Is it a good thing to buy food from your country?

Question

in a way of trying to help climate change. iam a bit worried because on one hand i want to help climate change but on the other i dont know if by stopping buying food from overseas, if this is damaging there buisness, do we get any food from the developling world? i know i sound thick i just dont know and would like to know whats the best way to buy food to help the worlds problems.

Answer 1

Buy local food, it helps the local econnomy, reduces transport cost (financial and environmental), it will be fresher and won't have been 'treated' to make it last the journey.

Answer 2

Buy from your own country to help the economy  better still grow your own Veg they taste much better.

But in Real life we have become lazy and therefore look for a easy way out in the way we cook.

Way to many take away food outlets, now I'm older I really cant say I enjoy them any more.

Some districts in oz have a community garden's where everyone has to help but you then get to share the rewards.

Buy wisely and read labels

Answer 3

The trick is to make sure you know were the food you eat comes from. If you  buy bananas make sure they are fair trade...sainsburys has recently increased its product range and now only sells fair trade bananas and tea. You can buy fair trade sugar,chocolate and coffee and it means the producers are getting a fair price (among many other products).

In an ideal world I would love to be able to buy only local food produces and farmed in ethical ways .This is as much about health as the environment. Supermarkets have dramatically changed the way we shop and not really for the better. We need to go back to basics and learn how to cook real food that is seasonal and fresh. Unfortunately this is really difficult to do on a budget so its a bit of a catch 22. They days of the local greengrocer and butchers selling local produce have gone and unless consumers on mass vote with their feet and stop shopping at supermarkets we aren't going to get them back.

The fact that so many poor countries are producing food for our tables whilst they dont earn enough to feed themselves answers your question ..if you cannot buy UK produce only buy fair trade imports.

Answer 4

Always buy locally, and never buy fair trade.

When you buy locally you are helping the area around you. The way I see it, every time you buy local produce some of that money (although less than it should be in the UK) goes into helping preserving the countryside around you.

Now, the reason I never buy fair trade is that it is not transparent. They say they give the producer a fair price but, what's fair? In some cases the price increase can be over 200%. Now there is no way this massive increase is being passed on to the producer, where does it go?, straight in the pockets of the companies.

For example I recently compare chocolate bars, bar A was £1.20 and bar B was £2.50 for the same weight. Now it costs the same to produce the bar and packaging (say 20p per bar). Producers tend to earn 5%, so 6p for bar A. Assuming the same rate for the second bar that's 12.5p. A producer who can barely survive on 6p a bar is thrieving at 12.5p a bar (I recon the relative rates will be even less). This therefore means that for bar A there is a 94p profit per bar and for bar B there is a 217.5p profit per bar.

IMO this is a massive exploitationand therefore I buy the cheaper one and even if I only give 20p to the relative charities it'll do more good than buying fair trade.

Answer 5

I used to do biz with China and stopped.  But in the back of my head I know if I don't do it someone else will.  It's a catch 22.  It sucks that we live in a world that has enough food for everyone but children go to bed hungry every night.  Here's a good suggestion to even it out, take the leftovers of your food and feed the homeless.

Answer 6

try growing your own food, most people can grow their entire fruit and veg intake on a half plot allotment for a family of four, and it is a cheaper hobby than golf

Answer 7

Try to buy your fresh food from local growers marts and only buy your specialty stuff from overseas.

I agree with you about supporting their economies, but lets face it, climate change must take priority.

if we get some solar shipping you can go back to your overseas stuff:)

Answer 8

buying things in your own country or closeby is much much better for the environment as the carbon footprint of the vehicle that transported the goods to you or your local shop is much less than that of a vehicle that has driven thousands of miles or a plane that has even flown the whole way there. The vehicles are on the roads less and so the outcome of that is less carbon emissions, evidently. Also, if we used products that are higher in concentration making bottle sizes smaller meaning more bottles can fit onto a lorry reducing the number of vehicles that are on the road completely. This is happening in the uk right now with fabric softener.... With amazing results!!

Answer 9

Its certainly something to think about, but so much of our food is imported from around the world, I don't know how easy it would be to do all of your shopping in that way.

Whilst individuals can do 'their bit' I think the supermarkets need to take a lead on this, and that seems unlikely as there would obviously be cost and profitability issues.

Answer 10

Interesting question. I understand your concern, for both the environmental impact of imported food and the poor people from the countries from which it is exported.

I've wondered about this myself and I think that overall, it is always worth buying locally, for both environmental and economical reasons. Furthermore, it's probably still true that a lot of vulnerable people in developing countries would do better farming the land for their own needs rather than growing cash crops (although 3rd world debt is less of an issue perhaps in some countries nowerdays). I base this opinion on examples such as the coffee producers who are paid minimal rates for their crops by large coffee shop chains which then sell the drinks on at an astronomical mark-up. I don't wish to get slanderous, but I'm sure you'd be able to google up some specific examples if you wished to.

Hope this helps. :)

Answer 11

Difficult decision for the caring but there's always an answer.

How about compromise and buy local for everyday basics and Fair Trade for treats?

Answer 12

This is certainly a tricky question; we have to remember that food miles are only one part of the environmental impact of growing food. When you buy local food, make sure it's seasonal - it can actually use more energy to heat a glasshouse in your own country to grow out-of-season fruit or vegetables, than to grow the fruit out of doors in a foreign country and then transport it to your country.

It's highly unlikely that you could eat only seasonal local food. So, you could buy small amounts of food from the developing world/other countries; but think about the energy used in storage and transport. So, maybe choose dried fruits over fresh fruit when buying from abroad (they weigh less, so should take less energy to transport). As I understand it, fresh bananas are transported via ship, which is more efficient than by air.

So: if you're buying locally, make sure it's seasonal. If you buy from abroad, consider how it is transported - avoid air-freighted food. That way, communities in the developing world still benefit from exporting food, and less energy is used in the actual GROWING of the food. It's all a matter of balance.

Answer 13

In Canada, if people decided that they wanted to eat locally grown food, they would be eating a very restricted diet, or they would be growing their own. This is not to say Canada does not have the ability to provide those things, it is just that our city folk have made it a point to buy from the USA to such an extent that our local supply has dried up. Our farmers have mostly switched to producing crops that do not require hand labour.

Because this has taken a couple generations developing, we how have far too few farmers and mostly older farmers, to even consider switching back to supplying the local market what it needs.

Our supermarket chains also made this happen, as local supermarkets could not source locally. The supermarket chain per se would buy al the food only from companies that could supply the whole chain.. rarely a Canadian farm organization.

While I own a farm in sight of a Canadian city, I would not even consider growing food for the local market. The fickle lot can just grow their own!  I will grow walnuts for the country and forget about local sourcing, because my local area is able to grow walnuts, not much of Canada can. Is that being nasty?