| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣海洋大學 === 應用經濟研究所 === 105 === The purpose of this study is to analyze the food miles of 24 types of import food products in Taiwan between 2001-2015 of the total 15 years time span. However, researchers often aimed at industrial pollution after the industrial revolution as major research subjects in previous studies on carbon emission, and there is limited studies on carbon emission on transportation of imported food products. Taiwan is consisted of particularly fertile lands but a limited land area, thus Taiwan is still faced with food security issues even with its seemingly abundant resources. In addition, with increasing numbers of aging farmers, abandoned farmland and land use transformation under government policies, land use in agriculture are even more limited and food product imports has become an essential action. This paper will investigate the three dimensions of food miles, including the amount of import, the distance of transportation, and the transportation methods to calculate carbon emission and find the relationships between factors.
Based on the survey results of this study, grain (HS 10) is the item most dependent on import among the 24 import food product types in Taiwan. In addition, this paper aim to conduct further research on the statistical results of the import food products in 2015 of Taiwan to investigate the relationship between the three dimensions. This study found among ocean freight transportation, railway transportation, and road transportation, road transportation has the highest carbon emission among these transportation methods, which accounts for 64% of the total carbon emission, whereas ocean freight transportation accounts for 35%. This indicated that road transportation is the major source of carbon emission of import foods transportation method in Taiwan.
In addition, this study aimed at the imports of fishery products of 2015 as the research subject to investigate the effect of distance of transportation on carbon emission. Previous studies has shown a growing tendency of the imports of fishery products, and this indicated the growing demand of fishery products in Taiwan. In order to investigate the effect of distance of transportation on carbon emission, the researcher has made the study of the the fishery industry as its research subject.
Based on the findings of the fishery products imports in Taiwan, Frozen fish (HS 0303) is the item most dependent of imported fishery products, with the number of total import 77,065T, and its food miles and carbon emission are also considered the highest from the amount of imports, 865,771,418T-Km and 25,904 T respectively.
In addition, this paper has also investigated different food miles and carbon emission of fishery products under different transportation method through the calculation of food miles. Through the calculation of food miles, this paper found that 86% of fishery products were imported through ocean freight transportation, 14%through road transportation, and merely approximate 1% through railway transportation. In addition to the entire transportation methods of import goods, this study also calculated the single food miles of each fishery product, thus food miles of different products through different transportation methods can be calculated.
The calculation of different transportation methods in this study found that according to statistical results to deliver fishery products through road transportation has the highest carbon emission, which accounts for 67% of the total carbon emission. However, railway transportation method only accounts for 1% of carbon emission. This calls for immediate measures on the effective management and improvement of road transportation.
In addition, this study also found the major export regions of all type of fishery products supply in Taiwan are located in Asia. This study also divide the import regions by distance. Based on the results, the major locations of import fishery products in Taiwan is located at the distance between 6000-8000KM, which accounts for 40.2% of the total fishery imports. The result indicated that the import amount increases with greater distance to Taiwan, and this also creates increased food miles. This finding shows transportation distance has positive impact on food miles.
The researcher calculated the total transportation distance and the average carbon emission of import goods of all types of fishery products in the last section of the paper. The results show frozen fish fillet/ fish meat (HS 0302) is the fishery product with the greatest transportation distance. Due to difference of distance to each country, countries with greater distance clearly has significant effect on carbon emission. This result corresponds with the concept of food miles.
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