I’ve just read a very interesting article in the Times that shows there are no simple right and wrong answers when it comes to a lot of environmental issues.

There is a lot of awareness at the moment about food miles; how we should be shopping for locally produced food and eating the food that’s currently in season, rather than contributing to the pollution created by shipping products half way round the world that could otherwise be produced locally. But this article does prove how we need to see the larger picture sometimes.

On the one hand we are campaigning for poverty relief for Africa, then often the same people are preaching about reducing air miles. Unfortunately the two don’t sit so well together sometimes. As organic farmers in Africa, many of whom rely on exports to richer countries such as the UK and Saudi Arabia, are at risk of going out of business. We should consider wider issues such as the amount of CO2 emitted in the production of crops, where the majority of UK farmers use machinery and carbon emitting tractors, whereas the average African farmer most likely has a much smaller carbon footprint. It’s a very difficult situation when you look at all the issues in a wider context.

If the organic farmers in Africa are then forced to abandon production of food for export will they have to resort to less eco friendly, intensive farming methods themselves? Or exploit the natural resources such as rainforest to make a living?

Well meaning consumers may be having the opposite of their desired effect. It’s the difficult job of the people who set policies to try and take a wider view of all the implications of their policies to ensure we don’t take one step forwards in raising public awareness of one issue and 2 steps back with the issues that really count.

Read the article in full and make up your own mind.