A Grain of Salt Goes a Long Way
This week’s Economist has an interesting cover story called “Why Ethical Food Harms the Planet,” which should be required reading for everybody who thinks places like ThreeSixty Organic Grocery (”making the world better one bite at a time”) are a good idea. “Can you really change the world just by buying certain foods,” the article asks. Yes, but you’re changing it for the worse.
First off, is organic - i.e. produced without synthetic pesticides and fertilizer - food better for the environment? No, because organic farming produces lower yields and (a) requires more land for the same amount of food, and (b) requires more energy per tonne of food produced. Moreover, there is no evidence that organic food is nutritionally superior to conventional food.
Second, is Fairtrade - paying coffee farmers, for instance, “fair” (above market) price for their coffee providing they meet certain labor and production guidelines - good for farmers? No again: (a) Fairtrade actually encourages overproduction. This drives down the price of coffee for non-Fairtrade farmers, making them poorer. It also discourages farmers from diversifying their crops. (b) Guaranteeing a minimum price also removes the incentive to improve quality. Finally, and this is where consumers should sit up and take note, (c) it misleads customers and is an extremely inefficient way to get money to producers. 90% of the price premium goes to the retailer. In his most excellent The Undercover Economist Tim Harford explains that retailers use the organic and Fairtrade price premium to identify price-insensitive customers and gouge them accordingly. I got at least that far into the book.
Third, is the “local is the new organic” movement in Britain. This doesn’t seem that relevant in this part of the world, but let’s touch on it anyway. Folk in Britain are now buying direct from local producers, cutting out the middlemen and large parts of the distribution chain. It’s a sweet idea, but shifting food distribution away from central depots like supermarkets actually uses more energy, produces more gas emissions, harms producers in the developing world, etc.
The full story is here.
So next time you’re tempted to pay HK$ 40 for a stalk of organic broccoli, remember that organic food is a US$ 30 billion dollar industry - they can afford PR, brand-building, marketing pushes, lobby groups, etc - they’re probably doing more harm than good, and they’re pontificating all the way to the bank. Not laughing, because everyone knows they have no sense of humor.
Was this very intelligent and informative post a reaction to Papa’s comment on your last post? (Which, by the way, I loved. The post, not the comment.)
Papa: My very cute outfits are very cute. I promise. Oh, and TURN ON YOUR BLOODY PHONE!
[…] Apropos of our earlier post on whole fair trade and organic food , here’s a quote from a short piece in the New York Times that sums up the idiocy of the whole movement: Amid the wine bars and boutiques that line Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, Jonathan Coulton, 36, a musician wearing black rectangular glasses, was hunched over a laptop at Gorilla Coffee, where a blackboard proclaims all its coffees are fair trade. It “makes you feel like you’re doing something good just by drinking a cup,” he said. […]