Comments on: Myth Busting Drivel

By: fifediet

fifediet — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:28:26 +0000

You’re quite right Nat. The argument is based on a quaint understanding of market forces and the ‘free market’ in particular. The reality is often that producers are subject to the vagaries of a fluctuating commodity market and are often exporting food in a region where people are going hungry. I’m in favour of fair trade, feral trade and trade justice - but not trade for trades sake in some naive hope that consumer capitalism - the system which ultimately has brought about the ecological crisis, will also somehow, magically, solve it.

By: Nat Moore

Nat Moore — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:43:56 +0000

Just another thought about Kenyan green beans (or whatever product you’d like to stand in their stead): the journalist Fred Pearce has a pretty interesting point of view in his book When The Rivers Run Dry when he raises the ethics of essentially importing water in the form of exported goods (beans, flowers, etc) from drought-prone parts of the world. That is to say, is it ethical to remove the equivalent of the x litres of water it took to grow your beans in Kenya from that country?

I also don’t think it’s necessarily right to argue that avoiding such products is unethical because we’re forgetting the plight of farmers in the developing world who depend on such crops. Wouldn’t it be better for the farmer who grows a cash crop for the West now (subject to highly volatile prices) to be growing food for his own region at some point in the near future? What about supporting truly sustainable agriculture in the developing world, for the developing world? (And the same here too!)

Thanks for the post. I find the Observer can be often quite barmy. Perhaps because its a Sunday, they think we’re not paying attention.

By: Ed Harris

Ed Harris — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:32:55 +0000

I hear the continued frustration about inaccurate reporting of interviews! I think it is definately worth posting rebuttels of this sort, not so much to reply to the journalists in question, but so that readers can hear your point of view. I wrote a post on the Observer piece which gave them some moderate praise for acknowledging the complexity behind food miles, and not simply suggesting that “measuring food miles is the answer” or “food miles is a load of nonsense”. It seems that however, factually inaccurate/unsubstantiated McKie’s article might be, it shows signs of developing a more balanced approach…. (although I guess you might disagree!)
I’d be interested to hear what’s said if they respond to your rebuttal.

By: Sandra

Sandra — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 17:19:38 +0000

I’m not exactly sure what my point is going to be here, because I feel something cathartic coming on rather than rational so I’ll just be as brief as possible in saying that we either ignore the media when its deliberately provoking controversy or spend our lives and waste a lot of energy justifying ourselves in the face of a gargantuan propaganda machine in the business of … (I think there’s a word for it)… er sophistry – that’s it, as in “confusing or illogical argument used for deceiving someone” (wikipedia definition). This is a bit reminiscent of the Great Global Warming Swindle (if we still want to bother referring to that). So why bother? I feel sure most people would have seen the holes in that argument, staring them right in the face.

By: Nicholas W

Nicholas W — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:51:13 +0000

The step from shop to kitchen is often pointed out to be rather energy-inefficient, so it should be fairly easy to dig up some figures to illuminate the issue - I know I have come across this in the past (sorry I don’t have anything to hand at the moment). Personally, I don’t worry because I don’t drive. As you rightly point out, this is not a reason to just give up.

The other somewhat valid point they have is that imported food may be sometimes more energy-efficient than locally-grown, when the food in question is not suited to local conditions or is being eaten out of season. And the point is that this does indeed happen. To my mind this is something that does have to be addressed - it’s simply not very sustainable to expect to eat certain things all the time.

In conclusion, I think the dangerous thing about that article, and others in a similar vein, is that it makes many valid points. This is a complex system, it is not trivial to analyse, and a nice simple message “X good, Y bad” is by nature imperfect. But these imperfections provide ammunition for the combative world of the journalist: thus the straw-man thesis “food miles entirely and perfectly capture the environmental cost of eating” is demolished, and the headline feels able to state “the myth of food miles hurts the planet” when in fact the article shows no such thing. Joe consumer goes on as before (or worse), when perhaps buying locally would be an improvement *overall*.

By: fifediet

fifediet — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:22:09 +0000

Yeah its been a bit tricky getting off the island to drive about for miles buying non-organic out of season pineapples.

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:21:26 +0000

I read this article and was thrown into a panic! I’m glad you have rebutted th claims there. I hope you can perhap email this article to the editor and ask for a similar sized spread in next weeks observer. If I can’t trust the observer then who can I turn to???

ps Are the ferries still running to the island in this windy weather?

By: Despairing

Despairing — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:10:52 +0000

I would have expected more from The Observer to be honest. There seems to be a mood amongst journalists at the moment that there is a backlash against environmental issues, and when they can’t find any evidence of it then they create it themselves.

By: Joanna

Joanna — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:40:20 +0000

Very glad to see this post, with it’s point by point rebuttal of the drivel in the Observer, a newspaper that should know better, unless it’s seriously trying to become the Daily Mail. it made me cross enough to have a little rant on my blog, which you may be interested to see on joannasfood.blogspot.com/2008/03/rant-about-air-freighted-food.html

I’m just going to add a link to this post …

Your project is very inspiring
Joanna

By: Jessica

Jessica — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:10:41 +0000

I wouldn’t listen seriously to anybody who thinks Fife is an island! (I have previously been asked if Wales is an island, so I know how you feel…