This week's The Economist had an interesting article about ethical food and whether or not it's really ethical. Overall ethical food products consist of three groups; organic foods (save the environment), Fairtrade products (save the poor farmer in some 3rd world country) and local products (support local farmers).
The article suggested that producing organic food is less efficient and in order to produce the same amount of food by organic methods than what is produced right now with more efficient methods would require us to just about eliminate the rainforests; that much land is needed. Fairtrade products in turn help drive down the prices of a market that is already overflooded with goods and gives the 3rd world farmers the message that instead of diversifying, they can make a buck by driving the supply up and prices down even more. And buying local products in turn hurts the 3rd world farmer by disregarding his goods and then the environment because producing lamb in Britian takes more effort and resources than doing so in New Zealand and just transporting it the Britain.
Overall this just goes to prove that nothing is black and white anymore. Grey is, has and will be the trend for the next century.
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