Almost a third more food was flown into Britain last year than in 2005, embarrassing the Government which has promised to slash the pollution and congestion from "food miles".
HOWEVER, it also shows that fresh produce imported is a fraction of airfreighted foods - it is mostly for the MADE IN THE UK beef and pork that we all buy thinking it will reduce our carbon footprint. Whereas in fact,imports from rainforest-denuding countries are rising as our British-grown meat apetites are soaring!
DEFRA report Air-freight rose 31 per cent in the year to 2006, which published the figures on its website without a press notice yesterday, a day after the Soil Association decided not to implement a full ban on air-freighted food.
It looks like the Soil Association will need to stop certifying all animal-fed meat from the UK that canno show its footprint does not include rainforest destruction and/or shipping miles!
The importation of animal feed from Brazil and the US was blamed by Defra for the steep rise, which means that air miles have more than quadrupled - a rise of 379 per cent - since 1992.
Full article available here.
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