Strawberry Fields - What a Trip!
Living is easy with eyes closed....
The system of world trade and commerce is pretty amazing when you think about it. If you open up your eyes to what you are buying and give it a bit of thought I think you will find that we are pretty lucky.
There are many people who will say that we are well on our way to destroying the planet because of trade. I disagree. I would argue that it is, rather, our dependence on non-renewables for transport, our incessant need to replace material objects that are not broken and our tendency to buy more than we need - and see it waste and decay in a veggie drawer - that are some of the primary causes.
Yesterday I bought two pounds of Florida strawberries for $2.99. It made me think of this world we live in and I must say I was torn. Torn between buying fruits that come from a place that is 2200 km away and just thinking of how lucky we are to be able to buy these fruits.
First off think about this. $2.99. These strawberries were hand picked, packaged, and either trucked and then flown to Montreal or trucked the entire way, trucked to the store, displayed and then, finally, bought by me. Along the way the farm, the pickers, the transport companies, the wholesaler and retailer all made enough money to agree to the long chain of contracts that were required. $2.99 for 2 pounds. It is pretty amazing that it can all come together and result in such a low price to the consumer.
Yes, eating strawberries in Canada in early April is not a natural thing to do. But then again having a single family home in a city where it regularly falls to -20 degrees in the winter is not very natural either. I do believe that human ingenuity will create solutions to the pollution that the systems which support world trade spew out. In the interim thank the system that can bring you such a variety.
Damn they were good.
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