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Think back to breakfast. Corn Flakes, milk, tea, sugar,
maybe some fruit? OK, now tell me where it all came from
- and I don't mean Tesco. Let me help: the corn in the
Corn Flakes was most likely from a genetically modified
source in the USA; the milk from somewhere in the EU;
tea and sugar produced under near slave labour conditions
in some remote far eastern state; and the fruit flown
in from a new plantation on former rain forest land in
Latin America.
Do
this for your other meals, your clothes, car, furniture,
and you just might start thinking again. The 'ecological
footprint' of Western buying patterns is out of all
proportion to our own resource base. It has been calculated
that if everyone on the planet consumed as we do in
the West, we'd need three Earths. London's needs can
only be met by a land area 40 times its own. And this
is as true for food as for anything else in this consumption
mountain. Our insatiable demand for out of season fruit
and vegetables can only be met by a mind-blowing global
infrastructure of growers and distributors. Heathrow
is now London's market garden (ironically, just like
it was when it was the village of Heath Row!). British
farmers are being told by their own meat marketing body
not to bother producing "commodity" meat,
as they will never compete with the overseas companies
shipping chicken from Thailand or pork from Brazil.
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