Food Miles?

New Zealanders aren't happy about this new concept....

Talk of "food miles" in the wake of a major international report on climate change has sent a ripple of fear through New Zealand's vital export trade.

Any suggestion that taxes or tarriffs could be slapped on products that have travelled long distances to get to market is bad news for a country whose economic lifeblood is trade.

The food miles issue hit the headlines this week after the release of the Stern report, an economic study into global warming by former World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern that was commissioned by the British Government.

While he warned of recession, wars, refugees, droughts, famine and rising sea levels if nothing was done to combat global warming, it was the humble kiwifruit that hit the headlines here after a British politician raised the issue of food miles and calculated that flying 1kg of the fruit from New Zealand to Europe caused 5kg of carbon to be discharged into the atmosphere.

Despite the fact kiwifruit is shipped to Britain, and its "carbon footprint" is therefore much less than if it was sent by air, the debate reached the boardrooms and growing fields of New Zealand's exporters.

"We can't move the country any closer to markets," said Lyall Fields, managing director of fresh-cut flower exporter FlowerZone International.

"We have a product that's perishable, there are zero other ways to get it to market except by air."