Today was a day of nothing much read the economist, it had an incredible article about organic food and "fair trade". Their points were in brief, organic food is terrible for the environment as it uses whole lot more land to produce the same amount food. Farmer's markets and local production might be worse for the environment after all which is worse full loaded trucks carting well packed food or lots of people making trips in their cars to pick up a salad?
Fair trade got the biggest hiding. In short the author felt Fair Trade is basically a tool supermarkets can use to add onto the price of good without passing much benefit onto farmers. According to the article usually only 10% or less of the extra cost is passed on so if you pay £ extra for a tin of coffee only 10p extra goes to the farmer and maybe 60p extra to the supermarket. Fair Trade is also in its simplest form a subsidy on production its effecting proper markets. For example coffee is overproduced so its too cheap however does giving handouts to farmers encourage them to diversify?
Obviously it is a much more complex issue and I have only briefly outlined some alternative arguments however its very interesting to look at the other side of the coin I think, I will definitely think twice next time I am in a supermarket.
This evening I headed out to the comedy night it was hilarious best one I have been to in ages even if I did get ripped into by the compare. Debra Jane Appelby was particularly funny she really got everyone laughing. There was also a dizzy blond women in the audience who was almost a comedy act in her own right!
Work in the morning 7am start for a software roll out so I better get to bed night night.
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