As an island nation at the bottom of the world many of us might have thought we were isolated from the hatred that we see in much of the world at the moment.
But we’d be wrong to think that. Our nation was formed through conflict and to this day we often express our fear of others through anger. It might help for rural communities and primary producers to reflect on our make-up. People of all nationalities work the land, grow the crops, pick the fruit and milk the cows. There’s only four million of us here but we produce enough to feed many more people so we’ve had to form partnerships with other nations to sell our great food internationally.
It takes respect, compromise and empathy to forge those relationships and allow our exports to thrive. Our meat processors understand the cultural and religious beliefs of some of their customers and so they take care to respect those beliefs and process animals in the appropriate manner. Sure, there’s a big commercial aspect to it but it’s people we’re feeding. It’s worth remembering that.
We like to tell our food story and we have terms like market research and consumer behaviour that help us as we pick what to produce and how. Put simply, what we’re really doing is asking what does that person want and how can we make them happy? We’re seeking understanding. We’re listening to people we don’t know as much about. We could use more of that in our everyday lives right now.
Bryan Gibson