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Caroline Saunders, who debunked the concept of food miles, last night received this year's New Zealand Institute of Economic Research economics award.
She is Professor of Trade and Environmental Economics at Lincoln University, and director of its agribusiness and economics research unit.
The food miles concept, which takes the distance food travels as a measure of its impact on the environment, has the potential to threaten New Zealand exports, especially to European markets.
But Saunders showed that when the energy used and carbon dioxide emitted in producing the food are included with transport, New Zealand dairy products, lamb and apples have less effect on the environment than competing British products in the UK market.
The award's citation says the research has withstood close scrutiny from a wide range of overseas academic and Government bodies and has been widely cited.
