Whoa nellie

The greater the miles food travels to market, the worse it is for environment. That, in a nugget, is the basis for the hot social responsibility trend of food miles. This article from Scotland carries a strong retort to the concept from an African vegetable exporter. I think this guy makes a strong point:

"With the deepest respect, the farmers in the villages where I come from don't have televisions, they don't have refrigerators, they don't have even one car, let alone two, they don't have motorbikes, they've never even been to our country's capital let alone flown all over the world on holiday -- so don't ask those farmers to pick up the cost of environmental problems you in the industrialised West."