other goods need jobs and income, we can take a lot of pressure off a straining system by growing and making our own food and other goods – especially a system that produces high emission to bring us so much ‘stuff’ we don’t really need, or that isn’t in season or locally/ethically produced.