Moral Question(s) - Ethical Food Shopping

eamon

I've prepped some green beans for my dinner and on the packaging they were grown in Senegal. For me this poses some questions.

Why are we importing food from a Central African country and should I be buying & eating it?

and or

As it is already here if I (and enough others) don't buy it then it will surely in the short term end up as landfill this is apparently a bad thing?

I understand the economic and the consumer arguments put forward by the supermarkets, food importers/exporters, environmentalists etc. Upto now I have tended to boycott such products except for foodstuffs that can't be grown either seasonally and or for climatic/economic reasons in the UK and the wider EU.

I don't need to eat green beans in Winter but they were in the shop and I was weak. What then do other MSE'rs do when the they are faced with this kind of conundrum?

Look forward to any replies

Eamon

geordie_joe

eamon wrote: »

Why are we importing food from a Central African country

Because they have it and we want it

eamon wrote: »

and should I be buying & eating it?

Yes, import and export is what makes the country run. If we stop buying from "them" "they" will stop buying from us. We'd be stuck with just what we can grow/make ourselves. There would be a shortage of everything and prices would go through the roof.

bornintoit

geordie_joe wrote: »

Yes, import and export is what makes the country run. If we stop buying from "them" "they" will stop buying from us. We'd be stuck with just what we can grow/make ourselves. There would be a shortage of everything and prices would go through the roof.

Makes the country run? It's not that simple though as Britain currently has a trade deficit. We import more than we export so buying seasonal British produce and buying less imported produce should always be on the agenda.

stephen77

bornintoit wrote: »

Makes the country run? It's not that simple though as Britain currently has a trade deficit. We import more than we export so buying seasonal British produce and buying less imported produce should always be on the agenda.

Has the UK got enough land for food isolation policy though?
So while home grown is good, we are always going to have to go elsewhere for our food.

I am not going vegeterian. However I am not against genetically modified though.

geordie_joe

bornintoit wrote: »

Makes the country run? It's not that simple though as Britain currently has a trade deficit. We import more than we export so buying seasonal British produce and buying less imported produce should always be on the agenda.

OK, so the op hunts round and find british green beans and buys them.

One less pack of beans imported, and one less available for export.

So what difference does that make, we haven't imported one and we haven't got one to export, so the import/export balance stays the same.

However, according to the FT the deficit is cause by the high amount of chemicals and manufactured goods we import. How many packs of green beans should we not buy to make up for a washing machine, fridge freezer, TV etc.

Edwardia

With a population of 60 million, I very much doubt that the UK has enough land to be totally self sufficient. Also, things like coffee beans, bananas and soya beans won't grow in commercial quantities in our climate.

Evidently despite Sarkozy's comment that we have no industry, manufacturing is 17% of our GDP. However we just can't compete on prices with China.

I guess the answer to the Sengalese beans is to ask the question, do local people get a fair share of the wealth this crop is generating ?

bornintoit

stephen77 wrote: »

Has the UK got enough land for food isolation policy though?
So while home grown is good, we are always going to have to go elsewhere for our food.

I am not going vegeterian. However I am not against genetically modified though.

I didn't say never buy imported food but the OP is thinking alot more about buying more seasonal British produce which is a GOOD thing. Alot of people blindly buy say the cheapest apples which are imported from Poland instead of thinking about how that might affect British apple farmers, if I can buy British why would I buy Polish apples for the sake of 50p. Are my morals that low that I would support Polish farmers instead of our own? No.

geordie_joe

stephen77 wrote: »

Has the UK got enough land for food isolation policy though?

We probably have, but our diet would be severely restricted.

The green brigade like to shout about us importing 40% of the food we eat. They do it in the hope that we will think we import food because we have to, and it works.

But the real reasons why we import food are because it is cheaper and/or we can't produce it in this country. It's not because we would starve, or have 40% less food to eat if we didn't. It's because we want a greater variety of food and we want it as cheap as possible. We also don't want to stuff our faces with strawberries for a couple of weeks then have to wait 50 weeks for them to come into season again, we want to eat them all year round.


The fact is we export a heck of a lot of the food we produce, so we probably produce enough food to feed us.

stephen77 wrote: »

So while home grown is good, we are always going to have to go elsewhere for our food.

[/QUOTE]

I don't think we have to, but we do want to.

bornintoit

Edwardia wrote: »

Evidently despite Sarkozy's comment that we have no industry, manufacturing is 17% of our GDP. However we just can't compete on prices with China.?

Good point. I find it ironic that the middle classes in China want British made goods because of the British reputation for high quality while we buy cheap (normally) low quality Chinese products.

bornintoit

geordie_joe wrote: »

We probably have, but our diet would be severely restricted.

The green brigade like to shout about us importing 40% of the food we eat. They do it in the hope that we will think we import food because we have to, and it works.

But the real reasons why we import food are because it is cheaper and/or we can't produce it in this country. It's not because we would starve, or have 40% less food to eat if we didn't. It's because we want a greater variety of food and we want it as cheap as possible. We also don't want to stuff our faces with strawberries for a couple of weeks then have to wait 50 weeks for them to come into season again, we want to eat them all year round.


The fact is we export a heck of a lot of the food we produce, so we probably produce enough food to feed us.

I don't think we have to, but we do want to.[/QUOTE]

Now here is an honest man. He wants it on his plate regardless of moral consideration, he just wants it all year round and cheap. Personally I live by a different set of rules but each to their own.

stephen77

I think their is probably a catch 22 in buying british.

British is often more exspensive than foreign imports. As its more exspensive people can not afford it as much. Thus economy of scale can not help keep the price down. Till it is cheaper the masses stay away. Till the masses buy it, it will not become cheap.

Of course there are other reason such as climate, soil etc

Off on a tangent. - make prisoners work on the farm as part of their rehabilition for very little money