SODA POP

Week 8 Blog: Stuffed and Starved 

I received this image today of the ‘Coca Cola road train’ via Facebook reminding me that there will be only 14 more Tuesdays till Christmas Eve sent from a page labelled ‘Not long till Christmas’ and it disturbed me that I haven’t started to plan my Christmas shopping, but more importantly that every part of my life is now consumerised.

In a world of corporations, guided by the cardinal rule of market capitalism: ‘buy cheap, sell dear’, Patel (200 p.10) declares that multinationals can not only gouge consumers for their hard earned cash but also squeeze the life out of the ingredient supply chain. 

Mass production, mass marketing, mass consumption and mass garbage are now part of our everyday life but as consumers we can choose alternatives. Considering how far food travels from the farm to our plate, Wilkinson (2013) questions whether political, environmental and ethical behaviour is enough to combat the multinationals and in some cases save the lives of the farmers, millers, importers and exporters who barely etch out an existence in a third world continent, and I say “yes”.

I am encouraged when I read that farmer conglomerates are rising up and taking their challenge to the World Trade Organisation seeking better alternatives to the hidden world of food consumerism and trying to replace dignity in their lives through a fair price for a fair days work, and although I can’t see myself standing at the barricades shouting “ the peasants united will never be defeated” I can restrict my Facebook page by encouraging friends not to seek out and share images of  blatant propaganda proliferated by global corporations.

 Patel, R. (2007). Stuffed and Starved: The hidden battle for the worlds food system (p.1-19).
Ontario, Canada: Harper Perennial.

 Wilkinson, R. (2013). Lecture 8. James Cook University. BA1002. Our Space: Networks, Narratives and the Making of Place. Cairns, Qld. 17 September, 2013.