John Redwood on Fair Trade and the Environment
Posted by John Redwood, MP for Wokingham, at 16:04, Fri 23 February 2007:
There is a danger that the two strongest international campaigns that attract support in Wokingham are on a collision course. Most of us both want to help clean up the planet and help the poor of the world get out of poverty.
The campaigners against world poverty have rightly told us that encouraging more and fairer trade is the best way to help the dispossessed. If you meet a man close to starvation and give him some vegetables, you can assuage his hunger that day, but you need to give him more the following day. He becomes entirely dependent on you. If you teach him to grow vegetables for himself and help him irrigate his land he can fend for himself. If you teach his neighbours as well, they may be able to grow enough between them to have some to sell on world markets. Then they have the money to buy the other things they need to farm successfully and to enjoy a better life.
Unfortunately most of the world’s poorest countries are many thousand of miles away from the rich markets of Europe and North America. Exotic perishable produce is flown in for sale, whilst the rest is shipped by sea. Those who worry most about carbon emissions cry foul, condemning the air miles behind the average dinner party and the total food miles on the supermarket shelves.
I am glad this dilemma is not deterring Wokingham’s fair traders. They will be proclaiming their movement’s good ideas from 26 February in Fair Trade fortnight, laying on festivals in the centres of Woodley(March 3) and Wokingham(March 10) and a feast in the St Pauls Parish rooms on March 3rd. I think they are right to remind us all that we can directly help get people out of poverty in Africa and Asia by buying from among the wide range of fruits, vegetables and beverages that are on offer under the Fair Trade logo.
It would be wrong to use the transport problems as an excuse not to buy agricultural products from the world’s poorest areas. We do need to work away at improving the fuel efficiency of the ships and lorries that bring most of the produce, and cutting back the amount coming in by plane. We can also substitute more local produce for produce trucked from elsewhere in the European Union along busy and congested roads so we do make some impact on the total food miles.
It lies in our hands to do this. We can see from the labels where the food has come from. The Fair Trade logo is only awarded to products where the farmers get a better deal from the transaction. I find checking labels is now an important part of shopping, as you weigh up the contents and the origins. We each have to do our bit to reconcile the conflicting pressures, by choosing the balance we think it right for us.
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