Food miles can be defined as the distance traveled by a food product from its source to the consumer’s plate. The longer the distance, the more pollution caused by the food on its transit- a combination of the fuel emissions and packaging and technology required to put the food fresh.

The term has grabbed the popular imagination, as a relatively easy concept to understand the complicated, scientific debate surrounding climate change and some environmental campaigners have come up with some nice figures to help, for example, they say flying green beans from Nairobi to London, about 6,804km ,releases at least 340 grammes of carbon dioxide in to the air.

The pack of such products will soon be faced with an aero plane symbol, telling that the product has been transported by air to the supermarket. Although this makes them a lot fresher than many other products on offer, that’s not the point .Rather; the supermarkets want to remind their customers that this product has caused more pollution on its way to the store than products delivered from the next country or locally.

The campaign is raising concern of the future of horticulture, which earns some African countries billions and employs millions of people.