Supermarket Activism
Ethical consumption, this time of food.
How fair is your cup of Fairtrade coffee brew? The Economist doesn’t quite think highly of it:
"…the most cogent objection to Fairtrade is that it is an inefficient way to get money to poor producers. Retailers add their own enormous mark-ups to Fairtrade products and mislead consumers into thinking that all of the premium they are paying is passed on."
The same article lays out some criticism of the growing organic movement:
"…the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is “ridiculous” because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food."
This increasing mainstreaming of the organic food industry may not be all that good, as Businessweek revealed in its Oct 16 issue:
"As food companies scramble to find enough organically grown ingredients, they are inevitably forsaking the pastoral ethos that has defined the organic lifestyle. For some companies, it means keeping thousands of organic cows on industrial-scale feedlots. For others, the scarcity of organic ingredients mans looking as far afield as China, Sierra Leone, and Brazil — places where standards may be hard to enforce, workers’ wages and living conditions are a worry, and, say critics, increased farmland sometimes comes at a cost to the environment."
