Empowering the Irish consumer
In Ireland food issues often hit the headlines for various reasons. These include food safety alerts such as the recent pork and beef dioxin crisis, health and lifestyle issues such as increasing obesity and the issues of paying almost the highest food prices in the world. Occasionally the voices of our farmers and fisher folk hit the airwaves and we catch a glimpse into their struggles to adapt to increasing liberalisation (and therefore competition on the domestic market) due to changing CAP - Common Agricultural Policy- and WTO regulations, safety scares, low supermarket buying prices, pressures on land and now decreasing domestic government subsidies due to the recession. As consumers we are also bombarded with labels such as organic, fat free, sustainable, fair trade, low GI, locally grown, low air miles and so on. There has been education on certain aspects our food consumption habits, but gaps persist and there is also confusion. Many can cite worthy environmental reasons why we should chose the 100-mile diet (eating food grown in a 100 mile radius), slow food, organic, vegetarian and so on, but can they relate that to the recent increase in hunger in the developing world or the Lisbon debate or to CAP reforms?
LASC feels that it is imperative to take a holistic, local/global perspective in examining our food choices and issues. While there is increasing information on healthy food choices, fair trade, buying organic and locally grown, education is needed on the wider perspective, that is, the effect of neoliberal globalisation on food systems world wide and how we in Ireland as well as those in the developing world are effected by macro level policy. Through LASC’s work with adults and the food movement, it is hoped that more people will have a clearer understanding of this local/global perspective on food.
