Why Should We Consume Fair Trade? “Her family earned 12,000 rupees per year – less than US$0.74 per day – through farming. That’s when her husband, Kistaiah, was alive” (Patel 74). After reading Raj Patel’s Stuffed and Starved, I had a revelation and I have never looked at supermarkets the same way again. This particular narrative relates the unfortunate story of Parvathi Masaya, a widow from a small rural town in India, trying her best to provide for her family while mourning her husband’s loss to suicide. On August 11, 2004, Kistaiah succumbed to the troubled world of farming. He sunk deeper and deeper in debt due to the loans he took from local loan sharks to acquire land but he barely made a dollar a day from farming it. Certainly, it could not cover the costs to provide for his family, let alone pay for the money he borrowed. So, he decided to end his suffering by ingesting highly toxic pesticide. Surely, Kistaiah and his family are not alone in experiencing this tragedy. Unfortunately, farmers worldwide are descending to this bleak reality of poverty, which can be traced as a direct result of corporate corruption. As consumers, we can take part in purchasing Fair Trade items and supporting non-profit organizations, to ensure that farmers earn what they deserve to move out of these impoverished conditions. Patel points out the truth behind the corporate food system that we as consumers overlook. The book stated that food retail corporations alone earned over US$4 trillion in 2009. With that, I realized the disheartening truth behind our global food system. Clearly, there is a great gap between the profits made by corporations and farmers. Most corporations act as the middlemen between the producers and consum... ... middle of paper ... ...ip allows the producers’ goods to reach buyers and other markets, opening doors to profit. A college student can even start a campaign on campus to build awareness and commit to social justice. Towns and congregations can also participate in building a team to advocate for Fair Trade. One can show their support for Fair Trade in a variety of ways. But in order to bring about big change, we should start by looking at ourselves and asking the question, “Why should I consume Fair Trade?” Works Cited "Coporate Corruption." The Economist (2012). Fair Trade USA: Every Purchase Matters. 13 02 2014 . Patel, Raj. Stuffed and Starved. Brooklyn: Melville House Publishing, 2012. Pesticides: Health and Safety. 13 02 2014 .
Moreover, this system of mass farming leads to single crop farms, which are ecologically unsafe, and the unnatural treatment of animals (Kingsolver 14). These facts are presented to force the reader to consider their own actions when purchasing their own food because of the huge economic impact that their purchases can have. Kingsolver demonstrates this impact by stating that “every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we
companies struggle to maintain their autonomy in the food chain and inform what kind of
Wright, L. T., & Heaton, S. (2006). Fair Trade marketing: an exploration through qualitative research. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 14(4), 411-426. doi:10.1080/09652540600948019
With regulations being set and laws enacted, the United States has seen a change for the better within the food industry and for the consumers overall. As a result, as much as a company is willing to cut on cost, without the consumers, every business in any industry will become bankrupt. The power is in the consumer and as long as consumers are educated properly and willing to speak up, there is a bright future ahead. However, because not everything can be seen, it is important to have books such as The Jungle and authors like Upton Sinclair to let people know what is going on and what not everyone is able to see. In doing so, this will raise awareness, create transparency and demand that companies practice ethically for the betterment of the
What’s the difference between a Walmart and a farmers’ market? What causes these differences? And, what are we more partial to? Tracie McMillan delves into the intricacies and complications of our nation’s food industry in The American Way of Eating. Specifically, as McMillan integrates herself into the farming and grocer/selling aspect of the industry, it is evident the food system has been extremely successful in offering ‘abundance, accessibility, and affordability’ to its consumers.
Wendell Berry, an environmental activist, cultural critic and a farmer tells consumers to eat “responsibly”. That consumers should realize that eating is an agricultural act. An act that gives us freedom. Meaning that every time we make choices about what we eat and who we purchase from, we are deciding what direction our food system moves. Berry states that to make a change we need to make individual choices to live free. “We cannot be free if our food its sources are controlled by someone else” (2). Berry argues that the average consumer buys available food without any question. That we depend on commercial suppliers, we are influence by advertisements we see on TV and that interfere with our food choices. We buy what other people wants us to buy. We have been controlled by the food industry, and regard eating as just something required for our survival. Berry want consumers to realize we should get an enjoyment from eating and that can only
In the documentary, Food Inc., we get an inside look at the secrets and horrors of the food industry. The director, Robert Kenner, argues that most Americans have no idea where their food comes from or what happens to it before they put it in their bodies. To him, this is a major issue and a great danger to society as a whole. One of the conclusions of this documentary is that we should not blindly trust the food companies, and we should ultimately be more concerned with what we are eating and feeding to our children. Through his investigations, he hopes to lift the veil from the hidden world of food.
The article highlights and includes the documentary Food, Inc., which exposes the inability of the profit system to provide safe and healthy food for the vast majority of the population. Eric Schlosser, investigating journalist, quotes, “The way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000.now our food is coming from enormous assembly lines where animals and the workers are being abused, and the food has become much more dangerous in ways that are deliberately hidden from us”. Schlosser also quotes, “Birds are now raised and slaughtered half the time they were 50 years ago, but now they’re twice as big”. He believes they not only changed the chicken, but they changed the farmer, implying that capitalism has taken the place for the need of small scale farming.
“Attention Whole Foods Shoppers” is an essay written by Robert Paarlberg for the May/June 2010 edition of Foreign Policy magazine. Foreign Policy was originally founded in 1970 with the intention of providing views on American foreign policy during the Vietnam war and does more or less of the same today. Paarlberg’s purpose in this essay is to convince an educated western audience that the Green Revolution was not a failure and improved life everywhere it took place, organic food having advantages over non-organic food is a myth, and the solution to food disparity is investing into agriculture modernization. With logos as the main mode of appeal, Paarlberg’s organization effectively sets up his points throughout the essay with consistently
Our current system of corporate-dominated, industrial-style farming might not resemble the old-fashioned farms of yore, but the modern method of raising food has been a surprisingly long time in the making. That's one of the astonishing revelations found in Christopher D. Cook's "Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis" (2004, 2006, The New Press), which explores in great detail the often unappealing, yet largely unseen, underbelly of today's food production and processing machine. While some of the material will be familiar to those who've read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or Eric Schlosser's "Fast-Food Nation," Cook's work provides many new insights for anyone who's concerned about how and what we eat,
The "Food/Challenge Corporate Abuse of Our Food." Corporate Accountability International. Stopcorporateabuse.org, 21 June 2013. Web. The Web.
Stuffed and Starved brings to light the uneven hourglass shape that exists within our world’s food system, and describes what factors contribute to these discrepancies. It begins with the decisions farmers are forced to make on the farm, and ends with the decisions the consumers are able to make at the grocery stores. The purpose of Stuffed and Starved was to describe what factors attribute to the hourglass shape of the food system. Author Raj Patel points out who is profiting and who is suffering in this system, and gives insight as to how the system may be improved.
There are many problems confronting our global food system. One of them is that the food is not distributed fairly or evenly in the world. According “The Last Bite Is The World’s Food System Collapsing?” by Bee Wilson, “we are producing more food—more grain, more meat, more fruits and vegetables—than ever before, more cheaply than ever before” (Wilson, 2008). Here we are, producing more and more affordable food. However, the World Bank recently announced that thirty-three countries are still famine and hungers as the food price are climbing. Wilson stated, “despite the current food crisis, last year’s worldwide grain harvest was colossal, five per cent above the previous year’s” (Wilson, 2008). This statement support that the food is not distributed evenly. The food production actually increased but people are still in hunger and malnutrition. If the food were evenly distributed, this famine problem would’ve been not a problem. Wilson added, “the food economy has created a system in w...
We live in an age in which we have come to expect everything to be instantaneously at our fingertips. We live in an age of instant coffee, instant tea, and even instant mashed potatoes. We can walk down the street at 5 in the morning and get a gallon of milk or even a weeks worth of groceries at our discretion. Even though it is great that food is now readily available at all times, this convenience comes at a price, for both the producer and the consumer. Farmers are cheated out of money and are slaves to big business, workers and animals are mistreated. And, because food now comes at a low cost, it has become cheaper quality and therefore potentially dangerous to the consumer’s health. These problems surrounding the ethics and the procedures of the instantaneous food system are left unchanged due to the obliviousness of the consumers and the dollar signs in the eyes of the government and big business. The problem begins with the mistreatment and exploitation of farmers.
Fair Trade is a simple idea that improves the living and working conditions of small farmers and workers. The Fair Trade movement promotes the standards for fair labor conditions, fair pricing, direct trade, environmentalism, social policy, and community development. Businesses wishing to adopt Fair Trade practices have to purchase certification licenses, which then leads to Fair Trade Labeling Organization (FLO) sending representatives to the farms from which the products are purchased and ensures that the farmers adhere to the procedures outlined in the Fair Trade standards. Products marked by the Fair Trade label contain 100% Fair Trade certified contents. Buying Fair Trade Certified products, consumers are helping the lives of famers out of poverty through investments in their farms/communities, protecting the environment, and developing the business skills for trading. The practice of Fair Trading a good way to not only help cause awareness but also improve the lives of the workers.