Family farms in danger in the U.K., too

One of Mellow Monk's guiding principles is to support family farming everywhere by buying our tea only from family-owned and -operated farms. This is to slow down and hopefully reverse the trends toward corporate agribusiness. Why? Because families who live on and work the land take better care of it than a board of directors whose main concern is maximizing profits. Corporate farms are responsible for the vast increase in the use in pesticides and other agrichemicals in the past few decades.

This article at the BBC News website talks about the danger to independent farmer in Britain posed by society's current emphasis on inexpensive food:

[Many] in farming are warning that only big farms can make a profit in an economy based around cheap food. . . . Organic and selling direct to the consumer through farmers' markets may offer possibilities for some farmers to make money, but there is only a limited amount of room . . . .

Now, the Internet provides a way for small farms to sell directly to consumers all over the world. That is precisely the sort of movement that we at Mellow Monk hope to accelerate.

—Mellow Monk

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