Unfortunately not an interesting app game, sorry to disappoint. This is following on from my last post about markets and supermarkets, here is an interesting article about the relationship between supermarkets and the farmers that supply them, it’s from 2011 but I don’t suppose things have changed too much:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jul/02/british-farmers-supermarket-price-wars
Pretty damning. Chilling even. The supermarkets which have made themselves indispensible to modern lives appear to be crushing the life out of UK farming. I find it deeply worrying personally. We need farmers, really need them.
We’ve all got used to being able to eat out of season. Fresh strawberries in December, green beans all year around. Without importing produce, we wouldn’t enjoy bananas, tropical pineapples or the other million and one things we take for granted. Imported produce obviously has it’s place in the market but what would happen if we ended up importing almost everything?
I stumbled into a frozen goods shop and bought some of their Sticky Chicken Skewers. They were pleasant enough. I read the packet and the chicken was imported from China. The reason for this I assume is cost. How can it be cheaper to fly chicken most of the way around the world rather than using British chicken? I also assume that China has little to no minimum standards of welfare for chicken or the people who work in the factories, driving down the cost. In terms of carbon footprints and global warming, it’s terrible. This must be happening within other companies too. (FYI: sticky chicken is easy to make. 3 tablespoons each of soy sauce, runny honey and balsamic vinegar. I bung a pinch of chinese 5 spice in too just for extra taste. This does around 500g of chicken and you can scale it up if you want more sauce. Marinade overnight, you won’t be disappointed).
While there may be flaws within farming practices, it seems a real shame that farmers are being crushed by the supermarket juggernauts. It’s an aim of mine to eat fresh and eat local, if not local than British as much as possible. Again, supermarkets have their place but I think they are taking over too much. Will it ever go full circle?