Tunnel vision is when you see only things that are directly in front of you. This can be a medical condition or it can occur when driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, which obviously leads to accidents, because you cannot see the whole picture.
I spoke with an alternative egg producer the other day. I use the word alternative to encompass everything: organic, cage-free or free-range. It was a very interesting conversation that left me with two things to think about.
The first is the disdain that this person has received from traditional groups and producers (the opposite of alternative production), to the extent that traditional producers are not interested in what alternative producers do.
The other was what this person called a lack of transparency of traditional production, disguised (I say this with an absolute due respect to the reasons) of biosecurity and other factors. This lack of transparency, for example, of not being able to enter a farm to see how it is, lends weight to the likes towards alternative production. Is this good for us?
Now I'm coming back to the initial concept of tunnel vision. Could it be that we are not seeing more than what we have in front of us? Perhaps it would be worthwhile to get "sober," get out of the drunkenness, and avoid "accidents," that is, avoiding being hit by the blow when it is too late.
Maybe, if we integrate these producers into the chain, 1) we learn something, 2) we genuinely force the standardization of alternative production that benefits both the traditionals and the alternatives (which we need badly) and, 3) perhaps at the same time we even enter into a very profitable new business and in the process we benefit the consumer, in all senses.
What do you think?
