Surely buying local food/produce would put foreign farmers out of business? Thats not very fair trade?!?

Question

We're always being encouraged not to purchase food and produce that has travelled miles before reaching our shelves, but if we all did this, then surely we would be putting the global farmers and traders who export their goods to us and slave away for their families out of business?

One minute i'm being told to buy fair trade to protect and help these farmers, and then i'm told not to buy from them at all!

What do i do?!

Answer 1

If everyone bought local, the farmers would do fine really. Be green...buy local.

Answer 2

The answer is - shop locally for everything you can (i.e meat vegetables, fruit) obviously we can't grow bananas in our climate or Tea & coffee - so buy them fairtrade!

Do the people in Spain, France, China etc not eat? It would not hurt their farmers. You have to support your local farmers & sod the big supermarkets who could not give a monkeys for the farmers!

Answer 3

You stop attempting to be a smart @rse, that's what you do.

Given how shafted UK farmers tend to get by supermarkets, I'd say fair is paying UK farmers decent money for their produce.

Sod farmers elsewhere. Look after our own first. Fairtrade is a great idea for giving people in developing countries a decent amount of cash for their produce; so is there any chance that someone will start a similar campaign for British farmers?

Answer 4

It is a good question,

but by reducing the demand for export cash crops the small farmers won't get dominated by big agro-business and can meet local demand.  western countries also need to stop dumping subsidised food that they can't sell at home.

It should be a win-win if the 8 global companies that dominate the food production and distribution loose some of their power.

Using the principles of permaculture design is a good test of what the "right" approach should be; and if you want to add in ethical dimension too then deep ecology can provide tools to work through issues http://www.webnb.btinternet.co.uk/deep.h...

Answer 5

buy both you won't gel local coffee or tea but you will get local meat i don't think its aimed just at farmers. but i would rather support the food that is just produced down the road that way i know it couldn't have come to much harm in stead of travelling hundreds of miles just my opinion

Answer 6

Telling me I cannot buy local food even if I want to is what would not be fair.

Answer 7

The point of buying locally-produced food is to help support your local economy (hence the word "local"). However, as has already been pointed out, there are simply some things that your immediate climate might not support - certain fruits, coffees, or vegetables. Yet, livestock can be raised almost anywhere, and most common fruits and veggies can be grown in nearly any climate or soil.

The point is to make wise consumer decisions. If you CAN buy locally, do - it will be a good move for you. You will save money, help out your local farmers, and you'll know exactly where your food came from and what went on it in terms of pesticides and fertilizers. However, if you can't buy locally for whatever reason, at least make sure that what you buy helps support organic farmers. There are literally millions of farms across the globe that rely on unscrupulous measures - whether it is a cattle farm where they overfeed the cows and slaughter them in ways that most would consider horribly cruel, or a huge organization that uses dangerous chemicals on its produce, even though they might be illegal (yes, this does still happen in some places) - and THESE are the sorts of farms that shouldn't still be in business! Their owners do not participate in fair trade because they don't care about the consumers, only how much cash they bring in.

Think, too, about WHY we're encouraged to consider the number of miles that our food has traveled to get to our plates: the cost of oil is skyrocketing, and that means that you're paying more for that food. On top of that, oil is a precious commodity - and when it's gone, it's gone FOREVER. There is absolutely NOTHING we can do to bring it back. Each mile you cut off of the distance your food had to travel to get to you is one more mile of oil that didn't have to be burned.

Do your research. Be a wise consumer. Buy organic, buy locally when you can.

Answer 8

Just recently someone told me that, "Fair doesn't mean everyone is treated the same, instead it means that each person is treated in a way that he or she will succeed."  Thank God, I would hate to think that I had to take insulin because it wouldn't be FAIR for me not to take it if someone else had to!

In this case - what is in the best interest of the consumer?  Whether or not foreign trade flourishes is not the issue.  Do you believe those countries would eat produce sent the same way from the US?

I am a firm believer that we can eat many meats,/proteins,and any fruits, vegetables, grains and dairy products (based on your body's ability to tolerate lactose).  

I also think we are slowly poisoning ourselves, promoting many illnesses and/or psychiatric conditions as a direct result of consuming steroids, preservatives, pesticides, etc. that are commonly used in mass produced foods.

The more we know about where our food comes from and how it was grown & raised - the healthier we can hope to be.  Organic local farming is a must for our country's health!

Answer 9

Thank you for asking such an interesting question.

There are lots of moral questions to be addressed when buying goods and particularly food.  Often the answers are not simple.

Generally speaking it is better to buy locally produced food because the resources used to transport food can be saved and put to better uses.  Oil is already beginning to run out and the wasteful burning of it in unnecessary transportation is also causing global warming.  However, in the UK, it is sometimes better to import tomatoes from Spain rather than buy hothouse tomatoes from the UK because heating the hothouse can use more fuel than transporting field tomatoes from Spain.  There are also products that can not be grown in the UK, so if you really want coffee there is no alternative to importing it.

Clearly, it is better that the goods you do buy from abroad are Fair Trade rather than not.  But that does not mean that all trade is a good thing.  Very often the goods imported from abroad are the sort of crops that make big money for a few but cause food shortages in the exporting countries.  Cane sugar is a good example.  Cut flowers are another.  If we cut back on such imports land will be more readily available for poor people to grow their own food instead of being reliant on poorly paid jobs or food aid.

In the developed world we have made a habit of using our wealth to buy food from poor countries that they need themselves.  Worse still, settlers from developed nations have grabbed the best land in order to make money out of this trade but only employ a handful of the people that used to farm that land themselves.  The industrial farming methods they have employed have often damaged the land so they are constantly grabbing more and this can involve forest clearance with further consequences for global warming.  Fair Trade certification helps to identify those farmers whose methods are better and reward them accordingly but most trade in food from poor nations adds to hunger in those countries.

My advice is to limit the range of goods you buy from abroad.  Farmers in the UK can supply all you really need and the exotic fruits, vegetables, flowers etc we have got used to are an indulgence that should be reserved for special occasions or not at all.  We need to be concerned about world hunger, the exploitation of workers and the damage to the environment that unnecessary food trade causes.

I hope this explanation will help you make choices with which you can feel comfortable.

Best wishes

Answer 10

I believe the way to go IS to buy locally, ethically and grow your own as a preference to buying from overseas. This way you are still contributing to others livelihoods, but you are supporting the businesses that are benefiting the planet and operating ethically. eg. buying solar panels and locally grown organic food. In this way 'good' businesses will grow, employ more people, and businesses that exploit the earth or people will phase out. I think part of what needs to be phased out is the incredibly inefficient 'global' way food is consumed so that people can have consumer choice and eat out of season produce all year round.

The low consumption, grow your own and environmentally friendly life is also CHEAPER. You are focusing on only buying what you need, buying long lasting products rather than cheap and nasty products, riding a bike instead of using a car, vegetable seeds are very cheap, solar hot water heaters pay for themselves after 4 years then after that you have free hot water etc.

The money you save from living like this can be put towards helping the people of impoverished nations in a meaningful way, such as donating to a charity like Oxfam that works with communities to become self-sustaining, grow their own food, promote fair trade and human and workers' rights. Find good charities/organistions that work effectively and don't waste all their money in administration. Or you don't need to work as much so with your spare time become an active member of an organisation that works to promote the values you care about. I believe this would have to be a more effective way of helping the world's poor than buying food they have been paid a few cents to harvest that has contaminated their local rivers.

People in these countries need to move away from the unfair system global free trade has brought about and focus on producing their own food and products for their own people.

There are a few products such as coffee and chocolate that foreign countries specialise in, and if you want to occasionally treat yourself to these products, buy fair trade. But if the product is being produced locally, especially where it is easier to find out if wages and enviro practices are decent, this is always better.

Answer 11

have you seen how much our farmers get for their stock/crops? so i think buying local is fair trade to local farmers

Answer 12

I try to buy from local farmers. If I can save a dollar then it's fair trade