KEY POINTS:
Green has become the little black dress of political fashion, able to be worn for almost any occasion and never out of style.
And in affluent countries where voters can afford to worry about more than simply where their next meal will come from, consumers are looking more closely at where their food comes from.
That means some of New Zealand's farmers, foresters and fishers will have to get their acts together after decades of getting a free ride on their "clean and green" mantra.
In future, buyers for supermarket chains in these affluent Northern Hemisphere markets are going to want a raft of scientific and technical evidence to substantiate the clean, green claims.
The debate has intensified with the release of the Stern report, an economic study of global warming by former World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern.
His forecast of worldwide recession, wars, refugees, droughts, famine and rising sea levels - if nothing is done to combat global warming - brought a call from former British Cabinet minister Stephen Byers for taxes based on the distance agricultural products travel to get to markets.
He used New Zealand kiwifruit as an example, claiming 1kg of kiwifruit flown from New Zealand to Europe caused greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 5kg of carbon dioxide.
A similar attack was made by Lord Whitty, chairman of Britain's National Consumer Council, when he called on eight leading supermarket chains to source more food locally.
He criticised the Waitrose chain for stocking organic strawberries flown in from New Zealand.
Leaving aside the fact that Zespri sends its kiwifruit by sea - a much more fuel-efficient pathway - the attacks serve to warn of some of the risks New Zealand exporters now face.
About a third of our food and beverage exports go to European Union markets.
But for many Europeans, New Zealand symbolises the farthest end of the earth and New Zealand food was targeted when campaigners in Britain and Germany first began questioning the distance food travelled to consumers in 1994.
By 1995, a New Zealand apple being doused in oil was the key image of a German campaign against householders buying fruit or vegetables which had travelled long distances if similar produce was available from local growers.
Now German food and agriculture officials have been pushing for country-of-origin labelling so consumers can choose products which have been transported only a short distance to market.
The labelling rules were supported by Italian, French, Finnish, Irish and Portuguese representatives.
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry director-general Murray Sherwin has returned from Britain and what he describes as "interesting" discussions with supermarket chains, environmental regulators and farmer groups.
He found a general move among affluent consumers towards making a greater emotional attachment to their food, in the sense of becoming more passionate about what they were eating, and subjecting it to greater scrutiny.
"That's fine, but we need to make sure that New Zealand can fit within that envelope of consumer sentiment," he said. "That envelope includes environmental sustain-ability and animal welfare and we need to show New Zealand exports are sustainably produced."
Other commentators have said the gap in discussion on trade issues left by the stalled Doha round has created a vacuum where people start talking about other concepts.
But Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton has been more blunt: Food miles are too often promoted by people motivated by self-serving objectives rather than genuine environmental concerns.
"It is being used in Europe by self-interested parties trying to justify protectionism in another guise."
There are concerns that the increasing focus on the distance food travels from paddock to plate could undermine efforts to portray New Zealand produce in affluent Northern Hemisphere markets as environmentally sustainable.
The nation's biggest food exporter, Fonterra, has argued that food miles are a "red herring" that detract from serious environmental issues.
Fonterra's trade strategy manager, Fiona Cooper-Clarke, says the crude measure of food miles is a silly concept.
She says that instead the company needs to make sure policymakers are aware of scientific studies comparing the life cycle impact of New Zealand food on the environment with that of other countries.
A German study last year, later substantiated by work at Lincoln University, found that New Zealand farmers used less energy in producing lamb than German producers.
Compared with British sheepfarmers turning out lambs, New Zealand farmers incur only a quarter of the energy and emissions "costs" producing lamb and sending it 17,700km to Britain, the Lincoln research shows.
And producing milksolids in New Zealand and shipping them to Britain is less than half as costly, in energy terms, than producing the milk there.
This gives the lie to a British dairy manufacturer, Dairy Crest, whose advertising knocks Fonterra's butter because of the distance it travels.
The Lincoln researchers said it was misleading only to measure the distance food travelled rather than the total energy use, including growing the product and delivering it to the consumer.
"This reflects the less intensive production system in New Zealand than the UK, with lower inputs, including energy."
Energy costs for growing apples in New Zealand are a third of those in Britain - partly reflecting the lower greenhouse gas emissions from New Zealand electricity generation - and even with transport added, the energy cost is still only 60 per cent.
Farmers and processors will in future need to be able to demonstrate the low environmental impacts and carbon intensity of their products - something Prime Minister Helen Clark acknowledged this month.
"Unless we're being seen to go the extra mile in sustainability, we run the risk of being labelled as simply unsustainable producers, major carbon emitters, even trying to get our produce to market," she said.
And Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons has said the new political sensitivity to sustainability has stripped Labour and National of excuses they have previously used for inaction on climate change.
The Green Party has written to Britons campaigning on the food miles concept, to Dairy Crest and to the National Farmers Union, which supported the attacks on Fonterra, to point out the Lincoln research.
But that is just the start.
Farmers may find that there is little mileage in being partly sustainable.
Not only will continuing debate on whether produce for affluent markets should be "carbon-neutral" reopen the running sore that is New Zealand's inability to slash methane emissions from livestock, but sensitive consumers will look at other environmental concerns.
When Clark delivers her speech to the opening of Parliament in February, farmers can expect a mix of "sticks" and "carrots" as the Government stiffens up its three-year-old sustainable water programme.
The Government has said it will draw up plans early next year for environmental guidelines to slow the loss and degradation of the nation's fresh water, possibly with national guidelines to be imposed on local councils.
Options expected to be canvassed include making it easier for farmers and other users to transfer water consents - likely to lead to a commercial trade in water rights - and axing the present first-in, first-served allocation system for water.
- NZPA
