intervening within the "government debt system"

[jim_lewis1]

'probably more energy efficient to fly stuff from south africa where it's hot than to import stuff from hot houses in the netherlands', are these the only two options?

Was the alternative of eating only seasonal food considered at all?

[Teiana]

while we're still importing People i see no option but to import food. we haven't enough space to get food to feed everybody unless you start resorting to a) forcing the evil land developers to actually build houses with enough gardens for everyone to manage their own food (great, but then the downside is they will gobble up More of the countryside putting in housing estates if the estates have to be bigger, so it doesn't solve the problem)
or b) resorting to producing GM crops in very intensive farming situations and nothing will be 'natural' about it..

unless we start on population controls?

last night my other half went out to the greenhouse and brought in the first of the tomatoes. i pointed out one had a hole in it, he said that was where he'd pulled it from the plant. i said they're not ripe, and before i could say anything else he threw them all in the bin. I was very angry with him, there was no reason for that, you can easily eat unripe tomatoes they just don't taste as sweet. These had reddened they just needed another couple of days really to be ready, he should really have waited. now they are wasted, i am so upset. why did he do that? He said it was my fault and that i had said they were no good but i hadn't said that at all. he was just angry with me because he thought when i said they weren't ripe that i was criticising him and he gets all stroppy about that instead of paying attention and learning for next time. It's all very well suggesting people grow their own food but it's not all 'the good life'. i hadn't criticised him! They Weren't ripe - you shouldn't have to tug them from the plant they should come away easily. That's how you tell if they are ready. But he will not believe me when i say things - i think there's something wrong with me that makes people treat me like i'm invisible.

at least in a supermarket getting food doesn't involve starting a domestic sized war.

a far simpler and easier solution to the whole food thing would just be to have everyone eat less. If we halved the wasted food in this country and got everyone to eat less ( based on most people eating more than they need anyway) we could make the whole thing work. Supermarkets are Not the Enemy. Wasted food probably is. If supermarkets can be run in a way that avoids most waste, then, sorted. If they can stop selling people stuff they don't need, that might work. But at the moment it's financially in the interests of the supermarkets to get people to buy stuff they will just waste. Why can't we buy bread by the slice? It's hardly rocket science. You'd go in and they'd cut a bit off, like they can do with cooked meats.

perhaps we should nationalise all the supermarkets. That way they could stop trying to make profits and start working for us.

[Teiana]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10381309.stm

anyone want to argue that we should fight to save the flowers and hay meadows, but import food, or, should we intensively farm the land and reduce our dependence on foreign imports?

unless someone can see a way we can do both?

[llamagirl]

a far simpler and easier solution to the whole food thing would just be to have everyone eat less. If we halved the wasted food in this country and got everyone to eat less ( based on most people eating more than they need anyway) we could make the whole thing work. Supermarkets are Not the Enemy. Wasted food probably is. If supermarkets can be run in a way that avoids most waste, then, sorted. If they can stop selling people stuff they don't need, that might work. But at the moment it's financially in the interests of the supermarkets to get people to buy stuff they will just waste. Why can't we buy bread by the slice? It's hardly rocket science. You'd go in and they'd cut a bit off, like they can do with cooked meats.

perhaps we should nationalise all the supermarkets. That way they could stop trying to make profits and start working for us.

Food waste is not just caused by what we as consumers throw away, supermarkets waste alot of stock that goes past its sell by date. Despite the best efforts at stock control supermarkets cannot always predict exactly what they are going to sell everyday and have to juggle between product availability and wastage. I work for a supermarket and believe me, they do not like throwing their profits in the bin. The supermarkets are the victims of their own marketing hype to a certain extent, as they spend millions of pounds generating demand for their products, but perhaps our expectations as consumers should be more flexible. Is it really such a big deal if the supermarket does not have our exact favourite flavour of yoghurt in stock on a particular day?

I think that supermarkets can be run commercially while addressing some of the many issues that profitability raises, but they do need to re-think the centralised control model. Economy of scale advantages can still be retained on purchasing, marketing, administration, and availability of capital, etc, but local stores should be be allowed to run themselves within certain company guidelines. A healthy percentage of profits should be retained by the store and the store should be run to cater for local customers. In areas where there are greater numbers of shoppers buying for only 1 or 2 people, then bread could be sold by the slice, but less choice of bread offered to make this possible. The stores should also be able to purchase local produce alongside the nationally available goods offered by the centralised depots. De-centrailsed control would in itself offer cost efficiencies. In my store (only a medium sized store) there are 6 senior managers who spend a large proportion of their time enforcing company control on employees. If stores had more autonomy then less managers would be needed, and more money could be spent on 'single slice of bread services'. This is also not rocket science (unless you are the CEO of a supermarket that is!).