I’m a BIG believer in supporting the change makers of this world and also, personally living out the future that you want to see in the world. As in, living it out TODAY. As in NOW. As in, this very minute/second/millisecond/fleeting, momentary space in time. There’s no point in waiting for a ‘better’ tomorrow. Let’s face the law of logical sequencing in time; if you don’t make the changes today, there will be no results for you to see tomorrow. I think the odds are highly against us in experiencing a ‘Back to the Future‘ time warp. So if you want to see a better tomorrow, you better start making a better today for yourself.
Whoa Nelly! Where am I going with all this? Well, I saw this delightfully bright and vibrant infograph the other day and just had to share it with you. Psst… Infographs are totally like the new thing on the net ya’ll. They’re so cool right now. Cool like the latest version of the Apple iOS 7 kind of cool. Oh no, wait, what did I miss there?
Sadly though, colours and cute little pink piggies aside, it paints a very starking and realistic picture. Even though you may not be directly growing your own delicious fruit and vegetables or nurturing the dear little lambs from their mother’s teet, as a consumer, your decisions at the check-out have a ripple effect throughout the supply chain. If you truely believe in this whole notion of sustainable living, or whether you are just getting started, be aware and be accountable to the fact that your precious dollars are worth so much more than just the predefined dollar value stamped on the front. You work hard for your pennies, so don’t be so easy to hand it out freely to people who are not spending it in line with your own beliefs and truths.
When it comes to the conventional food supply chain (that is, factory farming as dipicted below), someone or something is suffering the real cost of food production. I’m often baffled when you can get a kilo of apples for 99 cents at some (undisclosed) supermarket and am left wondering who is making the money in the picture because it is most certainly NOT the farmer when they are only earning a few cents for their crop. The cost of food cannot be looked at in terms of just the price tag on the shelf. We must take responsibilty for our food production as consumers and factor in the external costs, such as the environmental impact, the influence of said foods on our own health, the implications of our shopping behaviours on our culture and the impact that all these decisions we make today will have on our future. And herein lies the age old debate between factory farming vs sustainable farming. It’s not just about what we are doing today. It’s about what we are doing today that will impact what we will be doing tomorrow.
My tip – Keep it simple. The closer you buy to the source, the less people there are dipping their greasy fingers into the pie. And who wants greasy,, double dipping, nose picking fingers that have been handling all those germ infested dollar bills slopping about in your Grandma’s delicious homemade apple pie??
When you have a farmer who supplies to a wholesaler, who then ships to a supermarket warehouse, that then gets transported to the supermarket branches and stacked on the shelves by the veggie boy, you have a lot more people to share the $$$ between and yet, the prices often do not reflect this. Someone is losing out. Even when everyone seems to be getting a cut, regardless if it even warrants to be called a cut, you’ll more than likely see the environment and your health suffering at the cost of these measily profits. So think outside of the little square conventional box that we’ve been told to politely and uncontestingly sit in ever since we were wee little lads and lasses.
When you buy straight from a farmer, those profits go straight to that farmer! Second best, support a local CSA or food co-op who give a majority of the profits back to the farmer. These initiatives often support the sustainable farming practices that I’m sure we all want to see in our future and that you can learn more about below:
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