William Moseley on SFGate.com condemns the locavore movement for hurting organic and fair-trade farmers in developing countries. It seems that supporting our neighbors is unfair to farmers in Chile and Africa who are depending on us.
Me, I'm prone to feeling liberal guilt. But it seems like some people are just plain greedy for that extra helping of it.
"Chile and Africa"
ReplyDeleteYou realize that "Africa" have 54 countries in it, so you can't really compare the continent of Africa to the country of Chile
People living in Africa are people, too. I guess compassion isn't your strongest point.
and either is my grammar, woops.
ReplyDeleteHi, Anonymous! Yes, I do realize Africa is a continent and Chile a country. I used 'Africa' because that's what the article to which I was referring used, and I used 'Chile' because that's where much of our summer-produce-in-winter comes from.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why my post made you think I'm lacking in compassion. Could you possibly expound?
Val
liberal guilt, non-locally grown by san fransiscans. i don't value that enough to import. we can grow our own liberal guilt here in Cincinnati, but let's be cautious about picking up weighty emotional baggage like that.
ReplyDeleteHi Valereee,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your site: I'm delighted to discover it. This is an interesting thread...
So many countries and villages in other locales seemed to have been better off before they became part of a global economy.
Pay attention to what's happening in our own communities, take care of one another,starting at home, I say. If we all did this we would be in a stronger position to send help overseas. Guilt not necessary at all!
Keep up the good dialogue.
Forget the guilt. It just doesn't make sense to ship locally available things across the world. It is a waste of resources, imports alien diseases and pets and hurts our local farmers. Buy locally.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, if they produce something we can't produce here, such as cocoa, then that makes sense to ship it. It's a luxury item. I don't need chocolate to survive, despite what I might like to think! :) However, we should still make sure that it isn't like blood diamonds - supporting terror, etc. To that end, let's stop importing oil. There's a luxury item that is promoting evil. Of course, we do have domestic supplies, just too much gluttony for the crude.