Saturday, January 01, 2005

Buying Fruit and Veg - further information

Friends of the Earth give some criteria for buying fruit and veg (and other food). They are that food should be (a) seasonal, (b) local, (c) pesticide free, (d) not GM, (e) fair trade and (f) good for wildlife.

(a) I have absolutely no idea what is in season when. I have found a couple of sites that can help me out but, surprisingly, it wasn't easy. I do think that this flags up the education problem - it's all very well telling us to eat seasonally but most of us are no longer involved with farming and haven't got a clue when we should eat certain things. The lovely Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's site is the best that I've come across and you can click on the seasonality link to get more information.

(b) There are two types of local meant here, I think. One is try and source your produce from a local producer and the other is to buy from your local independent retailer, as opposed to a supermarket. I'm not sure why it is necessarily better to buy from my local greengrocer rather than the supermarket. FoE tells me that it's better to keep the money in the local economy as supermarkets may not even be British owned. I'm not sure how much of a factor that is for me as presumably supermarkets also have to pay local taxes. They do generally seem to be perceived as evil things that are doing their suppliers out of a fair deal. On the other hand, we all continue to use them and they do seem to be pretty responsive to customer pressure.

Buying locally sourced goods is also not always easy but it is easy to see the benefit. Flying apples from New Zealand just doesn't make sense when we are perfectly able to grow them ourselves. Not only will they not be as tasty, having been treated in some way so that they last the journey but that journey will have contributed to the CO2 in the atmosphere. The most straightforward way that I have come across to buy locally produced fruit and veg is to visit your local Farmers' Market, if you're lucky enough to have one nearby. If that link doesn't list any markets near you then try your local tourist information office.

Alternatively, try one of the organic fruit and veg box schemes. Box schemes don't always give you the choice of what fruit and vegetables you'll be getting but you can be sure that they are locally produced and organic. I do think there's an issue with the fact that they deliver direct to your home and thus add to the traffic congestion and air pollution. However, some companies seem to have set delivery times by location to counter this.

If you can't be bothered to go through the Soil Assocation link then here's a few companies that do box schemes in London and nationwide.

Abel & Cole - full service to London, Home Counties & towns in South & West England. Partial service UK Wide.

Organics 4 U
- UK Wide

Fair Organics - Essex & surrounding area, plus partial service UK wide

A Lot of Organics has an easily accessible list of box schemes nationwide and locally, which saves me some time in copying out websites.

(c) The Soil Association has definitive information on just why it's important to buy organic produce. They also have an organic directory. It is free to use but you have to register. I used this to find my local box scheme.

(d) I have been careful not to buy GM food. Not particularly from any health fears that I may have but more from a concern that it seems to be something that has appeared quite quickly and is being trialed out in the open already. I am rather worried that putting some of these crops into the environment like this will have long-term implications that we just can't be aware of yet. Considering the number of failed introductions around the world (cane toads in Australia, carnivorous snails in Polynesia) it seems to me that we have learnt nothing from previous environmental disasters. It is the lack of caution that worries me.

The Soil Association has information about GM products, as does FoE. For the government stance have a look at this site.

(e) I find fair trade a tricky topic. I absolutely agree that producers in developing countries should be paid a fair price for their produce and that our desire for cheap and exotic food should not result in some people having a poor quality of life. However, there are problems with transporting food from far away places. There doesn't seem to be an agreed answer to this. On the one hand our desire for exotic, cheap food is distorting markets, increasing CO2 emissions and ruining the lives of developing world famers. On the other hand, shouldn't someone buy the goods that Kenya or the Caribbean produce. They have as much of a right to compete in the world economy. Isn't there some benefit to them of having these developed world markets? Have a look at these sites for further information:

Measuring food by the mile

Globalisation's Cruel Smokescreen

I'll update this and republish as I come across further information.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for the HFW link, I've been looking everywhere for information on what is seasonal or not in the UK.

Not as easy as you'd think.

Now... update your BOLG!

Lucy Fenton said...

You're welcome.

Yes, this is a sadly neglected blog.

I am hoping to get back to it but I got rather carried away on each separate post and it was taking up too much time. I didn't want to do a half-arsed job and so gave up altogether. From perfectionist to defeatist in one short step.

Will try and update. I promise!

Lucy