A、A supporter of free global trade. B、A member of the Food Commission. C、A supporter of First World food markets. D、A member of

An environmental group called the Food Commission is unhappy and disappointed because of the sale of bottled water from Japan. The water as is angrily argued in public, has traveled 10,000 "food miles" before it reaches Western customers. "Transporting water halfway across the world is surely the extremely stupid use of fuel when there is plenty of water in the UK." It is also worried that we are wasting our fuel by buying praums from Indonesia (7,000 food miles) and carrots from South Africa (5,900 food miles).
    Counting the number of miles traveled done by a product is a strange way of trying to tell the true situation of the environmental damage done by an industry. Most food is transported around the world on container ships that are extremely energy efficient. It should be noted that a ton of butter transported 25 miles in a truck transported hundreds of miles by sea. Besides, the idea of "miles" ignores the amount of fuel used in the production. It is possible to cut down your food miles by buying tomatoes grown in Britain rather than those grown in Ghana; the difference is that the British one will have been raised in heated greenhouses and the Ghanaian ones in the open sun.
    What the idea of "food miles" does provide, however, is the chance to cut out Third World Countries from First World food markers. The number of miles traveled by our food should, as I see it, be regarded as a sign of the success of the global trade system, not a sign of damage to the environment.