When Values are Sacrificed for “Value”

Once again a burgeoning food industry finds itself in a state of shock at yet another food scandal. In the aftermath we have the same old politics of blame and denial with consumer groups pointing the finger and the retailers and processors apportioning blame and expending vast amounts of money on damage limitation. Who is to blame? Who is at fault? We will inevitably identify some culprit and have our pound of flesh and then return to the buying choices and values that will comfort us until we encounter the next crisis.

If we look at all of the recent food scandals - BSE, Dioxins in pork and now burgergate - we have to acknowledge the common thread. All of these problems arise from producers and processors caught in a system where price is king and anything that brings down the price of your produce - even by a few cents - can mean the difference between survival and bankruptcy. The pressure on producers and processors may be applied by the retailers but it is demanded by the consumer.

People must ask themselves how burgers can be sold for €3 per kilo when factory prices for genuine beef are €4/kg? How do you produce a "twin pack" of chickens for €6 when the feed for one organic chicken costs almost as much. What are the practices and processes that bypass nature to achieve these prices?

The organic sector is not in the business of wringing its hands and pointing its finger at yet another failure in the race to the bottom with food quality and prices, far from it. We strive every day in the face of growing criticism from vested interests and big business to try to influence a market to act like a society. The organic sector has influenced many advances in the reduced use of pesticides, herbicides and improvements in animal welfare in the non-organic sector and we will continue to do this in tandem with extolling the myriad of benefits of the organic production system itself.

We recognise that in hard fiscal times it is difficult for many people to avoid the temptation of cheap food, but we have to ask ourselves - is it really cheap? The old adage that there is no such thing as a free lunch is very true and someone is paying for these artificially low prices. Organic food is not cheap – it never could be. To produce good healthy food with a limited impact on the environment requires hard work, time, high quality inputs and a rigorous certification system involving one (and in many cases two) on-site inspections annually. In terms of its 'true cost' though, organic food represents extremely good value for money.

The organic movement argues that we do not live in an economy - we live in a society. As citizens in a society we do not just have entitlements, we have responsibilities to our fellow citizens, our environment and the animals that inhabit it. If you are between 35 and 60 years of age, your parents spent a far higher proportion of even scarcer incomes on food than we do today. In fact if we reverted to the level of spend on food of our parents generation, we could all eat organic quite comfortably. It is also worth recognising that with far less sophisticated fridges and freezers, the amount of food thrown out by our parents was a mere fraction of the estimated 30% of all food purchases being thrown out today. Perhaps because food was a more valuable commodity then, people valued it more. We need to stop demanding value with a small v from our food industry and start to demand Values. Concern for animal welfare, a pride in the produce we make and a concern for the welfare of our customers. It can be done, the organic sector does it every day. The time has come for consumers to use their buying power to influence the market into producing sustainable, safe and healthy food, the choice is ours.

Increasingly, people want to know where their food is coming from and how it has been produced. Organic certification offers the ultimate in food traceability. Adulteration with any ingredients not permitted in the organic system or not indicated on the label is absolutely prohibited and the thorough inspection/certification regime (literally from farm to fork) to which organic producers are fully committed, gives consumers a level of trust unrivalled by any other label. This recent scandal yet again highlights how consumers can know very little about what's actually in our food and is another reason why people should seek out the organic label when purchasing food.

Source: HortiTrends News Room