Local is Back
Did you know that shipping 1 kilo of cane sugar to our shelves represents an additional 11,000 km travelled compared to locally produced sugar? Or that the consumption of one pineapple from Ghana in Europe represents 5 kg of CO2 released into the atmosphere? This is what the Brussels Observatory of Sustainable Consumption reveals by focusing on the kilometers on our plates. And the organisation is not the only one to look into the repercussions of globalisation. Increasingly, questions are emerging about our consumption of food products from long-distance transport.
What are the impacts on the nutritional, social and environmental aspects of the way we feed ourselves? For the regional economy? For food security in the event of crises, shortages, disasters, political upheavals? Word gets around that a movement is gaining momentum for change of scale of the food system... It's the local rushing back!
Tomorrow, all Locavores?
Have you ever wondered why we import apples from New Zealand, beans from Kenya or potatoes from Israel when we can easily grow all these things locally? If so, this reflexion was perhaps because of the locavore inside you. Loca what?
Born in San Francisco 15 years ago, the locavore movement advocates the consumption of locally produced food. For some, this means within a maximum radius of 100 kilometers from home. Others extend the perimeter up to 250 kilometers. Beyond a specific kilometer radius or borders, being locavore is initially the idea of opting for food whose shorter transport generate less pollution. In addition, there is more traceability, reduced intermediate margins, easier access to fresh, healthy and seasonal products, or support for regional producers. The result: a movement that promotes social ties and boosts the local economy, making it possible to take concrete actions for more sustainable consumption patterns. So tomorrow, all locavores?
Brands That Rely on Proximity
To respond to the awareness of the locavorous movements, ambitious companies are choosing to reinvent themselves. Thus, through offers that relocate, it seems that for visionary companies, the trend is towards food proximity.
With this in mind , last year, Danone's CEO decrees the bankruptcy of the standardised food system. With this declaration, he reveals the food giant's transformation towards a multiplication of small local brands. The new strategy for the group is to become "the most local global company" that guarantees sustainable agriculture. The leader speaks of a "food revolution" for a model reconciling food security and the planet. Last June, Emmanuel Faber convinced 99.4% of the shareholders to transform the group's status into a "entreprise à mission". According to him, "brands must become a rallying banner for a vision of the world and a posture, but to do so, they must prove it. People are no longer satisfied with what is on the shelf, they look at the product to find out where it comes from, how it is made and who is behind it".
Food Sovereignty
The concept of food sovereignty has also been making a lot of headlines lately. For 2020, this rise in popularity can be explained by an increased awareness of the health crisis and the containment. During these particular times, issues related to food dependency have become more prominent, and this is particularly true in Luxembourg.
And for good reason, the Grand Duchy is currently very dependent on imports to feed its population. This is particularly the case for leafy vegetables and fruiting vegetables, which are essential for a healthy diet. According to Trademap, current imports are close to 97% of the country's needs. With such figures, although borders do not discriminate against local consumption, the country has considerable potential for improvement in order to make its contribution to sustainable food.
The Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Sustainable Development estimated that in 2018, the Grand Duchy's CO2 emissions linked to food imports would amount to around 925 tons. A proportionally huge figure for the size of the territory since one ton of CO2 alone represents the equivalent of a return road trip from Luxembourg to Moscow! Therefore, reducing the intermediaries and the distances travelled to get food from our plates would allow these emissions to fall considerably and seems necessary for a more carbon-efficient future.
The only thing is that... The Ministry of Agriculture, Viticulture and Rural Development informs us that between 1990 and 2015, the total number of family farms in Luxembourg decreased from 3,768 to 1,880. As everywhere else in Europe, the number of agricultural areas and the share of the farming population are in free fall. Thus, in the current context, food sovereignty still looks like a sweet utopia. And yet, it is essential. Because in addition to representing considerable risks for the future of the sector, this generalised decline in the farming world, experienced in the space of a single generation, has also led to an increasingly marked distance between the consumer and his food.
Luxembourg has set itself a production target of 20% of its food needs by 2030.
(Stratégie Nationale Urban Farming Luxembourg, 2019)
When local rhymes with Grand Ducal
You have got it: it is time to reinvent the recipe. For consumers, we are talking about encouraging the purchase of local products. As for businesses, the idea is to decompartmentalise and collaboratively develop economic sectors that have until now been organised according to a logic of vertical silos. At the national and transregional levels, the idea is to implement a holistic, federative and solidarity-based strategy to achieve food sovereignty and promote contiguous consumption. We are talking here about producing, processing, distributing, consuming and recycling food on the basis of a saving interdependence for humans and the planet. In short, a resilient food system for tomorrow.
Experts see us coming: it is the local distribution network concept. And to promote this way of consuming, many initiatives are germinating and growing in Luxembourg.
Young and old can, for example, become producer-consumers or "prosumers". That is to say, to get involved in a community garden that they will find near their home thanks to the portal of the vegetable gardens in Luxembourg "Eise Gaart" or to create their own plantation at home. And why not also deepen their knowledge of permaculture at school or in training? For those who don't have a green thumb, don't worry. It is possible to become a member of a cooperative such as AlterCoop or to promote the purchase of local products thanks to the Solawi solidarity agriculture network or the Supermiro platform. In addition to reducing food kilometers of products, all these initiatives share other common points: they create social ties and diversify production sources and exchanges.
It is estimated that 15 to 20% of the world's food production is currently grown in cities and communities.
(Strategic Study "Third Industrial Revolution Lëtzebuerg", 2016)
Less packaging, fewer emissions, less food waste, more transparency, more trust. Economic players are increasingly mobilising around these issues. And the Luxembourg landscape is beginning to draw new synergies for models combining positive socio-ecological impacts and economic dynamism. This is the case, for example, of the Pall Center and LuxAir, which promote partnerships with local suppliers, or Sources Rosport, which chooses not to export its products and selects its suppliers of raw materials based on their proximity to the production site.
On the political side, the Luxembourg Government is also in favour of a more locavore diet. It is, therefore, taking several steps to make progress in this direction. To cite a few of them retrospectively, there is first of all the strategic study of the third industrial revolution (TIR) carried out in 2016 and including a section dedicated to the future of food for the Grand Duchy with various ambitious strategic measures. Two years later, in January 2018, the country proceeded to overhaul the territorial development programme (PDAT). When citizens were invited to participate in the process, their demands were clear: quality food, optimal use of resources and sustainable agriculture. More recently, in June 2020, the Minister of Agriculture, Viticulture and Rural Development, Romain Schneider, presented a stimulus package for agriculture with an overall budget of 5 million euros. During his announcement, the Minister then recalled that "the pandemic will have had a positive effect: that of raising awareness of the work of farmers in the food chain, of the true qualitative value of their products, and of the dangers of over-dependence on food from abroad". It is with this awareness that the stimulus package is particularly committed to the diversification of quality local agricultural products distributed within short circuits.
With regard to future prospects for the territory, Luxembourg also seems to be betting on innovation, since it is the first to set up a Food Council at the national level and an Urban Farming strategy aimed at making Luxembourg's towns and cities real food contributors. These are all promising initiatives to respond to a growing need to reconnect with the land that feeds us and to shorten the links - and the kilometres - that exist from the barn to the table.
Convinced or curious to try out?
For households as well as for chefs, SOS Faim has carried out a mapping of local points of sale throughout Luxembourg.