food for thought

some noteworthy points from an article from the economist, dec 9 2006; an article entitled "good food?".

people are being socially active in the grocery stores,
people like you and me.
buying organic to protect the earth from ugly pesticides,
and to help with richer soil and clear water supplies.
people are buying freetrade-stamped goods,
because it helps the poor farmers in third world countries.

this article points out, "shopping is the new politics... vote with your supermarket trolley..."

it's called "the ethical food movement."

here's the problem:
what the businesses that are selling "ethical foods" are suggesting, or at least what we are convincing ourselves will result from our purchasing "ethical foods", at best falls short of what we hope for, and at worst may be doing the very opposite. (editor's note: if you are content assuaging your guilt for being a white american making more than fourty thousand dollars a year, when half the world's population makes less than two dollars a day, by buying fairtrade foods, or if you are finding some solace from the excessive pollution and the empire of non-deteriorating rubbage that you (as a single human being!) have already generated in your two-to-three decades of life, then you may want to just stop here and keep buying your "ethical foods.")

organic food, grown without human-generated pesticides and fertilizers, depends on crop rotation, manure and compost instead of fertilizer. sound's good, 'eh? the deal is: all land cultivation disrupts the native habitat. since we decided it was too much work to pick berries and chase mountain goats in our loin cloths a few thousand years ago, we've been clearing land (heavily in the rain forrest areas, i might add), to cultivate farmland. without using our common method of augmenting the worldwide crop yield with factory-ready pesticides and fertilizers, we would need many times as much land as is presently used to provide the same agricultural output. in the words of the author, "there wouldn't be much room left for the rain forest." notably, grain yields have tripled -- without increasing the land requirement -- since current agricultural methods were put into place. and, unfortunately, there is not a surplus of farmland.

and the fairtrade notion is great... as a notion. the movement aims to give back to the poor farmer by increasing the price for the consumer. and we, being generally ethically-minded people, don't mind spending an extra forty cents on our bag of coffee beans for that cause, right? "by propping up the price, the fairtrade system encourages farmers to produce more commodities rather than diversifying into other crops and so depresses prices -- thus achieving, for most farmers, exactly the opposite of what the initiative is intended to do. and since only a small fraction of the mark-up on fairtrade foods actually goes to the farmer -- most goes to the retailer -- the system gives rich consumers an inflated impression of their largesse and makes alleviating poverty seem too easy."

my goodness, don't hear me wrong. i am not advocating a republican laissez-faire. my wife and i wash out every friggin' cranberry juice jug and cola can and pitch it in the blue bin. but i want to share how i was convicted reading this particluar article. i buy self-righteousness cheaply, without really ever examining or deeply caring about the mess i've made (and am making). and i ignore the issues that surround me in my city right here and now to feign interest in grand global problems. i'm certainly not willing to change if it means pain or sacrifice. i prefer "the inflated impression of [my] largesse." i'm the priest who crosses the street to avoid the robbed, beat-up traveller in order to get to my priestly duties on time.

heaven help us. really.