local or organic?

i don't know about you, but sometimes i find myself spending inordinately long periods of time standing in the supermarket trying to compare one product with another...

specifically, i pick up the product, check the ingredients, see where it's made, see if it is organic... what do i know about the company that produces it - multinational/ local? good/ bad environmental record? good/ bad social record?

this can of course become rather time consuming, and so i pretty much find something i know and trust and stick with that every time i shop (i shop at four shops per week - an organic shop and three supermarkets!).

however, i still wonder to myself - should i buy the local non-organic product or the imported organic product...?!

the answer i think lies in a multi-faceted approach to ascertaining a product/ company's credentials. if we are concerned about carbon emissions due to 'food miles' then it would seem obvious to choose local, however farming practices may be better in it's country of origin than here, so in fact there may be fewer emissions than if it were local (this is the argument used to reassure european consumers about consuming nz products).

sometimes purchasing an imported 'organic' product might be a case of "same shit, different country" as organic standards are known to vary significantly in their strictness - the USDA even tried to include use of battery farming, sewage sludge and genetic engineering in it's organic standard!

ultimately, i think it is more important to support local food producers, even if they aren't organic. i come to this conclusion because if we don't support the locals but choose imported products (even if we perceive them to be 'better' for our health or the health of the environment) we risk undermining the locals and putting them out of business, thus making us even more reliant on imports.

if we choose local products, we are able to show the food producers that we support them. once they have sufficient reliable support from consumers they will be more willing to consider the switch to organics - especially if we, their supporters, insist upon it.

my method has thus become:
1) do i need this product? is it something i could grow/ produce myself?
2) who is trying to get me to buy it - what is their track record? does a better company produce the same product?
3) is it local/ nz made? if not, how far does it travel to get here?
4) is it organic?
5) can i afford it?!
6) what is the packaging like? recyclable/ reuseable? landfill-bound? can i get it in bulk?

generally speaking, the further away a product comes from, the more effort i'll make to find an organic and/ or fair trade alternative. new zealand's environmental and worker protection rules, while not ultra-flash, are at least better than many other countries and we are more able to change nz practices than those of other countries...

it sounds like a lot of work, but hey, it's time we shrugged off the yoke of ignorant consumerism and started taking some responsibility for our lifestyles - toughen up!

educate yourself - it'll make you a better person, and also it's trendy now.