Dependency is a big one.
Members of the
U3A History Group
in Wisbech are
currently looking at the immediate post WWII years and all of us old enough to remember food rationing
and the dig for victory campaign must surely shudder at the
inherent fragility of
our modern food chain.
Knowing China is responsible for
80% of the world garlic
supply is frightening. Garlic is
an ingredient in so many of our foods, we have been told of its beneficial
antibacterial qualities and many of us eat far more of the stuff than we did
twenty years ago.
But
we also know that China has some of the lowest standards for pesticide and
herbicide use, and a poor record where enforcement of those standards is
concerned.
When we hear
how many people are
involved
in moving and packing our fruit
and veg we know the grower cannot be well rewarded. If Aldi, Asda, Tesco etc can sell a pack of
grapes for just one
pound, or less and still deliver profits to their shareholders someone has to
be the loser. Who are the
losers?
One chap speaking
on the programme stated that all of the movement of grapes around the world was
down to consumer
demand.
He stated that if supermarkets didn’t have a stock of grapes consumers would write letters asking why!
Really? Are there really ordinary
citizens prepared to sit and write
about such a shortage?
Possibly
those people would be better spending
their time lobbying for a “picked by date”
on every pack, rather that than eat 90 day old grapes. Because we can
preserve something
doesn't
necessarily mean we should preserve it. We know that plenty of
people retain their
good
looks, but the cells throughout their body are still ageing, they still die
however smooth the
outer
skin. Should we
wonder whether the nutritional value of those elderly grapes will be equal to a
fresh picked fruit?
There was a
passing reference to
Permaculture,
which is something I
am
familiar with having farmed that way
for 20 years.
The volume of
shipping involved in
this
global industry ought to concern us
all. If anyone needs convincing that slavery still exists they might want to think about the men at the
lowest ranks in the
merchant navy. They might
want to think about why we still have the charity 'The Mission to Seafarers’, which was
founded in 1836. Has
nothing changed since then? Churches worldwide still hold a ‘Sea Sunday' service,
where special prayers are
said, hymns are sung and a
collection taken to aid seamen. Ask why? Why in 2018 do the seamen that deliver
our foodstuffs need a charity handout?
When I was churchwarden I
colluded in the
organisation of this annual event, and we had a speaker from the Bunbury
seamen’s mission.
But
I asked - Why? I didn't like
the way shipping companies could
step away from their responsibilities and leave the welfare of their workers to charities. I still
don't. By
coincidence I received a communication this morning from another charity, StellaMaris
Why do we
allow it to continue?
We can hide behind the truth - that the ships will be registered
in countries not under our control, therefore we aren’t responsible. We can distance ourselves that way. But if we
eat the fruit and veg they deal with then we are responsible for their welfare. If we are wearing the cheap
clothing they transport, then we are culpable. There is no reason that anyone
need live in the way that many of these seamen do.
Our fresh food
chain is only possible because we
have gangs of poorly paid field workers,
poorly paid crews involved in
the transportation, and poorly paid retail workers stacking the shelves.
The next
programme in this series will
look at the financial aspects - I
can't wait !
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