Ha! I wish I would have thought of that before I posted the article. Hmm, I guess I could still change the title…

“Should we, as environmentally conscious consumers, dictate to the farmers of Belize whether or not they can make a livelihood?”

As with most organic produce, the current profit margins for organic bananas are much greater than those of conventionally grown bananas. Presumably the difference is attributable to the marketability of organic foods. In the short term, changing the production approach could benefit the Belize economy (not to mention the favorable public health outcomes). And even if the world slowly stopped buying bananas, farmers could switch crops to remain in business (hopefully one requiring fewer chemical inputs).

“Government officials, private companies and citizens of these countries should weigh the above trade-offs and decide for themselves how much organic or non-organic produce is the right amount.”

While I’m not familiar with the Belize government, I would assume they are very limited in their ability to enact and enforce worker safety standards. In a free market dollars drive decisions (triple alliteration bonus?), and if health-friendly production methods become profitable (and conventional methods less profitable) then governmental inability to regulate standards becomes moot.

Well, just as before, your comments have given away some of the points I had planned for my next post. Part 3 will address more of these issues with organic farming and propose an alternative approach.

Most directly, they would not be able to produce and sell as much (price increases lead to drops in demand and crop yields would fall as a result of the switch to organic.) This would engender profit losses, job cuts, poverty gains and other ripple effects through that country’s economy. Now take those results and project them onto a state such as Belize whose largest export and trading partner are bananas and the United States respectively. Should we, as environmentally conscious consumers, dictate to the farmers of Belize whether or not they can make a livelihood?

Government officials, private companies and citizens of these countries should weigh the above trade-offs and decide for themselves how much organic or non-organic produce is the right amount.

And while it is true that the avoidance of certain non-staple organics such as bananas might not have catastrophic implications for global levels of consumption, organic farming cannot by itself currently meet the world’s consumption needs. To do so, large chunks of the earth not presently being farmed would have to be converted and in the process adversely effect many eco-systems. Which, brings us right back to one of the main reasons for purchasing organics in the first place.

Indeed, the choice is not a simple one.