The food rebellion
The emergence of an activist food rebellion against an over processed western diet was the topic of Sunday Magazine’s cover story ‘The Art of Eating’ yesterday [off line]. Interestingly it had a short snippet on Sue Kedgley telling a story over dinner.
Kedgley tells those of us sitting nearby of three Christchurch women who met each other on one of her Shopping with Sue supermarket tours.
One was an expert in identifying edible weeds, and wanted to run ‘weed walks’. Another had preserving skills she’d learnt from her grandmother and wanted to teach a class. The third was buying organic meat in bulk from a local farmer and leaving it in an outside freezer for those in the know to stop by, take a portion, and pay the wholesale price via an honesty box. By the end of the tour these three women had resolved to band together and support each other in their initiatives.
Personally I think the other political parties are missing the widespread political movement that exists in our supermarkets, with thousands of people becoming political food activists as they try to put healthy fresh food on their tables.
July 21st, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Well personally, i think DSC (Democrats for SocialCredit) isn’t missing the mark at all, having played a major role in helping make available the proper nutrition wisdom for people, but as of posting unfortunately, has only really become available for those with the right connections or pay packet which was never the intention.
Geoferry Morell and perhaps that leading fount of nutritional wellbeing, his wife Sally Felon, will be at the DSC conference, and if the DSC had 1/6 of the platform given by the one party system of main stream media that is called democracy in New Zealand, then New Zealand would be a better place in regards to this issue and many others.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:30 pm
…if DSC had any input into the functioning of the nation we would soon be left with a worthless currency and a crashed economy…
July 21st, 2008 at 8:40 pm
“…if DSC had any input into the functioning of the nation we would soon be left with a worthless currency and a crashed economy…”
Exactly!..very well said.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:46 pm
George Bush and Donald Brash would agree with you there Sapient, both also being of the mind that the current privately created compound interest bearing debt system is “sound”.
And just as all non-debt based monetary reform moments in history, of which you obviously know everything about, have resulted in the explosion of distributed well-being and prosperity to the society, so banking interests everytime found them useless and immediately conspired to have them over thrown.
But you are entitled to your pre-judices like anyone else and there’s no point giving credit where it isn’t due.
DSC 08.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:19 pm
DSC bases all its policy on … Social Credit Theory … a theory which is based on a fundimental misunderstanding of the nature of capital, a theory which any person - able to understand simple division and simple addition and subtraction - should be able to see is fataly flawed.
and using ad hominem against a person to argue against a concept is totaly unapplicable:
Person A:”The sum of two and three is five.”
Person B:”Your wrong”
Person A:”Why is that?”
Person B:”Because you have blue eyes”
July 21st, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Well done Sue Kedgely …
For years I have found Supermarket Shopping a bit of an ordeal … to be avoided whenever possible.
Now that you’ve given us “too much information” Supermarket Shopping has become a total nightmare!
Thinking about going “back to the future” and growing my own is becoming an attractive proposition.
eredwen
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:46 am
“The third was buying organic meat in bulk from a local farmer”
All good stuff and to be commended by people showing personal initiatives and responsibilites.
My type of Green.
Note of caution before we got all hyped up.
Some time ago there was a post regarding contaminated chicken meat.
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2006/07/11/chicken-shit-and-other-delicacies /
We have to be careful that we dont fall into the trap of allowing farm kill for resale to become commercialised (it is currently illegal - i think - unless done by a certified mobile buther). For if we bypass the meat inspection service at the abatoir we could well end up with the very situation Sue Kedgely quite rightly bought before the public.
It is not hard for the farmer to send live stock to the abatoir, being issued a hook number, and having that meat inspected, certified as desease free, and distributed to his customers. Bypassing the supermarket duopoly but ensuring the health of New Zealanders.
One could well envisage a meat distribution system were an order is placed for meat via the internet with the farmer. The animal is sent to the abatoir for humane slaughter, the meat certified and despatched by refrigerated transport (or chilly packet) to the customer.
We have beaten TB in New Zealand. Lets not open the meat distribution chain up and allow it break out again through the distribution of contaminated meat.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Gerrit
Well said!
Selling “home kill” is illegal, and the woman should be reported by SK to the police so theu can prosecute the farmer (perhaps her as well as she is on-selling the meat.
On another point though. If the three women had merely been in the supermarket and joined together to do this togetherness it would be worthy of note. However, they purposely attended a political activity sponsored by a green MP, which means they are in no way a random sample but part of a special interest group. Hence you conclusion, Mr Frog, of “people becoming political food activists as they try to put healthy fresh food on their tables” is not justified by the dataset you have used for input.
Good try, but could have done better.
Overall mark - C1
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Thank you Strings,
I’m not to fussed it it is a political stunt. If it gets people to buy at independent shops, well and good.
However it does ask a few question such as
“leaving it in an outside freezer for those in the know to stop by, take a portion, and pay the wholesale price via an honesty box.”
Naturally she will declare the income to the IRD with her tax return.
To not do so is illegal as well is immoral. After all how will the government pay for the state servants, social policies, beneficiaries, etc if people dont pay tax!
and
If ALL the people from the suburbns went to their friendly farmer to buy meat would the resultant car emmisions not add to carbon emmisions the Greens are so desperate to moderate due to global warming? And will the rurlla roads be able to handle the traffic?
and
Will the IRD chase up the farmers for the tax they are required to pay for the income derived from the sale of their livestock?
and
How will the farmers get rid of the offal in an environmental method?
and
Would the farmer and meat distributor be criminally liable if the meat slaughtered and sold by them is contaminated with say mad cow desease and it spreads to the consumer? Why do businesses have to take out public liabilty insurance and the backyarder gets away with not quite murder?
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
“Selling “home killâ€? is illegal, and the woman should be reported by SK to the police so theu can prosecute the farmer ”
I shot a couple of goats a while back, made some into sausages and gave them to a mate and last week he gave me some fish he caught.
This is obviously a highly suspect practice and, if not illegal, should certainly be taxed and tightly regulated. I demand to be followed around by a government bureaucrat to keep an eye on me at all times, and the bureaucrat to be followed by somebody to make sure s/he doesn’t get involved in the practice or nick off with my fish. They’ll need somebody to report to, and administrative support as well to deal with all the paperwork.
The Greens must announce a detailed policy and a Shadow Minister of Suppressing Normal Human Activities, or I won’t vote for them.
Come to think of it, the cat ate some of the goat liver, who pays tax on that, me, the goat or the cat? Who in IRD is responsible for answering this sort of question?
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
LOL Sam,
What you did was not for profit. When the farmer is selling livestock it is for profit. When the women sell it is for profit.
Hey I would love to have to not pay tax on my transactions but unfortunately the tax recipients (state servants, benificiaries, superannuants, etc) would not be happy campers.
And we havent discussed GST yet!!.
Funny, The Greens want to tax capital gains on property but not on meat.
Never mind the inconsistancy.
And if we dont collect tax that will be cool as we wont be able to afford to pay the IRD anyway. Hey that gets rid of public servants.
Sam, I like your style!!
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
“What you did was not for profit.”
Yes it was - we both profitted from the sausage-fish exchange. I could have charged him for the sausages and he could have charged me for the fish, then we would have come out even, except money would have changed hands, so we should have paid tax, I suppose.
In the case of the goat meets cat scenario, the liver belonged to the goat until the cat ate it, I just transported the liver, so shouldn’t have to pay tax. At least, that’s what I’ll argue in court.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:45 am
Oh dear Sam. You really don’t understand capitalism and the tax system do you?
Lets see.
You killed a couple of goats (your own I’ll presume so there’s not theft or poaching to complicate things). Butchered them yourself, for home consumption, but decided to give some of the product to a friend. So far no problem, you haven’t ’sold’ anything, nor, from your words so far, did you ‘require’ exchange of fish for sausage, so still “no sale”.
Last week, which I assume is not the same as “a while ago”, the friend gifted you some fish he had caught (again we will assume for simplicity that he has a licence or self stocked water), again, with no requirement for payment or future exchange. Again, we have a “no sale” situation.
Neither of the gifts is valued at over $27,500, nor (again an assumption) does the total value of gifts from one of you to the other in a tax year total to this amount or more. So the dreaded “gift Tax” does not come into play.
These circumstances do not break any laws, nor do they incur any tax liability.
However. Be wary of the concept that ‘barter’ or ‘exchange’ is not subject to tax though. The case-law on Bartercard New Zealand is very clear. If the exchange is of goods normally or occasionally transacted as part of business operations, the value must be recorded as revenue, and GST is liable on the transaction.
Luckily, cats cannot be registered as tradespeople or for GST, so the cat is in no danger.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Well, I was being a bit tongue in cheek, Strings, but I was also pointing out that advantages of reciprocal community exchange for tax avoidance.
I recall the government at some point looked in to taxing ‘Green dollar’ exchanges, but decided it was currently too difficult, so my jokes about government bureaucrats keeping an eye on me weren’t totally off the wall.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:46 am
And so my Tongue in Cheek response didn’t get a TiC from you eh!
Never mind, I’ve noticed humour is in short supply on blogs at the moment!
BTW, did you notice that Bartercard’s corporate colour is Green?