Rather perversely, that location isn’t Dublin Food Co-op .
Instead, every Saturday at Newmarket, private traders clock up the food miles hauling already well-travelled fruit and veggies from their latest stopping off points in Wicklow and Kildare. With the honourable exception of the Sonairte stall, an educational non-profit producing on a very small scale, what’s on offer in the hall is primarily imported – whether or not it’s Ireland’s peak growing season.
I’ve outlined previously how DFC’s outsourcing of fresh fruit and vegetable provision to private for-profit traders is an idiocy which has nothing to do with the consumer co-operative model.
It also actively undermines the Co-op’s stated commitment “to deal in organically grown wholefoods and Irish-produced wholefoods if possible”. By dealing directly in fresh produce, the Co-op could meet this objective in a principled and ethical way that recognises seasonality (and educates members around it) rather than simply letting private traders pander to the supermarket-led expectations of some organic shoppers for ‘Permanent Global Summer Time’.
Imported fruit and vegetables do nothing to strengthen or promote the Irish organic sector. They do nothing to increase our food sovereignty. They do nothing to build the “locally integrated food economy” we aspire to in our objects as a co-operative.
The Co-op’s goal should be to pay local farmers a decent price for their local organic produce and offer it to members with the minimum possible mark-up. Instead of multiple stalls with their shallow illusion of choice and ‘community’, the Co-op should be proudly selling quality Irish fruit and vegetables directly to members, displayed all in one place and at a price that would rubbish the jibe of organic being a middle-class preserve.
