Telecoupling through tomato trade: What consumers do not know about the tomato on their plate

Abstract

Non-technical abstract A large share of our food comes from international supply food chains that are difficult to trace. Therefore, consumers are not aware of their environmental and social effects. We analysed the tomato supply system for Germany. Tomatoes consumed in Germany are produced either in The Netherlands by Polish workers and using large amounts of energy, or in Spain by West African workers and depleting the aquifer. The analysis shows the long-distance effects of food consumption that should be considered when designing strategies for a sustainable global food system. Comparable results can be expected for other food products traded around the world. Technical abstract The environmental and social effects caused by global food trade are not evident for consumers. We use the telecoupling framework to trace these effects between consumer and producer regions. In Europe, Germany is the largest consumer of tomatoes, which are mainly imported from The Netherlands and southeast Spain. The use of agricultural resources is markedly different in the two production regions due to different local contexts and production systems. Tomatoes from southeast Spain require fewer resources per area of greenhouses, but more resources per kilogram of tomatoes produced compared with production in The Netherlands. However, both tomato production areas require the same amount of labour per kilogram of tomatoes. The workers in the greenhouses in both production regions are mainly immigrants, but their labour conditions are quite different due to the difference in application of international labour agreements. If Germany would start producing their own tomatoes in order to reduce distant effects, the local effects in Germany would be large in the context of Germany’s current national resources use and CO2 emission patterns. This study highlights the notion that taking distant indirect effects of consumption into consideration is crucial when designing global strategies that aim to achieve a more sustainable and fair global food system. Social media summary Environmental and social effects of tomato trade in Europe and implications for sustainable food systems are discussed.