Fairtrade Fortnight (February 25 - March 9) seems a good time to address a conundrum - should you buy locally produced food and drink or go for Fairtrade produce from far away, thereby helping poor farmers in the Third World?

Oxfam is so concerned about what it calls the "food miles fantasy" that it has gone out of its way to tell the world at large that an oversimplification is at work here, potentially so serious that it may be causing well-meaning consumers to actually harm the planet.

"While 'ethical', locally produced or Fairtrade products are increasingly found in British homes they have not made it into many office kitchens or works canteens," runs a press release from business advice and information service Business Link.

It continued: "More than £300m is spent on Fairtrade in the UK and the organisation is trying to encourage more of us to enjoy the same at work. And there is a huge choice to choose from: more than 2,000 Fairtrade products are now available in the UK from 58 developing countries."

But Oxfam's point is that Fairtrade and food miles are two totally different animals and should not be muddled together - if, that is, unfair trade and more carbon emissions are to be avoided.

Head of research at Oxfam, Duncan Green, said: "Buying green is rightly at the forefront of consumers' minds, but rejecting foods on the grounds of how far they have travelled oversimplifies the issue, unfairly punishes farmers from poor countries and may even lead to higher emissions."

Even air-miles may be comparatively environment-friendly. Oxfam quotes the example of growing roses in artificial conditions in Holland and then importing them into Britain, a process that produces about six times more carbon dioxide than growing them in the warmer climate of Kenya and flying them in.

This might be called the "pineapple syndrome", as propounded by Martin Body MP some 20 years ago in his book Farming in the Clouds . He pointed out that with enough expenditure of money and energy it would be possible to grow pineapples on Ben Nevis, but it would hardly be a sensible thing to do.

So what is the poor (but comparatively rich) western consumer to do, particularly now that Easter is again nearly on us and some of us want to buy Easter eggs that have neither been produced by people working for slave wages, nor pollute the world?

A shopper at Sainsbury's Heyford Hill branch, Nick Hills, wrote to our sister paper, the Oxford Mail, last week complaining that not only were there no Fairtrade eggs on sale, but that inquiries at the customer services revealed there were no more planned deliveries of Easter eggs of any kind.

He said it was time to wake up and taste the chocolate, adding: "While it would be curmudgeonly to deny families a bountiful harvest of chocolate eggs, perhaps it is time to realise the fact that 99p only equates to the daily income of many of those who produced the chocolate."

In fact, it transpires that Wheatley company Burnt Sugar, which obtains all its unrefined sugar from the Weko Fairtrade co-operative in west Kenya, now has its Easter eggs on sale at Sainsbury's.

Burnt Sugar is the brainchild of Colin and Justine Cather, who started the company in 1999 by selling their award-winning fudge at London's Borough market. It is expanding fast - now employing two other people besides themselves.

Mrs Cather visited Kenyan sugar suppliers and saw first-hand how the Fairtrade co-operative worked - ensuring farmers received a fair price, and that their co-operative received an additional social premium to fund social and community projects like school building, healthcare and water supplies.

Mr Hills said: "We (or Sainsbury's) should expect to pay more." But there, of course, is the question - would we?

Mr Cather says simply: "We in the rich world have too much and others have too little. A transfer of wealth is needed."

Oxfam maintains that rich countries such as the UK are by far the most responsible for climate change and that they therefore should be obliged to pay the biggest reparations. It estimates that it will cost at least £25bn a year to fund climate change adaptation in developing countries. The charity reckons that - based on historical emissions and ability to pay - the USA should pay 44 per cent of adaptation costs, Japan nearly 13 per cent, Germany more than seven per cent, UK more than five per cent, and Italy, France and Canada four to five per cent each.

Oxfam spokesman Lucy Brinicombe said: "Bearing in mind that the average Kenyan will emit the same amount of carbon this year as an average Briton had already by January 2008, it is hardly fair that poor farmers (who are least reponsible for climate change but the most affected) should also bear the burden of this."

So, do you buy local or Fairtrade? Ms Brinicombe said: "There are obviously contexts and situations where buying local makes complete sense." In other words, use your common sense.