Editor’s note: This commentary is by Melissa Cronin, who is a junior at the University of Vermont studying community and international development with a focus on sustainable agriculture.
[W]hen looking at the effects of a carbon tax, it is impossible to ignore how it will impact our food system. Food currently travels farther than ever to reach its destination. For every calorie that ends up on your plate, it takes up to 10 calories of energy to get it there. Reducing carbon emissions is very important to agriculture as a whole, as it is estimated that the crops we eat the most, such as wheat and soy, are already being grown at the upper limits of their temperature range. A carbon tax in Vermont would help promote local food while paving the way for broader environmental regulations at a national level.
So what would a carbon tax look like for agriculture? Most smaller farms already use much less carbon than the bigger farms. A carbon tax would go a long way toward helping rural farmers reduce their carbon footprints by drawing attention to sources of waste (such as poor insulation in storage facilities) while providing funding for greener practices. In other parts of the world, farm incentives for green technology have not only reduced carbon footprints, but also fostered a greater sense of environmental stewardship among participating farmers.
A carbon tax would also encourage people to buy locally to avoid transportation costs, keeping wealth within a community. Studies have shown that communities that are committed to buying locally have better community relations. Farmers in those communities also report higher earnings because they are able to cut out the middle man by bringing their produce directly to market.
By making transportation more expensive, companies would be incentivized switch to greener cooling and shipping technologies and farmers would look to sell higher quality crops over higher quantity.
Roughly 90 percent of carbon use in our food system is used in transportation. The ease of shipping has lead to a huge loss of biodiversity in regions that have good farming conditions for specific crop yields, such as the North American breadbasket. These uniform growing zones don’t even end up producing highly nutritious foods, as many of the crops are designed for high yield over high nutrients. By making transportation more expensive, companies would be incentivized switch to greener cooling and shipping technologies and farmers would look to sell higher quality crops over higher quantity.
Opponents of a carbon tax might say that a food miles tax would be better at protecting Vermont local foods in the market. However, they fail to take into account Vermont’s limited growing season, which would essentially make food prices dependant on the season rather than remaining steady (or even dropping if the company reduced emissions). Others might complain that a carbon tax would make food too expensive. The problem with this line of reasoning is that we face the looming threat of food prices jumping unexpectedly already due to increasingly variable climate conditions. It would be much better for Vermont to start gradually implementing measures to raise food prices and have a safety net than to be caught off guard by sudden market shocks.
And how would this affect us if we were looking at a national scale? Many of the changes in transportation would stay the same. The big question becomes addressing the social cost of food access. Access to food is not considered a commodity at its most basic level, but can become a commodity in excess. Yet markets treat food as a commodity at all levels, creating a divide between people who need food and people who grow it. By putting a greater emphasis on environmental preservation on a large scale, we can hope to see a national shift towards local, environmentally friendly agriculture.
