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BERKELEY SEES LOCAL, SUSTAINABLE FOOD AS SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE


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Jessica Bell

On Tuesday, May 5, 2009, Berkeley City Council unanimously approved its climate action plan and consequently moved one step closer to becoming one the first governments in the country to address climate change by developing a more local, sustainable food system.

Berkeley City Council’s climate action plan outlines how Berkeley will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% below 2000 levels by 2050, as required by the ballot initiative, Measure G, which was passed by 81% of Berkeley voters in 2006.

The Ecology Center and the California Food and Justice Coalition successfully advocated to increase the extent and number of food policies in Berkeley’s plan that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector. These policies include: city-support for the development and maintenance of community gardens and local food businesses; encouraging government agencies and contractors to purchase local food; encouraging and providing guidelines for buildings to incorporate rooftop food gardens; and encouraging and providing trainings to residents to grow their own food.

Scientific research indicates that food that is organic, locally grown, and contains less-packaging releases less greenhouse gases than more conventional foods. Locally grown food reduces the miles traveled by food to reach our plate; organic food means less energy According to a WorldWatch Institute study, a typical meal bought from a conventional supermarket chain consumes four to 17 times more petroleum for transport than the same meal using local ingredients. A recent academic report estimated that “organic, sustainable agriculture that localizes food systems has the potential to mitigate nearly thirty percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and save one-sixth of global energy use.”[i]

“Without food systems, a climate action plan is missing a critical part of our emissions equation,” said Martin Bourque the Executive Director of the Ecology Center. “Reducing our carbon footprint by eating locally and producing our own food needs to be made easier by new policies and not just by individual choices of the deeply committed.”

“As one of the most comprehensive city or county climate action plans in the nation, Berkeley’s climate action plan is serving as a model for other municipalities to learn from and replicate,” says the Director of the California Food & Justice Coalition, Shereen D’Souza. “The food policies included in Berkeley’s Climate Action Plan should serve as an example for governments striving to tackle climate change across North America and beyond.”

Despite the link between climate change and the food system, very few governments have incorporated policies into climate action plans that support the wide-scale development of local, organic, and sustainable food systems. Typically, climate action plans, including Berkeley’s Climate Action Plan, have focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation and energy sectors through land-use planning changes, promoting public transportation, increasing the amount of electricity generated from renewable energy sources, and increasing the efficiency of buildings.

It is also relatively easy to monitor greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation and electricity sectors. For instance, in 2002, all carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion in the electricity sector were emitted from 2,200 facilities that are already installed with equipment that measures carbon dioxide emissions. In contrast, monitoring greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector is a very complicated process. There are hundreds of thousands of farms across the United States and greenhouse gas emissions at each farm vary according to soil type, crop, temperature, and more. It would cost millions of dollars to hire people to monitor greenhouse gas emissions from these individual farms.

If our goal, however, is to reduce our emissions by 80% by 2050 at an absolute minimum then we must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions from all major sectors in society, and that includes food. This kind of emissions reductions is the absolute minimum reductions needed to avoid catastrophic climate change effects that are likely to result if the temperature increases by 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 Farenheit. These effects include: water shortages for 1 to 2 billion people, a decline in crop productivity which will increase hunger rates, particularly in poorer countries, and widespread extinctions of up to a third of all species.[ii]

We must not let difficulties in monitoring impede our progress towards addressing this grave environmental threat. For those hard-to-monitor sectors it seems reasonable to adopt a regulatory approach and simply ban or phase out activities that have been scientifically proven to release considerable greenhouse gases. Instead of spending resources to individually monitor greenhouse emissions from specific farms, it would seem simpler and more logical for governments to require that businesses purchase a percentage of local food, and mandating a phasing out of conventional agriculture and the wide-scale adoption of organic agriculture.

Despite the monitoring difficulties, some governments are joining Berkeley and taking the initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector. California’s state-wide plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 proposes to conduct research into the link between nitrogen fertilizer and climate change, develop protocols to measure gashouse gas emissions saved through farmers planting trees on their land, and encourages – but does not mandate – farms to capture methane, a greenhouse gas, for energy production. Toronto City’s climate action plan focuses on food localization, including in its plan a proposal to identify opportunities to replace imported food with local food, and requiring all large food retailers to include food kilometers for commonly used products.[iii] Overall, however, these plans are still relatively piecemeal and do not yet harness the full potential of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the food sector.

One of the reasons why governments are advancing low-carbon food policies is that a sustainable, local food sector yields significant benefits beyond reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Food localization can provide significant community economic development opportunities. According to a study by the state’s Buy California initiative, a 10% shift in annual purchases, or about $85 dollars per year at the retail level would generate $848 million in increased revenues to farms, 3,478 more jobs in the agricultural industry, $1.38 billion in communities across the state and about $188 million in taxes for local and state governments.[iv]

Food location can create good quality American green collar jobs in farming, food processing, and distribution. These jobs are meaningful, stable (because the food sector is rapidly expanding), and don’t require applicants to have an advanced degree to be eligible for employment, which means they are more accessible to poorer people. Encouraging personal food production in backyards and community gardens has the potential to somewhat alleviate poverty and hunger, adding between $500 and $1200 of healthy produce to family meals.[v]

Aside from the practical benefits, there are politically strategic reasons why the food movement should advocate for the inclusion of sustainable, local food policies into climate action plans. For one, government climate action plans are being developed now, and these plans will be the framework that determines how governments tackle climate change over the next critical 10 to 40 years. Nearly 30% of California cities have committed to reducing their GHG emissions by some amount, 32 states are implementing policies to address climate change, with many committing to hard GHG emission reductions, and the Obama Administration has expressed interested in committing the United States to reducing its GHG emissions as well. Many more governments will implement climate action plans as the impacts of global warming worsen and the public’s demand for action escalates.

Advocating for the inclusion of sustainable food in climate action plans could help the food movement secure increased funding and support for sustainable food systems. Berkeley City staff members, for instance, estimate the city will direct $3 million to the plan in 2009, and $6.6 million in 2010.

Fortunately, an increasing number of food groups, including American Farmland Trust, the Ecology Center, Food First, and the California Food and Justice Coalition, are aware of these benefits and are advocating for low-carbon sustainable and local food policies. Let us hope that Berkeley’s innovative food policies will help inspire other governments, groups, and citizens to build upon these efforts moving into the future.



[i] NRDC Policy Fact Sheet, "Food Miles: How far your food travels has serious consequences on your health", Page 2, NRDC, 2007

[ii] IPCC, 2007: “Summary for Policymakers.” In: Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden and C.E. Hanson, Eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, P7-22.

[iii] Toronto City Council Toronto Climate Action Plan Online at: http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2007/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-2428.pdf

[iv] Dennis H Tootelian, 2003 The Economic impact of shifts in consumer purchasing patterns to more California grown agricultural commodities Commissioned by the California Department of Food & Agriculture

[v] Ann Carter & Peter Mann Urban Agriculture Fact Sheet: Farming From the City Center to the Urban Fringe: Urban Planning and Food Security, Prepared for the North American Urban Agriculture Committee of the Community Food Security Coalition, Unknown publication date. Online at:


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