Status-Q

A couple of months ago I wrote about our gradual shift towards locally-produced organic food. Lest we become too smug, though, the Economist has a special report this week which points out that things are never as straightforward as they seem.

The first topic is organic food. “Not everyone agrees that organic farming is better for the environment”, we are told. Norman Borlaug, the father of the �green revolution� and winner of the Nobel peace prize is an outspoken advocate of the use of synthetic fertilisers to increase crop yields:

He claims the idea that organic farming is better for the environment is �ridiculous� because organic farming produces lower yields and therefore requires more land under cultivation to produce the same amount of food. Thanks to synthetic fertilisers, Mr Borlaug points out, global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used increased by only 10%. Using traditional techniques such as crop rotation, compost and manure to supply the soil with nitrogen and other minerals would have required a tripling of the area under cultivation. The more intensively you farm, Mr Borlaug contends, the more room you have left for rainforest.

In most areas it’s perhaps a little facile to suggest that there’s a simple swap of rainforest for organic farming, and one could argue that it might otherwise have been swapped for worse things, but it is a point worth considering.

Still, maybe we should focus more on Fairtrade produce?

Fairtrade farmers receive a minimum of $1.26 per pound for their coffee, or $0.05 above the market price if it exceeds that floor. This premium is passed back to the producers to spend on development programmes … Who could object to that?

Economists, for a start. The standard economic argument against Fairtrade goes like this: the low price of commodities such as coffee is due to overproduction, and ought to be a signal to producers to switch to growing other crops. Paying a guaranteed Fairtrade premium � in effect, a subsidy � both prevents this signal from getting through and, by raising the average price paid for coffee, encourages more producers to enter the market. This then drives down the price of non-Fairtrade coffee even further, making non-Fairtrade farmers poorer.

And while it’s true that a larger compensation does get back to the producer of Fairtrade goods,

…retailers add their own enormous mark-ups to Fairtrade products and mislead consumers into thinking that all of the premium they are paying is passed on. Mr Harford calculates that only 10% of the premium paid for Fairtrade coffee in a coffee bar trickles down to the producer. Fairtrade coffee, like the organic produce sold in supermarkets, is used by retailers as a means of identifying price-insensitive consumers who will pay more, he says.

Sigh. Still, at least there can’t be much complaint against buying from local producers?

Research carried out at Lincoln University in New Zealand found that producing dairy products, lamb, apples and onions in that country and shipping them to Britain used less energy overall than producing them in Britain. (Farming and processing in New Zealand is much less energy intensive.)

and

… a shift towards a local food system, and away from a supermarket-based food system, with its central distribution depots, lean supply chains and big, full trucks, might actually increase the number of food-vehicle miles being travelled locally, because things would move around in a larger number of smaller, less efficiently packed vehicles.

See what I mean? You can’t win.

So I’m going to start a new trend. It’s called Consumption Diversity. All methods of food production and distribution have some good effects and some bad ones. But they’re different for each method. The trick is to avoid a monoculture where all the bad bits happen to the same group of people, or damage the same part of the environment.

So we should get some of our food from organic producers to protect the bugs and the fishes, and some from non-organic to protect the rainforests. Some via Fairtrade to reduce exploitation, and some via regular market forces for its balancing effect. And so on. Does that sound like you? Congratulations! You’re a Diverse Consumer! Wear your badge with pride…

Ever feel the need for a new font or two? I’ve just discovered Abstract Fonts – a wonderful resource. How come I didn’t know about this before?

From John’s Observer column:

I can look at someone’s PC and generally infer from the pattern of folders and files on the disk when they first started using computers. The clue is that older users tend to have orderly filing habits. They also tend to cull old or temporary files, and are more wary of accepting large downloads. Why? Because when they first started using computers, disk space was scarce (and therefore expensive and precious); the same applied to connection bandwidth.

When I started at the Olivetti Research Lab back in 1996, the topic of ‘how many hours people actually worked’ came up in conversation one day.

“Here”, I was told, “you aren’t judged by the number of hours you work. You’re judged by what you produce.”

It was a very good philosophy, and I’ve tried to adopt it in more recent years with people who have worked for me. The hours were flexible, and the number of hours were also flexible. (The unspoken, but understood, corollary was that simply turning up at your desk each day for a certain amount of time wasn’t enough. You had to be productive, and people who weren’t would sometimes be encouraged to pursue their careers elsewhere.)

That was 10 years ago, and it’s much more common now. It’s a bit surprising, though, to see a company like Best Buy wholeheartedly endorsing this approach, as described in this BusinessWeek article. Excerpt:

The endeavor, called ROWE, for “results-only work environment,” seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours….

Since the program’s implementation, average voluntary turnover has fallen drastically…

Meanwhile, Best Buy notes that productivity is up an average 35% in departments that have switched to ROWE.

Thanks to Claes-Frederik for the link.

Tom Coates points out that we’re getting pretty close to two US dollars to the pound again. Better buy Christmas presents from Amazon.com rather than from Amazon.co.uk….