Is consuming locally produced food more environmentally friendly?

"Food miles" - the geographical distance between the producers and consumers of food.

"... eating local reduces fossil fuel consumption... On its face, the connection between lowering food miles and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions is a no-brainer."

But is reducing food miles necessarily good for the environment?

"Instead of measuring a product's carbon footprint through food miles alone... scientists expanded their equations to include other energy-consuming aspects of production..."

"... lamb raised on New Zealand's clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed."

(The principles of comparative advantage still apply if we "expand [our] equations to include other energy-consuming aspects of production.")

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