Did you buy french beans beans or flowers this weekend?.....Did you see where they came from.....Did you care? Just look at the result! Just imagine if it was Britain, with water tankers being mobbed by folks desperate for water! Imagine if you will our countryside strewn with starving people and dying cows.....Of course it won't happen here will it?......most likely not to be honest, but neither should it be happening in Kenya. I went shopping in Sainsburys this morning and the African grown flowers and green beans are still there for us to buy and having seen the huge version of the above picture of dead and dying cows in the front of the Guardian yesterday I felt a huge rush of revulsion for a global market that insists that its ethical and fair to import green beans from a drought ridden country......Of course many argue that the bean(and other veg) growing improves lives, brings in foreign capital, uses less energy than freezing beans grown in Britain etc etc..........but at what cost to the lives of those cattle herders, and the Masai people, whose culture and nomadic life are almost at an end.....what of them? What of the cattle and goats that are dying....about 50% of Kenyas livestck are dead....the cost of a green bean or a red rose....thats what. We in the west, who cannot be bothered to salt our beans or preserve them by bottling, we who protest loudly about animal welfare ....... are stealing the lives of people..... mums, dads, grannies and grandads...... and little children by stealing their precious water to grow.......beans!
Progress, international trade, globalisation.....call it what you will its immoral!