New Leopold Center study compares fuel efficiency in local food distribution

NEW LEOPOLD CENTER STUDY COMPARES FUEL EFFICIENCY IN LOCAL FOOD DISTRIBUTION

AMES, Iowa -- As fuel prices continue to rise along with interest in local foods, consumers and farmers alike are looking for options that will decrease their fuel use. A new study from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture looked at which transportation option consumed less fuel and emitted less carbon dioxide: farmer delivery or customer pick-up of food products for an Iowa Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) enterprise.

Most CSAs offer a fee in which members receive produce every week from the farmer, either at a central pickup location or delivered to their homes. For the study, a central Iowa CSA farmer provided the exact routes of delivery in Ames and Nevada, what type of vehicle was used, and what location and time of day would be used if delivering to a central pick-up point.

"Even if all customers drove very fuel-efficient vehicles, we found that it is more efficient for a farmer or delivery person to distribute products to individual homes, rather than for customers to pick up products at centralized locations," said Leopold Center Associate Director Rich Pirog, who directed the study. "With rising fuel prices, it's important that farmers and consumers look at a number of options, such as increased efficiency of delivery routes, combining car trips, use of more fuel efficient vehicles, even locating farmers markets in parking lots of food retail stores to decrease consumer fuel use."

The study was conducted by Pirog and Becky Rasmussen, an Iowa State University business and sustainable agriculture graduate student. Findings are outlined in the report, "Assessing fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions of two local food distribution options in Iowa," available on the Leopold Center web site at: http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/staff/files/fuel0608.pdf.

According to the report, weekly farmer distribution (using a four-door hybrid compact car) used 2.77 times less fuel than customer pick-up using average U.S. passenger vehicle efficiency. If all customers were to drive a similar hybrid compact car to pick up their food, farmer distribution would still use 1.35 times less fuel.

Total energy use in the food system is the sum of production, processing, storage, distribution, and household/consumer energy. Pirog added that the role of consumers and the household is extremely critical in the food system, accounting for nearly one-third of the total energy used in the food system.