When we buy higher quality food, we are less likely to throw it out
Summary
- When food is expensive, we are not likely to waste it
Details
- When farms are small and organic, the true cost of food tends to be higher
References
Quotes
Folks of yore barely wasted a scrap of food because they handed over respectable sums of money for it. These higher prices reflected the true ‘costs’ of producing food much more accurately: back when farms were all small and organic, farmers had to preserve the health of their soil and water using methods that could be sustained by the local area if they wished to keep on farming there; they passed on these ecosystem maintenance costs along with the other costs of production. For the last few decades, large scale industrialized farming has increasingly been deferring these costs (such as loss of top soil, carbon emissions and fertilizer pollution) to be dealt with by poorer peoples and future generations. If we stop wasting money on wasting food and spend it on giving farmers a better sum for their wares, it means they aren’t stuck using damaging systems just to be able to make a living.