Sunday, May 17, 2009

HOMEWORK 18/05/09

How exactly do our choices of food purchases affect the food system?

4 comments:

  1. Well I think, that the price is rising as long as the demand is high. And as long as someone having a lower price then you, it's hard to sell your things. Today everybodys is looking for cheap goods. For example in Germany the price for milk is so low, that the farmers can't live because of its gain. But in Europe there are enough farmers which are supported by the European Union so that a cheap milk price is possible. Some months ago they tried to sell “fair milk“ but it just worked for a while. It's the same with products of GEPA. They also try to make a fair trade but only a few people exist who really believe in it and participate in it by buying fair trade products. As long as the majority want to have cheap foods the price will be as cheap as possible and farmers have to live near the poverty line.

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  2. To be honest I don't quite understand what Alex's comment should have to do with the food system. However, I even don't really understand the food system. Why is there no direct connection between non-organic food and not local food? Does that mean that non-organic food is just produced locally? This can't be right, can't it?! Apart from that, I can see the connection between organic food and not local food. The demand of organic food has been increasing very fast in the past few years because of the "healthy-life-trend" having come up in Germany. As a reaction of that there had to be more organic food in the stores and meanwhile one third of our organic food is not locally produced. This raises the question if it's THAT healthy for us to eat organic food. On one hand we're protecting ourselves from cancer and other afflictions possibly being caused by pesticides from non-organic food. On the other hand we're supporting the destruction of the ozone layer
    through the transport of organic food from all over the world to our country. A destroyed ozone layer means that the dangerous UV radiation is more aggressive and increases the possibility of getting skin cancer.

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  3. If one person changes his food purchase it wouldn´t change anything of course. Buying local products would be good for our farmers and less not local and not local organic products would be imported. A lot of local farmers sell organic products with a high quality. In my opinion it is a little bit paradoxial to buy imported organic food for your own health and cause at the same time other problems like Tini already mentioned. In the end if you buy non organic or organic imported food is equal in connection with the system. The main difference is between buying local or not local products . But Alex is right when he says that everything won´t help as long as people are offered choices

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  4. Well, I think that my first comment doesn't really reference to the chart but the point of the demand of cheap goods participate in the topic. Cause its one reason why we import organic poducts to Germany. Another reason is of course that we just don't have the space to produce so many organic vegetables. Tini is right by saying that the carbon dioxide destroying our environment but in a egoistic way of thinking, the health of the organic food is higher for us at the moment then the bad influence of the ozon layer. This will first be a bigger problem in the future. I don't want to say that I'm thinking that way. It's just another view! I don't buy any organic foods on purpose cause I think that our body is influenced by so many harmful malefactors and we never know whether the organic food is really as good as its said. In some years a scientist will say that organic food is as good as the “normal“ food like it has been with asbetos or CFC. The people first thought that's the best way but then they realize how bad it really was. So stop buying organic food, help to stop global warming and support local farmers.

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