I guess we at Farmers Weekly felt pretty confident that we were doing the right thing when our Local Food is Miles Better campaign tried to steer consumers away from food that's been jetted in from the other side of the world - including produce from third world countries.
But farmers in places like Kenya are dismayed and angry by our stance. They point out that we (and others who have espoused the food miles cause) are aiming for the wrong target and that all we're doing is pushing them back into subsistence farming. See our short piece on the
food miles plight of Kenyan farmers or the full article that explains why they think food miles campaigns are aiming at the wrong target.
Not only that, but we'd achieve rather more environmental benefit by getting consumers to curtail their long-haul holiday trips and buy fewer energy-hungry plasma TVs, patio heaters and big 4x4s!
Gulp. Perhaps they're right.