Next Tuesday evening BBC Three will screen a programme it made in the sweat shops of India. It features a group of British girls who had been in the habit of buying cheap fashions made in the sweat shops of India, China and other low wage countries in Asia, wearing them once and then discarding them. The programme arranged for the extravagant girls to work and live for a month in those sweat shops alongside the locals and to receive the same pay.
Suffice to say the girls were appalled at what they experienced and have returned to Britain vowing never to buy cheap fashion items again. They had not realised what goes on in the name of cutting prices of the things they previously bought in this countrys' High Streets and now they do they no longer wish to benefit from it.
In my travels around the world I have seen similar exploitation of labour on farms. Often the produce of those farms is exported to supermarkets in this country. Those who do such work are seldom able, given the minimal wages they receive, to afford the produce they help to grow and pack. But western consumers buy it at low prices without a thought for the welfare of those who make it possible. To be fair most are not even aware of the exploitation involved.
It occurs to me that a similar TV programme featuring British consumers working alongside Third World farm workers might persuade them and perhaps viewers to stop taking cheap food for granted. Until something like that happens the people of this country will continue to buy as cheaply as possible, incurring more and more food miles and later tip a lot of it into the waste bin.