When Trade Aid was first thinking of importing fair trade organic sugar which is produced in Paraguay, a land-locked country in South America, I had to ask myself the question: does it really make sense for us to be shipping sugar so far, when much of the sugar we consume in New Zealand is grown far closer to home, in Queensland? Food miles and all that? And as Australian sugar farmers are relatively well-paid, and Australia actively campaigns for the removal of the unfair sugar tariffs imposed by many Western countries, is this one example of a situation where importing a fair trade product just didn’t make enough sense to us; would prioritising support for local production be the better way to go, all things considered?
Sure, we knew of small-scale sugar farmers working for very low return throughout the developing world and yes, we knew that many of these farmers are committed to sustainable organic production, but it took a little research into the environmental impact of Queensland sugar production to emphatically convince me that we were doing the right thing.
An internet search quickly showed up some widely differing views on the environmental fall-out from the chemical usage employed in the sugar fields of Queensland.
On one side, the WWF claim that a cocktail of chemicals used in sugar production (including atrazine, banned in the EU due to safety concerns) are washing into waterways and are damaging river and ocean-based wildlife as far away as the Great Barrier Reef and that the production of sugarcane has probably caused a greater loss of biodiversity on the planet that any other single crop.
Australian cane growers, on the other hand, paint themselves as responsible environmental stewards who are doing a good job of balancing their need to remain profitable while also meeting their obligations around sustainable farming practices.
Scientific research is clear on the subject: sugar cane production and the materials which leak from it such as atrazine and diuron have caused damage to the Great Barrier Reef. This fact is well substantiated from a large number of scientific studies.
Debates rage as to whether the run-off of the cocktail of toxic chemicals used in sugar production is destroying the Great Barrier Reef and much of the other marine life off the Queensland coast or, as the industry's most ardent defenders would have, there is no cause for concern at run-off damage at all and that the extensive damage to the reef is caused by climate change or something else entirely.
The science suggests to me that by buying Australian-produced sugars we're participants in the creation of a serious environmental problem; that all things considered, if we want to do the best thing by people and planet were far better off supporting small-scale organic producers living in Paraguay.
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