What can you buy for 20p a kilo? well pine cones, with global 24/7 news you kinda feel you can grasp what’s going on. Well I never knew this and I never even thought about it.

What?

The hand collection of pine cones from Georgia whose seeds are the stock of the Nordman firs we buy as Christmas trees at about £40. This is pure exploitation of subsistence farmers who risk their lives 40 to 50 metres up trees collecting cones for a seed base. Their exploitation is made easier by their communist past, their former world was controlled by Russia and they prospered, now without a locally self controlled  market place, they are driven to subsistence, this while they produce the feedstock for a 1 bn euro industry.

What to do? use the links below and buy knowing the provenance of your tree. Christmas trees are pagan anyway, and nothing wrong with that, just so long as you know.

http://www.fairtrees.co.uk/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11863768