Greedy Hands and the Bright Green Empty Cucumber
A rant.
He wasn’t an ungenerous man, nor was he too selfless. His land was small, for he had given away so many of the fields he had considered his own for hundreds of years, and wished to live peacefully, without the rude intrusion of his neighbours.
There were a lot of parties interested in ensuring his land’s success. There were hoses and shovels and tractors which all had shares in the soil and fruit and vegetables and water and oil supply. He hired a manager to help him take care of everything. They worked together to ensure that all of the hoses, shovels and tractors increased their profits year by year, and because they also had shares in all of these things, they were keen to do whatever it took.
When he looked out of his window one sunny morning, he noticed that he wasn’t the only inhabitant of this beautifully isolated land. Bees roamed around his food and his flowers, butterflies dipped their greedy toes into the bark of his trees, and, as he stepped closer, small worms and weeds and six-legged beasts dug into the soil in an attempt to indulge in his riches.
He was angry. If there were others on his farm, there wouldn’t be enough space for him! His screws and bolts and ropes and wires needed to be fed, too, and he feared that he might have to split some of his profits with all of these intruders.
Thankfully, his tractors and shovels were smart and had a plan. They operated many oil rigs and chemical factories both on his land and abroad! If they combined their efforts and increased production, they could decrease the nutritional content of the soil on which the evil forces fed. Even better, both industries could support each other with generous, mutual gifts, and the operation proved extremely successful.
Very soon the land looked very different. It was quiet – the pesky buzzing gone – and serene. Outlines of produce could be seen popping out of the ground as soon as they had been planted, then swept away to designated boxes lit up with dazzling LED lights, or abroad in exchange for bags of money.
The nutritional pulp of the fruits was pressed, too, into sparkling golden coins.
One day some vegetables came to him – a carrot, a tomato and a cucumber – and complained about the conditions in which they lived. They spoke of being forced to grow up before their due, the chemicals in their food, and the way that they were constantly trampled on and overlooked.
To pacify the vegetables of the land, and some of the bolts and screws that had been convinced by their misery, he hired the cucumber to represent him and his manager’s idea for making his land nicer for everybody again.
Hopeful that his voice was heard, the cucumber hopped about the land, met with similar representatives on neighbouring farms and delivered marvellous speeches. Praising the man, he spoke of the progress and freedom that is due to him and his fellow vegetables.
Then the man decided that the policies contained by this bright green empty sac of a cucumber were too risky. He was lucky – the cost of living was rising with the increased isolation and trouble abroad, so he and his tractors friends could easily come up with a new scheme. He left the bright green empty cucumber rolling in the dampness of the back garden, picked up his bright green, very full sac of cash and left.
And then the man decided to plant a large Bank of Roses right next to his water supply, to paint his neighbouring residents of the river black, and suffocate them. It was prettier that way.
Yes, I beg you, let’s feel sorry for that empty cucumber. And all of the land’s soil and fruits and vegetables! Let alone its inhabitants.
September brought a lot of disappointing news on the climate front. Dozens of green policies were scrapped by the UK government as Rishi Sunak and his conservative buddies desperately attempted to clamber for cheap voters at the expense of the UK’s (and other nation’s) health and security.
The UK failed to ban a plethora of pesticides that supposedly don’t “harm people” (according to DEFRA tests) “or pose unacceptable risks to the environment”. Instead, they seep under our skin gradually, quietly, and secretly plot metabolic disruption.
And even when they do ban them – as was the case with baby-harming fungicides, bee-slaying insecticide and serial-killer Gramoxone - they are shipped off to other countries like Brazil, Colombia, and India, which has received tens of thousands of tons of chemicals over the last decade. And of course, some of the produce likely treated with these is imported right back to the UK.
The UNHRC declares the right to adequate food. Put aside your (often valid) scepticism of the UN, and think about what ‘the right to adequate food’ could mean.
Does it mean the right to mass-produced, chemically treated and genetically modified sacs of vegetable matter at half of the nutritional value of those sacs produced even 50 years ago? Does it mean the right to support supermarkets’ billion-pound profits, whose greedy hands strangle farmers and force them to create fruits and vegetables that are bigger, brighter, emptier? Call me crazy, but I think not.
Maybe it’s the Agro-Industrial Complex; maybe the Nutrient-deficiency-industrial Complex. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the NHS continues to struggle under the pressure of mass health concerns. Rishi, darling, you’re not thinking about that one important thing (perhaps they did not teach you this at Goldman) – the long term.
If you’re stocking canned endocrine disruptors and plastic-wrapped carcinogens in supermarkets all over the country, whilst you eat organic produce from your local organic store (whose prices are likely so high because of the struggles farmers face if choosing to farm organic in the first place), cashing out on your shareholder dividends, you’re ignoring the health of the people, your land and your institutions.
Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s promised combined dividends of £1.2 billion this year – a product of pushing down farmer’s prices and the money in the consumer’s wallet in a time of rising costs to preserve their shining rows of canned profit margins.
Neither will the government pursue its previous plans on improving insulation (great for landlords, not so much for renters), phase-out of high-energy consuming engines and recycling plans.
Of the top public companies rolling in MP cash, Lloyd’s Bank (one of the top 60 financers of fossil fuels), BP, Barclays and Sainsbury’s have the greatest share of investment.
And don’t even get me started on Rosebank. We all know where that’s going. *
This is all hardly new or exciting information. Rather, a messy but pressing reminder. Or summary. A bedroom rant to indulge in my anger and cynicism at the situation, maybe.
But necessary, I think, nonetheless.
*A project expected to cost £8.1 billion, with a predicted loss in government returns, but stable growth in shareholder profits. It is supposed to protect the UK’s households from the “tyrants” abroad. But the UK is hardly dependent on Russian oil at a mere 9% (in 2021, and even less today), or gas at 4%, with the majority of its oil and gas being supplied by Norway and the United States. In their own words, on gas:
“Unlike other countries in Europe, the UK is in no way dependent on Russian gas supply. We meet around half of our annual gas supply through domestic production and the vast majority of imports come from reliable suppliers such as Norway. There are no gas pipelines directly linking the UK with Russia.” Thanks, gov.uk.
And then there’s the potential tax break business – see here and here for more. Plus, the health concerns, the impact on oil reefs and wildlife.