Fair Do’s For All
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Fair Do’s For All |
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Text of a talk given by AfSL's Chris Wright at the Chorlton FairTrade Feast event, 20th June 2005 We’ve heard a lot about Fair Trade recently and the importance of giving farmers in the developing world a Fair Deal by shielding them from the chill winds of Free Trade. But what do those words ‘Fair’ and ‘Free’ mean, particularly in relation to food? We in the so-called developed world have grown up with the idea of a free market economy. It keeps prices low and offers consumers maximum choice. New goods arrive in the market place: initially, they’re expensive, but then competition kicks in and prices drop. Our whole culture is saturated with the ethic of consumption and, as individuals, we instinctively try to get the best deal we can. The cheaper we can get stuff the more we can have – of everything. The only limit is what we can afford – and, increasingly even that is no limit at all. I would like to suggest that, in applying this approach to food, we are losing sight of something important. Put simply, by treating food as a commodity like any other we no longer value it. For a start, we need food to stay alive, we don’t need iPods and DVDs. More fundamentally, food is also one of the main connections between the world out there and the world within - we literally take a bit of the world out there into ourselves and make it part of ourselves. Without wishing to get too mystical here, that’s a pretty amazing concept and one that should make us want to be absolutely sure about the quality of what we take in. It should also make us want to cherish and nurture the people and the processes that provide us with good quality food. Taking the long-term view, farming should be the ultimate sustainable product. If a piece of land is looked after properly, it will go on producing forever. The deserts of North Africa, once the granaries of ancient Rome, show what happens if we over, or misuse the land. So, from these perspectives – quality and sustainability - how are we doing? Well, here’s a couple of statistics that should worry us. The average age of small farmers – and I’m not talking stature here, I’m talking about the traditional, mixed economy English farm – is 58. More leave farming each year than take it up and that’s reflected in the dramatic reduction in the overall number of farmers (from 82 thousand in 2001 to just 68 thousand last year - 2004). So what’s going on? Well, a lot of our food now comes from abroad – including 70% of all organic food sold in the UK (a direct reflection of the small farmer problem). But that’s only part of the answer. Although the number of farms is going down, the average size is going up (14% of farms are now over 100 hectares – the average is 50 - and they account for 65% of agricultural land). In other words, we’re talking about the advance of agribusiness, and agribusiness is above all about pushing prices down, obeying the basic laws of the global free market. It is competitive and cut throat, a business that produces things that just happen to be food. And like any other factory process, it’s the bottom line that matters. Accountants pour over inputs, outputs and investment ratios and pronounce on ways to improve productivity. As a consequence horizons tend to be short term and there is an emphasis on technology and innovation (satellites can now scan fields and programme fertilizer spreaders so they put more on some parts than others to produce a uniform crop). So what’s the problem? We have to move with the times after all and technology has transformed our lives, mainly for the better. Well, yes, it is a problem because it is simply unsustainable. Big farms no longer produce for their immediate localities, they aim for national and even global markets and that means trucking – even flying - stuff around. They are the creatures of the supermarkets - themselves the logical outcome of treating food as a commodity like any other – and it has been estimated that every item on a supermarket shelf has traveled an average of 2000 miles to get there. But oil – the single thing that keeps the whole show literally on the road - is running out. Some commentators suggest that reserves have already peaked – most give it 20 – 30 years at most - and yet worldwide demand, fueled by the burgeoning economies of China and India, continues to soar. It simply can’t continue. Agribusiness is also unsustainable because it uses increasing amounts of artificial fertilizer and pesticides, which also depend on the oil industry. Because large scale tends towards monoculture, it lacks the diversity and hardiness of traditional mixed farming - which is a small-scale, self-sustaining, natural system - and thus depends on an array of chemical defences. There are now signs that the bacteria that exist in topsoil and are essential to growing food are disappearing on fields that have become heavily dependent on artificial fertilizers – the soil itself is becoming sterile. And just in case you think supermarkets are good because they offer more choice as well as cheaper prices, think again. They may be constantly adding new items and services to their range (you can now get married in Tescos!), but within each category choice is severely limited. In the 1950s there were 50 well-known brands of UK apple and some 30 different varieties of potato, today just four varieties of apple and three of potato claim 90% of the UK market. There used to be 20 different types of regionally distinct cattle, now just one, the Friesian Holstein, dominates the market. “Lousy milk, lousy meat … but lots of it”, is one farmer’s view. Supermarkets also source their foods from the same basic supply chains, which is why food scares like Sudan A can turn up all over the place at the same time. Buying food from supermarkets is inherently dangerous as well as being unsustainable. So, what can we do? Well, cities used to be dependent on their hinterlands. There was a daily exchange between town and country. Today, Lancashire and Cheshire might just as well be on the other side of the world. And, even if supermarkets do stock products from our own back yard, they have probably traveled around the country to reach us! The direct relationship between town and country has been broken and we need to re-establish it if we are, once again, to enjoy and value food. And that brings us back to Fair Trade. Free Trade has produced the situation I’ve just described and it just isn’t sustainable. To encourage local farmers to produce the food we want in ways that can continue into the future, we are going to have to recognize that it isn’t just another commodity to get the best deal we can on. That means putting our normal and habitual consumerist hats to one side and really asking questions about where food comes from and how it is produced. Shopping at somewhere like Unicorn in Chorlton makes that task easy because a lot of what they sell is grown very locally indeed. Buying from Farmers’ Markets, Farm Shops and Box Schemes are other ways in which the trends can be reversed – although even here it is worth checking where food has actually come from – you may be surprised. But just as the Chorlton Fair trade group is actively promoting Fair Trade with producers in developing countries, so a similar group might develop links with local farmers, encouraging local shops to access food from them or, if necessary, setting up your own distribution system (charity shops provide one model, where a lot of the work is done by volunteers, thus keeping down the costs). It is even possible to conceive of local people going to work on their linked farms at times when the farmer needs additional help – another way of keeping the cost of food down. It’s a virtuous circle. We get good food whose provenance we know and value, and farmers are guaranteed a fair income. And, by re-establishing the direct link between producer and consumer, we are saying that food cannot be left to the vagaries of Free Trade and that all food, wherever it is produced, should be bought at a Fair Price. The Fair Trade movement has shown us the way forward. We need to extend that principle to our own back yard. It may just change the world. Find Your Local Producers – log on and type in your postcode The Alliance for Better Food and Farming Building an Organic Future with the Soil Association
4th August 2005 |
Action for Sustainable Living, St Wilfrid's Enterprise Centre, Royce Road, Hulme, , M15 5BJ.Email: [email protected] Tel: 0845 634 4510 Fax: 0870 167 4655. |