Food miles

I stole all this from The Independent:

Environmental cost of farming: £1.1bn a year
If all farms were organic it would save £1.1bn a year. Removing pesticides from water supplies, for example, adds £250m a year to water bills. Other costs range from pollution to losses in soil and biodiversity, and costs in human and animal health, such as BSE and antibiotic resistance. Hidden costs of £1.5bn a year could be cut to £385m.

Environmental cost of food transport £2.1bn a year
28 per cent of road freight is food or produce; 1.6 billion tons are carried 149 billion ton-kilometres. 23 per cent more food than 20 years ago is on the roads and it is travelling 65 per cent further. Each person makes, on average, 221 shopping trips per year with an average length of 6.4km, up from 4km in 1985. £2.1bn could be saved if all food was locally sourced.

Hidden farming subsidy costs: up to £1bn
The average annual cost of agricultural subsidies paid by the UK taxpayer was £3.1bn with an extra £2bn in 2001-04 for the foot-and-mouth epidemic. Until 2004, agricultural subsidies mostly supported production that caused adverse environmental impacts. Some subsidies can improve the environment but without them, subsidies still total £2.9bn a year.