From Here To There

Introduction

Imagine you are in the neighborhood grocery store to buy supplies to prepare your lunch. You buy a mango and a pre-made ham sandwich and a soda. Have you ever stopped to think about how much energy goes into transporting the food you eat from its original source to your home? Mangoes were originally grown in Southern Asia and were introduced to California over one hundred years ago. The ingredients for the sandwich come from a variety of places including a large pork farm in Iowa, a vegetable farm in Mexico, and many other places. The products from the soda come from a wide variety of places also. Also consider any packaging such as the aluminum can, plastic wrap, and the boxes the supplies were delivered from. When you consider all the supplies that went into your lunch now consider where the supplies for your lunch were transported from their original source to your home. Grocery stores sell hundreds of items that are grown, packaged, or processed outside the United States. External costs of transporting food include air and water pollution which causes a variety of other environmental issues including but not limited to species extinctions, polluted groundwater, and depleted non-renewable energy resources.

Terms To Know

Import - bringing products from one country into another.

Embodied Energy - The total amount of energy needed to manufacture a finished product from raw materials, including the energy used to transport the product.

Export - sending products from one country to another.

Externality costs - Portion of the cost of production and marketing of a product that is borne by society, not by the producer, and thus is not included in the price of the product. For example the cost of cleaning up beach after an oil spill is usually not included in the price of motor oil bought at an automotive supply store.

Classroom Ideas

Guest Speakers
1. Have local farmer discuss how the items produced at their farm are distributed.
  Sample Academic Standards Addressed:
        Agriculture Education E.12.5: Analyze the impacts and use of chemicals in the production and processing of food and fiber

Click here to find contacts for guest speakers in your area.

Field Trips
1. Visit a large food canning organization to see the manufacturing process of taking the raw food supplies and turning them into what you see on the supermarket shelves. Discuss what regions of the world the food supplies arrive from and where the can good are distributed to.
  Sample Academic Standards Addressed:
        Social Studies A.12.6: Collect and analyze geographic information to examine the effects that a geographic or environmental change in one part of the world. . . may have on other parts of the world.
          Social Studies D.12.13: Describe and explain global economic interdependence and competition, using examples to illustrate their influence on national and international policies.

2. If your community has a local grocery cooperative visit the store and discuss their mission and goals. How does the reduction of transportation costs affect their costs and why are their price differences between a supermarket and the local cooperative?
         Business D.12.4: Demonstrate an understanding of current local, sate, national, and international economic issues.
         Social Studies D.12.2: Use basic economic concepts . . . to compare and contrast local, regional, and national economies across time and at the present time.

Click here to find field trip ideas in your area.

Activities and Lessons
1. Bring in food items to class. Diagram the path the food items and the industries involved in the food being transported from its original source to the classroom. Have students come up with a plan to cut out some of the miles the food travels. What can be eliminated or combined to make the process more efficient?
  Sample Academic Standards Addressed:
        Agriculture Education E.12.6: Analyze the benefits, costs, and consequences of processing food and fiber on the environment
           Agriculture Education F.12.1: Describe how the production, distribution, and marketing of food and fiber is part of a complex economic system

Student Projects
1. Have students establish a garden plot on the school grounds or in an alternative available location. Some communities have community garden plots that are available for use. Students can identify what items should be grown in the garden and to plan a management schedule so students can all share the responsibilities of the garden. Once the garden is producing vegetables students can set up a vegetable stand to sell their goods. This activity can be a money making option for students or profits can be put back into improvements on their classroom garden. By growing their own vegetables the students can reduce the external costs of transporting food.
        Marketing Education F.12.2: Conduct a project in the community that benefits a business using established research practices.

2. Involve students in an Energy Issue Investigation and Action Project related to alternative vehicles.

3. Have students make a Science Fair presentation about their research into alternative vehicles. 

Support Materials

Web sites

Imported Foods
This Web site is a short source of information about imported food and issues related to imported food.
www.fpa-food.org/content/newsroom/article.asp?id=151

Montgomery County Public Schools
This Web site compares the different ways to transport food products.
www.mcps.k12.md.us/curriculum/socialstd/grade3/Compare_Trans.html

The Load Less Traveled
Provides basic information about the external costs of transporting food. Introduces the topic of food miles and Weighted Average Source Distance (WASD).
www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/speech/files/The_load_less_traveled.pdf

Global Footprints
This Web site contains information on where our food comes from, the cost of food, and external costs of food.
www.globalfootprints.org/issues/local/food/food.htm

Other Resources

Springtime Offers Consumers Opportunity to Eat Thoughtfully, Buy Locally
Source: The Humane Society of the United States, March 3, 2003
This Web site discusses many of the external costs associated with food production.
http://www.hsus.org/ace/18523

Food Transportation
by Robert Heap, Marek Kierstan, and Geoff Ford
www.barnesandnoble.com describes this book as "�a handbook for both the transporter and food producer, that which bridges the interests and specializations of both. Therefore, the book covers both the logistics and food science, and considers transportation classified both by the means of its transport (i.e. land, sea and air) as well as by its food sector.
All foods and food products are transported. This represents a significant element of the food industry with major implications for food product costs, not only in terms of the direct costs associated with transportation, but also those potentially more major ones associated with poor product and packaging quality which are the consequences of inefficient and/or inappropriate operation."
** This book retail for over $100 but can be purchased used for $20-40 online.

From the Fryer to the Fuel Truck
by Joshua Tickell, Kaia Tickell, and Kaia Roman (Editor)
Read about the history of the diesel engine. Did you know the diesel engine was originally designed to run on vegetable oil (biodiesel)?