chapter 3 inventory of local food systems

Project CP/59 - “Instruments and institutions to develop local food systems”
The EFP succeeds in reducing these three processes to one primary cause, which is the
human consumption of biologically productive land. For instance, the increase of CO2
in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels is converted into the ‘area of wood to be
planted’ needed to absorb this CO2 (Borgström Hansson and Wackernagel, 1999). The
unit of the EFP is the amount of productive land (and water) that must provide enough
energy and material sources for consumption and be able to absorb the waste produced.
This EFP can be measured at an individual level, but also for a city, a region, a land or
the entire planet (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996; Anderson and Lindroth, 2001;
www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/what-is-ef.html).
This method allows to make a comparison between the EFP and the available capacity.
If the EFP of a population is higher than the biophysical capacity of its territory, then
extra capacity should be imported from other territories, or the own ecological capacity
will be eroded and the pressure on the remaining bio-productive space will increase
(Anderson & Lindroth, 2001; Wackernagel et al. 1999; Borgström Hansson and
Wackernagel, 1999).
Some also use the term ‘ecological debt’ in this context. Its definition is usually
presented as ‘the cumulative responsibility the industrialized countries have, because of
human exploitation, robbery of raw materials and minerals, pollution and cultural
dominance towards the developing countries’. This ecological debt can be calculated by
the average ‘EFP per capita’ of a specific region, to be compared with the ‘capacity of
the land per capita’. If this EFP is larger than the capacity, one says there is ecological
debt because we have to compensate over-consumption by import from the South and
because many countries in the south have an EFP per capita that is below the capacity
per capita.
(www.vodo.be/documenten/Peccei%20lectures.htm,
www.vodo.be/html/themas/index.htm)
Even though the EFP is a useful instrument to make a rough estimate of the ecological
impact of the life style of a certain population, the EFP has also certain limitations. A
number of impacts are left aside, such as the emission of highly toxic waste and the use
of non-renewable raw materials, insofar as they do not put a claim on the land for their
production or distribution and processing. That implies that the EFP underestimates the
ecological impact. However, it does describe the actual use of the biophysical
production capacity of the Earth, as well as the measure to which the human beings are
“over-consuming” nature (Anderson and Lindroth, 2001).
1.4. Conclusions
Based on our literature review we define local food systems as follows: “Local food
systems encompass the entire chain of producing, processing, selling and consuming
food They are collective systems in which there is direct contact between producer and
consumer and/or in which they engage is a long-term contractual relationship. The
distance between the different actors should be minimal (both geographically and with
respect to the number of intermediates in the chain).”
SPSD II - Part I - Sustainable production and consumption patterns - Agro-Food 23