> Do you have any data to support the notion that there is a net CO2 benefit to localizing agriculture? Considering how impacted agriculture is by locality, That seems vastly less efficient than large scale industrialized agriculture, and would be honestly quite surprising.

I pointed out that @jdietrich wasn't considering any of the many potential alternatives to wrapping produce in plastic, I didn't claim there's a net c02 benefit to local farms.

I don't think c02 emissions represent the sum total of "evironmental impact" as was implied multiple times above. c02 is important, but there are other important factors being ignored in this thread.

Implicit in your question is your assumption that large scale ag is more c02-efficient than local farming on the whole, which I would ask you to justify first. I don't know how to compare local farms to Conagra fairly, and I don't conduct c02 emissions research myself. But Conagra doesn't exist for efficiency, they exist to make money. Of course they value efficiency, but I would expect the scale of their operation adds more logistical problems to the food supply than it solves. They need to use far more transportation, refrigeration, processing and packaging than local food suppliers.

"Transportation of food accounts for about 11 percent of the GHG emissions from the food system."

"The energy used for refrigeration results in one of the main GHG effects from food production. Some products require constant refrigeration as soon as they leave the farm."

"Meat that is discarded in retail, industry and the home accounts for 20 percent of the total GHG emissions of meat production"

http://msue.anr.msu.edu/uploads/resources/pdfs/Local_Food_Sy...

What do you mean when you say local ag "seems vastly less efficient"? Why? What efficiencies are there that offset the extra transportation, refrigeration, processing, and storage costs that global ag companies have over local farms?

Perhaps implicit or assumed in your point of view is the idea of growing the same produce locally that one would buy in the store, without changing consumption patterns at all? Is that what you meant by "considering how impacted agriculture is by locality"? I'm imagining some change in purchasing behavior and I recognize that growing bananas & coffee isn't possible everywhere.

>I don't think c02 emissions represent the sum total of "evironmental impact" as was implied multiple times above.

I completely agree. I'm also very reluctant to believe any report that estimates GHG emissions from industry, because I believe industry has a very real reason to misrepresent themselves in such reports. Whether that industry is growing and delivering tomatoes or LiPo Batteries.

>Conagra doesn't exist for efficiency, they exist to make money.

efficiency = money, i thought that was obvious. I'm a pretty strong believer in the power of markets.

>"Meat that is discarded in retail, industry and the home accounts for 20 percent of the total GHG emissions of meat production"

Not sure the relevance of that bit, how anyone can care about the environment and not be vegetarian is completely beyond me. I cringe everytime I go out to eat seeing how much meat gets tossed.

>Is that what you meant by "considering how impacted agriculture is by locality"?

Yes.

>I'm imagining some change in purchasing behavior

I'd call that fantasy. If we can't get people to drive fuel-efficient cars even with tax incentives, how are we going to get people to give up blueberries and pineapple in fruit salad? Especially considering how bad meat is, and how few are willing to give it up or even let those around them give it up--as being vegetarian for the last decade has taught me (/grandstand) The best thing we could do would be to create GMO versions of crops that need long distance transportation that either don't have the same environmental requirements to grow or are able to be transported without refrigeration, because the market isn't going to change. Regardless, we've got tens of millions living in the Desert South West, I don't foresee them all living on prickly pears.

> I'm also very reluctant to believe any report that estimates GHG emissions from industry

Same!

> efficiency = money, i thought that was obvious.

We have to be careful here. We've just switched to talking about overall production efficiency now, not the c02 byproduct efficiency that was being referred to. There is no t much of a direct market force to be efficient about c02 byproducts, in fact often the opposite, money and production efficiency is a force against reducing c02 emissions.

> how anyone can care about the environment and not be vegetarian is completely beyond me.

That's a great point. Not to mention Americans just eat too much. We could make huge improvements by eating less.

>> I'm imagining some change in purchasing behavior > I'd call that fantasy.

That's a fair point, for as long as we have these options. A willing change in purchasing behavior might be unrealistic.