I'd be curious to ask an insider in organic food production, about the use of pesticides: everyone I meet seems to think that "organic" food is produced without pesticides and are shocked when I tell them that this is not so - organic producers are allowed to use many pesticides, some of which (based on heavy metals) are considered by WHO to be significantly more dangerous to health than "non-organic" alternatives.

It seems to me that popular TV shows like "River Cottage" have lead people to believe that "organic" food is produced in some sort of cared-for allotment with gardeners agonising over each slug and carrot.

The same type of television show portrays "free-range" chickens as happy individuals pecking and scratching as god (or Darwin) intended rather than the reality of animals in flocks of thousands with their beaks cut-off, no longer able to peck at anything!

Just as "free-range" and "organic" persuade millions of people that they are buying some sort of olde-worlde country ideal when the reality is as grim and profit conscious as the factory alternative, "fair-trade" hides in the folds of the term layers of corruption and exploitation that would make those same purchasers blanch.

If you're not buying the nugget from the grimy, toothless Mexican who personally dragged it from the dirt, then you are just inside the great machine of politics and exploitation... keep your eye on the bottom-line and let their governments deal with the ethics!