Here's a traditional dilemma for the conscious shopper:

What's better for the environment? Organic strawberries from Greece, locally-grown out-of-season strawberries, locally-grown in-season strawberries or fair trade strawberries from Morocco?

And here's the bonus question: which ones taste nicest?

Organic Standards

It's a question which is, as yet, impossible to conclusively answer. I just heard an interesting debate on Today about organic standards. The EU will soon require ALL organic products to display their logo. To clarify, yes, it will be mandatory. Here are the details from the horse's mouth. This change seems positive but in aiming for a standard for the whole EU may end up with less strict standard than, for example the Soil Association's.

Local Standards

A quick google search doesn't give us much to go on. The UK Food Standards Agency have some 2003 research which indicated a slighly watery definition:

"Proximity of production to the consumer and a short chain from producer to consumer"

I also tried Defra and Food From Britain without much luck. Perhaps, though, the definition of local means that you should know the farmer involved and thus a standard is unnecessary as personal reputation builds the required trust?

Fair Trade Standards

For this, I quickly turn to the Fair Trade Foundation. But is there an EU contribution here? Another quick search and I can see the EU dipping its fingers in to help standardise. A resolution from July 2006 from the Parliament "urges the commission to make a recommendation on Fair Trade" and "that, in order to eliminate the risk of abuse, Fair Trade needs to meet a number of criteria". Check out the resolution.

An answer?

Well, each element of the dilemma has its advantages and disadvantages. Perhaps, for now, mix and match - hedging your bets and sharing your patronage among the standards - is the best strategy. A clear winner would of course be local, organic, fair trade, unprocessed and in-season strawberries. Whether that is possible is another point!

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