What is food mile?- food mile refers to the term which refers to the distance food is transported from the time of its production until it reaches the consumer. (Wikipedia)
Through globalization, the world "shrunk" and the transportation and trade technology improved compared to past. To catch up the speed of trade, the farms are also industrialized to produce more crops in efficient way. Therefore, people were also able to communicate faster and increase demand for more products from foreign countries. However through the increase of demand, there is degradation of environment.
Air pollution:
Through increase in demand, air pollution increased because of increased ships and planes.
In real life situation, most people says that beef from Brazil tastes great. However, through increase in demand of Brazilian beef, the farmers had to graze more cows where they had to burn or cut down forests to increase the grazing yard. Through decrease of trees, there is potential air pollution because decreased trees would absorb decrease amount of CO2. Cows also contribute to global warming because when they fart, methane is released. So increase number of cows would increase the rate of green house effect.
Land pollution:
Chile is known for various fruits. Most of the seedless grapes are imported from Chile. However, since the crop is too popular,there is increase in demand where farmers have to farm more grapes. But increase demand of grape can cause to land pollution(?). Crop rotation for grape is impossible because grape grows from a tree. Grape tree can grow within a year but as the grape trees get bigger, it produces increased number of grapes. So farmers can never cut the grape trees after a year. To remain the fertility of the soil, farmers use chemical fertilizer instead of crop rotation. However, the increase use of chemical fertilizer could cause the land pollution because tons of phosphorus are poured on the ground every year.
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