Moral Question(s) - Ethical Food Shopping

Edwardia

I agree stephen77, just thinking about prawns, smoked salmon, sea bass and venison.

Once upon a time they were a luxury and now all of these are farmed - prawns in the Far East, salmon in Scotland and Norway, sea bass in Greece and venison in New Zealand. Farming them makes them accessible and the price drops. I don't know about the venison but there are some dubious aquaculture methods of rearing the fish and seafood.

bramble1

stephen77 wrote: »

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

Farmers need hard workers who want to be there. My OH would not want prisoners whom he can't trust working with expensive/dangerous machinery. Not to mention the 12/14 hour days they do in the summer, we need young people to become interested in farming in Britain, not make it job that only scum do because they have to.

stephen77

bramble1 wrote: »

Farmers need hard workers who want to be there. My OH would not want prisoners whom he can't trust working with expensive/dangerous machinery. Not to mention the 12/14 hour days they do in the summer, we need young people to become interested in farming in Britain, not make it job that only scum do because they have to.

How do we get people interested in working very hard for little money? (if I knew the answer I would be rich )

There are many jobs like pea picking that is just intesive labour. Did it for a few weeks as summer job while a student. It was pretty easy just boaring. Though if you like being out in the sun you could get a tan as well.
This would be suitable for many people. Just get better pay working else where. However I did this before min wage came into play so may be different.

bramble1

stephen77 wrote: »

How do we get people interested in working very hard for little money? (if I knew the answer I would be rich )

There are many jobs like pea picking that is just intesive labour. Did it for a few weeks as summer job while a student. It was pretty easy just boaring. Though if you like being out in the sun you could get a tan as well.
This would be suitable for many people. Just get better pay working else where. However I did this before min wage came into play so may be different.

I've yet to meet a poor farmer..

Yeah there are labour intensive jobs but how about making people work for their benefits doing those jobs? Bet they would find alternative employment pretty quickly then!!

sooty&sweep

Hi

To be honest I don't have a problem with buying imported beand when you can't get british ones as they are out of season.

I have more of a problem with buying imported when there are English equivalents also readily available. For example apples & pork. To my simple mind by buying home produced I keep my money in this country rather than going into another country. So more money circulating within our country.
Alot of people criticise France because they are so protectionist but they support their own producers over imports which to me is a good thing.
Don't mis understand I'm not opposed to imports just when we've got the same readily available already here.

Jen

stephen77

bramble1 wrote: »

I've yet to meet a poor farmer..

Yeah there are labour intensive jobs but how about making people work for their benefits doing those jobs? Bet they would find alternative employment pretty quickly then!!

I do not disagree with getting people to work instead of benefits. I am not a politician so am the wrong person to implement this change.

However probably best to keep on orignal question as this can be another thread.

stephen77

Over the last few years lots of supermarkets have increased the amount of britishness products on their shelves as a selling point. Most will flag it up.
Not sure how this has effected sales and profits for the supermarkets and the supply change. I just know it normally costs more for british especially compared to the likes of brazilian and thia chicken etc.

stephen77

Shall i have my parma ham, gorgonzola and champange for dinner?

Or my Melton mowbray pork pie, cornish pasty and stilton?

moggylover

Could we feed ourselves in the UK? I think quite probably we could (apart from the things that our climate will not produce) if we just stopped being so wasteful!

Every year vegetables are plowed back into the ground because they are too small/too large/the wrong shape or just over abundant this year (because over abundance would mean you couldn't charge so much for them). Every year, gallons of milk is either fed to the pigs or washed down drains, because the farmer has gone over-quota. Every year, lots of cuts from animals killed for our consumption are thrown away (especially offal) or go to animal feed because people have become spectacularly picky about which bits of the animal that died to feed them they will and will not eat.

As to "ethical" trade: I don't believe it actually exists unless you pop along to the smallholder down the road from you and he gets all the money for producing it because our markets are dependant upon far too many middle men who all take more than the producer gets, and all rip the consumer for as much as they think "the market can take" and not a fair market price.

Edwardia

More fish gets discarded in the North Sea than caught so I joined Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Fish Fight https://www.fishfight.net I try to choose sustainable fish and it seems like supermarkets are offering them now BUT I bet if it takes off fish like sardines and pouting will cease to be cheap. Years ago, according to my mother, monkfish was cheap and coley (saithe) only for cats !