Buying strictly organic or choosing only Fairtrade is not as ethically clean as it seems, writes Hugo Arnold.
THIS MONTH is hardly a focus for political activity, yet as we leave behind a season of feasting and celebrating, most of us are making more political decisions than we realise. Whatever about the flavour, buying organic carrots is a vote for fewer pesticides, richer soil, cleaner water and a better environment. Or is it? When we shop, we are expressing a broad range of opinions about lots of things that have little to do with flavour. Concerned about the environment? Buy organic. Worried about the welfare of poor, downtrodden farmers? Buy Fairtrade. Anti modern corporate culture and the rising tide of globalisation? Buy local produce.
Unfortunately, things are not quite that simple. Organic food, grown without the use of manufactured pesticides and fertilisers, is generally assumed to be more kind to the environment than intensive, chemically dependent modern farming. Yet it depends on what you mean by more kind.
When it comes to the environment, farming is a pretty horrendous activity, made possible only by destroying acres of forest over the last 11,000 years. It wasn't until the 1960s that the advent of chemical fertilisers enabled grain-growing to triple production with only a marginal increase in the use of land. If we tried to produce this using organic methods, there would be very little rainforest left.
As for Fairtrade, the idea is that we consumers spend a little more in the belief that the farmer producing the coffee or cocoa beans gets a little more money. This propping up of commodity prices, however, flies in the face of the reality of a world where overproduction is driving prices down. There is an argument that by paying more we only encourage more farmers to produce these crops when prices are bound to fall.
Couple this with the fact that only a small proportion of the extra we pay actually reaches the farmer and you have, at the very least, a problematic equation.
And as for buying local food, the argument surely is clear-cut. Lower food miles, less carbon emissions, a better environment. Yet studies have shown that around half of food-vehicle-miles are gobbled up as we head to the shops. As most of us live closer to a supermarket than local producers, it makes far more sense to chase a well-packed articulated lorry belonging to one of the big supermarkets.
Lamb produced in New Zealand and shipped to the UK has been shown to use less energy because farming lamb in the southern hemisphere is less intensive. And buying local contradicts the aims of Fairtrade, which is largely based on the idea of rich countries buying poorer countries' produce.
The reality is that complex issues such as carbon emissions need to be brought into the pricing mechanism and the systems of subsidies and tariffs - like the common agricultural policy which benefits rich farmers and price those in poorer countries out of the lucrative European market - need to be reformed to allow for a level playing field.
I think of these issues every time I shop. It is not just about whether I am buying Irish beef, chicken, lamb or responsibly caught Irish fish, but where has the spinach come from; who pulled those carrots; and why can I not seem to get my hands on a beautiful Irish apple, pear or quince when this is the season for those delicious treats?
Looking behind the label is very difficult. Maybe this is the big win in all this increasing politicisation of food. Label language is a nightmare of symbols and double-speak. What we should be told is more about who, where and how. Transparency may be a big word, but there is not a lot of it evident in the complex world of getting our food on to a plate.