This blog post is a little ‘off the point’ and I’ve written about ‘food miles’ before but I couldn’t help feeling my hackles rise yesterday when, whilst channel surfing, I saw Tamasin Day-Lewis, a TV cook and food writer on ‘BBC food’ mention the ‘horrible’ foods that are flown thousands of miles to UK at this time of year as ones to be avoided. To put this in context, she was referring to the months of January and February in England being pretty spartan for those trying to prepare local food that is ‘in season’, due to the fact that you can only grow ‘roots’ in these months. She said something along the lines of:
‘There is a strong urge at this time of year to go out and buy those horrible exotic fruits that have been flown thousands of miles to our supermarkets, as one is craving the acidity and taste of them – however, I am quite a puritan about this and try strongly to resist.’
Fair enough? I hear you say.
Also, A Telegraph weekend supplement article by Tessa Boase entitled ‘Shop of things to come’ pronounced ‘Food miles in general’ as ‘going down’ in 2008.
When my sister was staying with us over Christmas, she and her husband exclaimed, as we tucked into beautifully fresh green Kenyan beans at supper time:
‘How lovely, guilt free beans!’
When I asked her what she meant, she said that in England you feel too guilty to buy beans from Kenya, due to the miles they have been flown to get to the supermarket. They are not ‘environmentally friendly.’
Well, I wish people would stop feeling guilty about buying vegetables, flowers and fruits from Kenya and please BUY MORE!!
It seems so unfair that when, current crisis aside, around 60% of Kenya’s population live on less than a dollar a day, that so many people are boycotting their produce and thus doing them out of a livelihood! It seems that in the developed world, people are being brain washed to believe that buying ‘local produce’ is their major contribution to the prevention of global warming – but in fact they should be taking lessons from countries like Kenya who are world leaders in concepts of ‘recycling’ and ‘make do and mend’ and where comparatively people own so very few possessions.
The UN target for developed nations is to give 0.7% of their Gross National Product to developing countries in what they call ‘Development aid’ which is aimed at alleviating poverty in the long term (rather than given as short term humanitarian aid). The Norwegians are leaders in this giving almost 0.9%. In 2004 USA gave 0.16% of their GNP to developing countries, which although seems low as a percentage, was the largest worldwide contribution at $16 billion. The UK gave 0.36% of their GNP in the same year. In fact in the past three years the British Department for International Development has spent over $330 million in Kenya. This money is not given to directly to Governments as ‘budget support’ but they try to do what they call ‘targeted spending’ on projects linked to education, health care, HIV/Aids prevention etc. in developing countries (from what I understand).
I may be a layperson on this subject, but surely supporting economies in the developing world should be encouraged not shunned by people in the West otherwise how are, in this case, African economies ever going to grow?
I also asked my sister what she thought people in UK really felt about carbon emissions, global warming etc and whether they worried about it a lot?
‘Not really,’ she said ‘people switch off a light bulb or buy local produce and then they think that that is enough – they are not actually making serious changes to their lifestyles.’
Well I would argue that rather than feeling guilty when buying imported food and flowers from Kenya (which have been carefully and economically packed onto a freight plane using every available inch of space), please buy more Kenyan produce and do feel good about supporting the people in the developing world who have so little! Instead, why don’t you start feeling guilty about the quantity of stuff you throw in the bin, about the amount of plastic wrapping on everything and the frequent high street purchases that you really don’t actually need?
Food writers and the trendy foodies - please take note…
Thank you for this observation and challenge with regard to purchasing "green" and yet being mindful of the impact such choices have on those who lead lives far more environmentally-friendly than ours.
ReplyDeleteThe one caveat I would offer with regard to Kenya is that some of the producers who market their wares in Britain and elsewhere are commercial agricultural concerns. Some of their ties to political officials have led to some unjust land dealings with regard to small Kenyan farmers whose produce probably does not travel much farther than the local market.
And yet, these same commercial interests cannot be happy with the current state of turmoil in the country or the displacement of their labour force. So, I pray that they will exert tremendous pressure on the political players involved to bring about a peaceful resolution of this debacle, and that they will ultimate act with justice with regard to their employees and small Kenyan farmers.
Still, overall, I'm very grateful for your comments and observations.
Being a mzungu with family ties to East Africa let me mention, that unfortunately buying Kenyan products won't help the "60% of Kenya’s population live on less than a dollar a day". Only the privileged elite will profit the "tycoon" or "omugagga".
ReplyDelete10 years ago I was objecting my black friends arguing that by cheating a white they just "take back" of what has been stolen from Africa over a century. The deeper I went into researching on this topic the more I ran out of good arguments.
Maybe you like to read here:
http://www.zmag.org/CHOMSKY/year/
IMHO you are somewhat naive about the fact that Western conquest continues and who benefits from globalisation.
Cheers Matt
Thanks for posting this.
ReplyDeleteProduce can be equated in someways to the true natural handicraft, of which Westerners love to buy. IT is a craft to farm- that is why Westerners have moved away from farming.
And, now with the tourist agency dropping in Kenya, why not buy the beans to help these people out!
I talked about this on my blog too http://alaivani.com/Blog/tabid/56/EntryId/186/Default.aspx
Good point. "Buying locally" would break down a lot of the benefits of global trade, and has the impact of directly affecting the UK economy as well. What would happen to Scotland's Fishing industry if everyone in Europe decided to "buy local"?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I feel it's just a "trendy" thing to do.
Thanks very much for the comments. It seems like this post would be better as a discussion forum!
ReplyDeleteMzungu - I take your comments on board and realise that most of the agriculture for export in Kenyan is run by large corporations or 'the elite' - however I gather there are also successful co-operatives offering fair prices to smaller scale farmers?
I would also argue that buying Kenyan produce would ultimately help the '60% of Kenyans who live on less than a dollar a day' for the simple fact that they are in employment (albeit often casual) in this country where there is no government funded social security, or support network for the unemployed.
Sadly it will probably be '90% of Kenyans living on under a dollar a day' by the time this spate of post election violence has run its course.
I would add that the flower industry in Kenya uses up significantly less carbon credits than it does in Europe. It also - like fresh vegetables - requires a huge labour force, mostly, happily, women. Such industry might put millions into the hands of the already wealthy but it does help to generate local wealth - consider all the jua kali that mushrooms around large flower farms: the ladies selling cups of tea, mandazi, roasted maize. The picture is much, much bigger. And you're quite right: small scale farmers are being embraced by the industry, which can only be a good thing and even more environmentally sound.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe how hypocritical the so-called greenies in the UK are.
ReplyDeleteDo you know that the flowers and vegetables air-freighted from Kenya to the UK and other countries in Europe for a large part is shipped in the cargo holds of passenger planes?
The aircraft fly back to Europe on a return trip. On the trip out to Kenya they brought UK tourists and/or goods. This is about the UK selling goods to Kenya.
That the airline industry is maximising it’s performance by offering attractive airfreight rates to Kenyan exporters is actually improving carbon economy.
Of course there is an extra amount of fuel used to transport the goods, however the majority of fuel is used to keep the aircraft in the air, regardless of how much cargo is shipped.
So, by transporting extra cargo, the carbon emission per passenger on the plane will reduce and therefore makes it more viable to go on Holiday in Kenya.
And you are right, this creates an income for the Kenyan farmer, who on a per-capita basis emits far less carbon into the atmosphere than the UK citizen, and therefore it is justified.
It seems, too, that developing nations have been trying for 20 years to improve their economies through free trade. China did great, they figured out that their comparative advantage is in efficient labor and willingness to produce cheap crap. India found out its educated population is willing and able to sit in offices and do customer service support. Is this really the healthiest way to nurture a global economy? Buying local stimulates the growth of diverse economies. We haven't tried it yet on a wide enough scale to see what humanity is capable of if we focus our technological advances on taking care of ourselves and our neighbors - maybe Adam Smith's formula was necessary to cross-polinate until we developed the technology and communication capabilities that make local production of a lot of things more feasible. At an rate, food at least can be grown anywhere there's dirt, so it doesn't make sense to bank too heavily on a comparative advantage in a food product - that will always be true of agricultural exports.
ReplyDeleteJust a thought.