Lets Play Swap.

Regardless of what you think about the potential costs and benefits of our increasingly globalized food industry, the international trade in food in unquestionably sometimes more wasteful and environmentally damaging than it needs to be. For such is the weird and wonderful world of global commodity markets that countries often end up exchanging exactly the same product.

Local specialities changing hands, you might think. But no: even such “generic” products as milk exchanged. In Stopping the Great Food Swap- Relocation Europe's Food Supply , Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas documents this phenomenon, drawing on data from the UN's FAO Food Balance Sheets. Here are just a few of her example:

•  In 1998 the UK imported 60,000 tones of poultry meat from the Netherlands and exported more than 30,000 thousand tonnes to the same country.

•  In the same year the UK exported 109,533 live pigs while importing 203,174.

•  In 1997 we imported 126 million litres of liquid milk (powdered is another story) and exported 270 million litres.

The report is online at: www.carolinelucasmep.org.uk/publications/greatfoodswap.html

Rough Guide to Ethical Shopping.