Food labels should include information about the product’s environmental impact, so the public can make informed choices, a Conservative MP has said.
Steve Double said displaying food miles to show how far a product has travelled could encourage more people to consume locally sourced food.
The MP for St Austell and Newquay, a former minister, said he has heard “complete nonsense” such as eating an avocado is better for the environment than buying a steak from a local farm.
During a debate on farming, Mr Double told the Commons he “wholeheartedly” supports better labelling of food “so people can really understand where their food has come from”.
He continued: “But another thing I would suggest is maybe what we should do is label our food with the environmental impact or the food miles that, that food has.
“Because I hear some really strange arguments made that actually somehow eating an avocado from Madagascar is somehow better than eating a steak from the farm down the road, which to my mind is complete nonsense.
“And if we actually labelled food that made people realise how far this food has travelled and what the environmental impact, the real environmental impact, of that food is, before it arrives on your plate.
“Just maybe, people would make informed choices, and choose to buy local and consume locally sourced food.”
Earlier in his contribution, Mr Double argued that farmers “understand the need to protect the environment better than any of us”.
He said: “Our farmers understand the need to protect our environment more than anyone else, because actually more than anyone else their livelihoods depend on it.”
He added: “Many of them, that are farming family farms, want to pass on a viable business to their children and grandchildren and if in the meantime they destroy the environment, they’re not going to have a productive farm to pass on.
“So… I think we need to really kill this idea that somehow farmers are the enemy of protecting our environments, they really aren’t, and we need to work with them ’cause they understand the need to protect the environment better than any of us.”