Another article about food and transportation costs… AskPablo: Foodmiles http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/askpablo-foodmiles-002478.php

I used a cost study from UC Davis to determine the energy input versus the yield. I arrived at roughly 4.85 kg of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent units) for each kg of cherries. If we assume 500 km of transportation by semi we add 0.06 kg CO2e, or about 1.2%. If the same cherries are grown in Argentina and flown to the US (21,000 km) the emissions jump to 16.82 kg CO2e per kg of cherries, or 71.1%. Quite a difference! It is possible that the cherries would be shipped by container ship in a refrigerated compartment but then we would have to account for the refrigeration as well.

What if the cherries are dehydrated first and the transported by ship? Removing moisture from agricultural products is one way to cut back on transportation costs and emissions. Dried cherries have about 15% moisture content (vs. 75% in fresh cherries) so the CO2e from cultivation per kg of dried cherries will be higher, around 12.14 kg CO2e per kg of dried cherries. Trucking over 500 km would again add 0.06 kg CO2e, or 0.5%, but shipping by container ship over 25,000 km (more than air cargo because you can't ship point-to-point) contributes only 0.42 kg, or 3.3%.

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