The Economist on Organic Food and Fairtrade
Hello everybody,
I've just read the French translation of an article that came out in "The Economist" in December 2006. As you can imagine, they weren't 100% positive about organic and fairtrade food. Here is a copy of the article. I think some of their points are interesting and need to be addressed (like the definition of food mile, or the actual environmental impact of a tomato shipped from Spain vs. a tomato from heated greenhouses in UK during the winter):
http://www.fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=19886§ionid=12
Many articles came out to reply to the attack of The Economist. Here are a few:
From the Fairtrade Labelling Organization international (FLO):
http://www.fairtrade.net/single_view.html?&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=11&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=168&cHash=ae40ac0c24
From Grist, an online American ecological magazine:
http://www.grist.org/comments/food/2007/01/03/economist/
Treehugger mentions that The Economist published a full page of letters from readers who disagreed with the article, extracts are available here:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/economist_liste.php
Enjoy the reading and let me know what you think!
JP
Articles...
Hi J-P,
I read the original articles in Economist, and placed a copy in the social area of our markets for quite a while! The feedback we got shows that most folk aren't fooled..
For me, the main thing to understand is the agenda that the Economist is plugging. It's essentially a capitalist paper that seeks to propel and sustain capitalism. Current economics and economists rarely think, let alone understand, non-capitalistic activities or potential economics. (Have you read any Schumacher?)
So fair trade, sustainable production, not-for-profit, community enterprise, ethical business, pan social inclusion, non-hierarchical structure, anti exploitation, socio-political anarchy, to name but a few outside-the-box isms, are virtually off the radar for Economist writers, readers and their ilk.
However, when one or more 'alternative methodologies' starts to take any kind of a hold, a natural formula of Dismissal, then Exploitation, then Infiltration is often evident I feel. Not exclusive to the Economist though, unfortunately!!
What do you reckon?
Chris A.
Articles
Hello Chris,
I remember seeing the Economist. Unfortunately I never came around to talk about it with you. Here is a good chance!
I agree with you that The Economist is far from supporting human-friendly practices over capital-friendly ones. At the same time, the good thing about this magazine is that they are intelligent people with an agenda. They will therefore attack the weakest point of our philosophy and therefore unwillingly give us ways to improve ourselves.
And I think they have a point when they question the environmental impact of local food. Heating of greenhouses, inefficient transportation are issues that we should clearly address. I think the food mile concept can be improved. In an ideal world, I'd like to see on each item of food how much energy was used to grow it, and how much water: this would therefore take into account potential use of fertilisers or herbicides (that need energy to be produced), the need for extraction of water, the heating of the greenhouse, and the fuel consumed to transport the fruit to my local shop.
This would remove any reference to profitability and replace it with sustainability. It's not complete yet as it doesn't take into account the human aspect of the production, but it gives a better picture that can "compete" with the capitalist approach. And ironically, as oil becomes more and more expensive, the energy consumption will become the major factor in the price.
The positive thing in this article, and it was pointed out in The New Statesman, I quote loosely from my French magazine: "When the rich companies defenders say they are worried about the way we spend our money, we can be sure that we are on the right track."
Any good book from Schumacher you would recommend?
Cheers,
JP
I shop for organic food but