Buying Far-Awayally Won't Cure Poverty.

Mason and Singer argue that buying foods locally might not be any more ethical than buying foods transported from around the world. They argue that it does more to alleviate poverty to support developing/underdeveloped countries producing food for export with small percentages of purchase price than to pay full price directly to a local farmer. While I agree that the poverty faced by those in the underdeveloped world is more significant than domestic poverty, I disagree that this is the more ethical choice.

The authors allude to the idea of commodity chains, which link the purchase of a final product by a consumer through each individual that had any sort of role in its production, all the way back to (in the case of food) the farmer. The trouble I have with buying non-locally (far-awayally?) is that these commodities tend to have the longest commodity chains. The further away a product originates, the more people have opportunities to dip their hands into the pot. Buying directly from the people who produce your goods is ethical because it ensures that they make a fair profit and prevents others from taking advantage of the production. While it could be argued that longer commodity chains create more jobs, an ethical goal, the possibility of buying directly proves that those jobs are unnecessary to the creation of that product and thus should not be rewarded. If local products and imported products cost the same, more of the purchase price is being redirected away from farmers to unnecessary middlemen.

I also argue that buying far-awayally doesn't really do much to cure poverty. While it might bandage it a bit for individuals who have managed to get themselves into a position where they can produce for export, the systemic causes of poverty go much deeper than Singer and Mason allow. These farmers aren't poor because not enough people are buying their goods: they're poor because our economic structures make them that way. Yes, the two cents the farmer in Kenya earns from my purchase helps, but if it weren't for all the middlemen in the commodity chain, he could be making close to the dollar that the local farmer might. In this sense, buying far-awayally supports the transnational corporations that continue to glean their money away from farmers by connecting us to far-away producers.
(Buying far-awayally and fair trade might be a solution to this.)