How to prevent a Brexit food crisis? Dig deep for fair pay on farms
Bear with me while I tell you about the price of potatoes, for it is in such humble roots that some of the blights of capitalism are revealed. It is in the food system, too, that the Brexit fault lines over immigration are opening into alarming chasms.
Martin and Sarah Mackey grow potatoes, along with fashionable greenery such as kale, in Kent. They are tenants on their holding, Ripple Farm, and so have no inherited, accumulated capital in the land to subsidise their business, although they receive about £5,000 a year in EU environmental farm payments. They sell some of their potatoes at local markets for a pound a kilo, about the same as you would pay for the equivalent grade in a high street supermarket. They also supply a trading and wholesaling operation called Growing Communities that mixes their potatoes with other produce in vegetable box schemes, starting at £7.75 for a week’s supply for one.
Julie Brown, Growing Communities’ director, says her mission is to feed urban communities locally in a way that is fair and sustainable in the face of corporate dominance and climate change. She starts from the position that the price she gives the Mackeys for potatoes must cover their cost of production and enable both of them and their staff to earn a reasonable living. So she pays them 60p per kilo for delivered goods. Her supply chain is short and direct, keeping other costs to a minimum. She also believes her customers should know where the money goes, and explains that most of her markup goes into wages. Her packers are paid the London living wage, the amount the Resolution Foundation calculates is required to cover the real cost of living. One of her organisation’s governing principles is that the pay ratio between top and bottom should be no more than 2:1, so Brown takes a salary of £30,000 a year.
Martin and Sarah Mackey grow potatoes, along with fashionable greenery such as kale, in Kent. They are tenants on their holding, Ripple Farm, and so have no inherited, accumulated capital in the land to subsidise their business, although they receive about £5,000 a year in EU environmental farm payments. They sell some of their potatoes at local markets for a pound a kilo, about the same as you would pay for the equivalent grade in a high street supermarket. They also supply a trading and wholesaling operation called Growing Communities that mixes their potatoes with other produce in vegetable box schemes, starting at £7.75 for a week’s supply for one.
Julie Brown, Growing Communities’ director, says her mission is to feed urban communities locally in a way that is fair and sustainable in the face of corporate dominance and climate change. She starts from the position that the price she gives the Mackeys for potatoes must cover their cost of production and enable both of them and their staff to earn a reasonable living. So she pays them 60p per kilo for delivered goods. Her supply chain is short and direct, keeping other costs to a minimum. She also believes her customers should know where the money goes, and explains that most of her markup goes into wages. Her packers are paid the London living wage, the amount the Resolution Foundation calculates is required to cover the real cost of living. One of her organisation’s governing principles is that the pay ratio between top and bottom should be no more than 2:1, so Brown takes a salary of £30,000 a year.
Source:
theguardian
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