Food and the Environment

[rhythmaning]

Some while ago on gastrogasm, there was some debate about the environmental impact of the food we eat: how agribusiness affects the environment, and what consumers - that's us - can do about it.

I was thinking of this when I heard this story on BBC Radio Scotland last week. I am not sure if it got much attention outside Scotland, and I thought it might interest some of you.

In summary, Youngs, a Scottish frozen fish producer, has laid off 120 employees from a fish processing plant in Dumfriesshire, south-west Scotland; it will ship the scampi (langoustine) from Scotland to Thailand for shelling - taking advantage of cheap labour costs - before shipping them back again for further processing. That's a round trip of 12,000 miles.

The move has been roundly condemned in Scotland, from both a people and an environmental perspective, by all political parties.

It does seem particularly perverse, and very damaging (the article states that for every tonne of scampi, half a tonne of CO₂ will be released.

(x-posted)

Comments

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Well it's put Young's off my list - but then I spent the week up in Argyle and Lorne, eating seafood that had only just stopped twitching.