Food Products: Transportation

HL Deb 06 February 2003 vol 644 c56WA

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What studies the Deparment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has funded in the past year into food miles and what were the conclusions and recommendations of any study. [HL1417]

Lord Whitty

Defra, together with the Department for Transport, is contributing a small amount of funding to a Transport 2000 study to model various transport distribution scenarios for a basket of three food products. The study is examining whether a shift to sourcing these products more locally would lead to greater or fewer CO² emissions in the supply chain overall. The research is due to report shortly.

The research forms part of Transport 2000's Wise Moves initiatives and follows some initial modelling work carried out last year and funded by DfT. The report from the earlier modelling work is available on the DfT website at http://www.freight.dft.gov.uk/wisemoves/index.htm.