The DoNation

[Zara Phang]

Hi all,

As plenty of us are interested in behavioural change, thought I'd just
give a quick plug for a website that launched yesterday -
http://www.thedonation.org.uk/

Basically the premise is that when you do something like run a
marathon (or 5k), shave your head, etc., instead of asking friends to
sponsor you with money, you ask them to sponsor you with actions to
reduce carbon.

The first incarnation of the site came from my friend and her friend
cycling from London to Morocco. I went vegetarian 4 days a week
(harder than I thought it would be!) and from that bike ride their
friends (including me) saved 16 tonnes of carbon.

Think it is a brilliant idea and I hope you do too :)

-Z

[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/05/2011 11:31:50 GMT Daylight Time, zara....@gmail.com writes:

http://www.thedonation.org.uk/

Looks a great idea and all power to them. Never underestimate the influence and power of individual actions. They spread, multiply and evolve.

 

One idea, instead of going vegetarian, why not just boycott factory farmed and imported meats? Your meat will be scarce and expensive and you will consume less, but you will benefit more from it both in health and psychology. And, its something you could do for life without the hassle of being completely veg.

 

I was on the verge of going veg many years ago, but started producing my own meat on organic principles. I eat alot now when I have a surplus, but would rather sell it! I just cant stomach commercial rubbish these days and go for the veg option if away from home - although fish is a good altenative.

 

Its also very easy (or should be) to give up car use in urban areas. I gave up mine, when I lived in Oxford, and didnt miss it at all, but saved a fortune. I always remeber being asked at a party to give someone a lift home. I asked how? In your car of course, came the reply. My response - I dont have one - was amazing news to the middle class types in my neighbourhood who thought they knew me well and just assumed that everyone has a car. It was then that they realised my campaigns for better public transport and cycling facilities were not just an armchair passtime.

 

Patrick

[Susan Braddock]

I sometimes wonder why anyone who lives in a big town has a car when parking is so expensive. I live in rural area at the moment where a car is pretty well essential, mainly due to there being no public transport and am shortly to move back to Brighton. I am intending to sell the car before I leave France and will manage on public transport, walking and taxis or hire car, unless I am forced to get an out of town job. I'm sure that not having to pay road tax and insurance will allow me the occasional necessary journey by taxi or hire car.

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[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/05/2011 00:26:50 GMT Daylight Time, sbra...@broadband-testing.co.uk writes:

I sometimes wonder why anyone who lives in a big town has a car when parking is so expensive. I live in rural area at the moment where a car is pretty well essential, mainly due to there being no public transport and am shortly to move back to Brighton. I am intending to sell the car before I leave France and will manage on public transport, walking and taxis or hire car, unless I am forced to get an out of town job. I'm sure that not having to pay road tax and insurance will allow me the occasional necessary journey by taxi or hire car.

Hi Susan,

 

I think you will find urban public transport in the UK lags far behind mainland Europe. There, smallish cities such as Mulhouse, Le Havre, Rheims, Grenoble, Brugge and Brescia are investing in electric trams, light rail and light metro. In the UK all we have for the most part is the diesel bus, and then its usually run inefficiently with multiple operators competing but still charging exorbitant fares.

 

I used to have friends in Brighton and visited a few times - they were keen cyclists and belonged to a group campaigning for better cycle facilities. You will have plenty of campaigning to do, but as Brighton is the first place in the UK to elect a Green MP - even under our dumbed down FPTP system - it should be a good environment to work in.

 

Spare a thought for those of us in rural backwaters such as north Devon though. I can assure Karen that Torbay is a cosmopolitan city compared to Barnstaple, my nearest urban centre. Even the tiny green movement here is a factionalised nimbyist rabble. There are some great folk around, but they are so thin on the ground. What few public transport investments and subsidies there are, are taken up by small wealthy groups to the exclusion of the majority - if that isnt corrupt I dont know what is.

 

I am seething at the moment as its just been announced that the scholars/students travel pass is going up from £300 a year to £580, due to public spending cuts. At the same time, my 16 yr old is having his Eductaional Maintenance Allowance cut from £30 a week to £20, before its abolished altogether. Meanwhile, a few miles away, a few dozen smart suited folk have a train service at their local walking distance stations in upmarket villages near Exeter every hour, which is costing the taxpayer probably £2000 a year for each one of them. Meanwhile, more and more houses round here are being bought up by folk who drive around in cars that look more like tanks.

 

Rant over!

 

Patrick

[Zara Phang]

Hi all,

It's never a good sign to be writing e-mails at this time of night but I am lying awake worrying about our current state of affairs which I haven't done in a while! 

Patrick I like what you said with regards to eating only local cruelty-free meats and in that way limit my meat consumption through scarcity/expense. That may be part of the solution to what my mind is worrying over currently..

I attended a presentation by Andrew Mitchell (of Global Canopy, not of Sutton Coldfield) today on the Forest Footprint Disclosure Project which is a brilliant idea based on the Carbon Disclosure Project which, backed by large investors, asks companies to disclose their use of forest commodities (focusing on leather/beef, wood products, soy, possibly a few other things but I don't feel like digging out my notes right now) down their supply chains.

A few things that Andrew Mitchell mentioned stuck in my head though:

1) End-users/Consumers don't/won't pay a premium for sustainable goods

2) We should make better productive use of our land

3) We (in the UK) should be paying more for our food 

These three points put together worried at me because I've lived in a couple of LDCs and feel that people in LDCs shouldn't be paying more for their food. So logically, that should mean that we should make better productive use of our land. But we have this movement in the UK which I don't really care much for (but I know some of you do, and apologies! It is my LDC viewpoint) for non-GM, organic food, which consumers DO pay a premium for. Cruelty-free meat, as well, which I do care about. And all this, to me, means less productive land.

So I see this basically as a potential conflict - saved forests with productive land and associated GM/non-organic/cruelty meat versus decimated forests with not so productive land and non-GM/organic/cruelty-free meat.  And it seems at the moment that the UK middle-class consumer is choosing the second choice (and willing to pay that premium) without much awareness of what that means with regards to forests.

But I could be wrong. Do people have other views? Maybe if we all ate less meat - and that would happen if meat prices rose significantly - but that would only happen if meat was scarce - and that would only happen if everybody in the world decided that they wouldn't take advantage of high meat prices and farm more meat.

Or maybe our land isn't so scarce - I have no knowledge of how much of our non-forested land area is being used but I doubt this is the case when we are cutting down rainforests and even acacia pulp plantations to grow palm oil/sugarcane plantations.

Hope that makes sense - I will have to solve some math equations now to send this e-mail so if it does manage to get through it must mean I'm in some sort of frame of mind to do that at least! (Google Beer Goggles if anyone is interested!)

Thanks for reading,

Zara

(oh, and as Edinburgh is the smallest city I've ever lived in I have never personally owned a car, but Transport for London services annoy me on a regular basis)

[Roger Priddle]

Hi all - great thread.

I'm in Canada, about 10 miles from 2 villages/towns, therefore grocery
stores, local farmers' market and most of the places I work.

A number of us have a real interest in local, organic, cruelty-free
food and there is quite a lot available. Winter is our biggest
problem - most vegetables are just being planted and won't hit the
market for some time. I can and store what I'm able to but a car is a
necessity (unless i want to try to do it all by bicycle, and I don't.)
I work in the local towns (mostly within 20 miles) and have been
agitating for an e-scooter that will go 80km/hr. So far no luck.

I think it's a foregone conclusion that food will be more expensive -
if I remember Michael Polan's book correctly, each kg of industrial
food requires 7 kg of oil. As oil prices rise, so will food. Add to
that the uncertainty caused by climate change, and buying food will
get steadily more expensive. (But then, so will everything else, I
believe.)

A large swath of our prairies is flooded this spring with (depending
on who you listen to) 50 year or 100 year or 300 year highs in river
flows drowning hundreds of square km of farmland and threatening both
crop and livestock production. Add to that the land flooded by the
water/oil mix resulting from the development of the Alberta Tar Sands
(again, hundreds of sq. kms) and everything, including bread is going
to cost more.

On the other hand, more and more people are getting involved in
community gardens, and turning useless front lawns into veggie
patches.

It seems to me that the long term issue will not be the capacity to
produce food but the changing of people's attitudes to the quality of
the food, the use of land and "inputs", and the cost of nutrition as a
percentage of annual income.

I read somewhere that, when I was born (1949), the average family
spent about 18% of the annual income on food. Now we spend about 8%.
(I will not argue with someone who has information that those numbers
are off by a percent or two.) The point is that we have grown
accustomed to cheap food that requires no labour from us, and that
situation is going to change.

We are going to have to believe that, although we spend less time on
websites and more in the garden, our lives are not poorer for it.
(OK, I think most of the people on this site will agree - it's "them",
all those "others" <grin> who will have to catch up.

I had an argument (debate) with a student today who maintained that
the three large vehicles his family drove were "necessary". For every
point I made, his response was, "Yeah, but..." He's not at all
interested in the idea that he might have to give up driving 30 miles
by himself in a large pick-up to go to the nearest mall. All I could
say was that he had the right to do it but he would also have to
accept that the fuel might well cost twice as much in the near future,
and that all the things he needed or wanted to buy would also cost
more.

As you can imagine, I didn't "win" the debate.

We find it easy to raise our expectations, harder to lower them, and
even harder to accept that a change is not necessarily bad.

I believe we have the ability to reduce our carbon footprint while
maintaining a comfortable lifestyle even in the face of resource
depletion - we just have to learn to value it.

Roger.

--
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you,
then you win. (Mahatma Gandhi)

[Duncan Hewitt]

Hi Zara,

Personally I have made the choice of eating less meat, and buying more
expensive meat that I know the history of. First thing for me is humane,
second is local, third is organic - but the thre things are, for me, the
epitomy of where we should be. We do eat too much meat-based food, for our
own good and the good of the environment. Meat needs to become the luxury
it once was, and it wasn't so long ago that it was a luxury.

My biggest fear is the inability of people to care about the providence of
their food, and to continue buying their meat from wherever, as long as
the price is right. We are facing the development of farms in the UK that
will 'grow' meat and dairy in warehouses, without daylight, to meet the
cheap costs that consumers expect. To me this is akin to giving up part of
our own humanity if we allow such things to happen.

To take your three points:

1) End consumers will have to pay a premium at some stage for their food,
it will happen whether they like it or not. They will pay more for
imported food due to transportation costs. They will pay more for local
produce as it's grown by people with a similar lifestyle expectation to
themselves who won't want to work for a pittance to serve the needs of the
majority, unlike those in poorer countries. Whether they will pay more for
'ethical' food is a more difficult question, and unless a government
dictates otherwise through legislation, one each individual will make on
their own merit.

Conclusion: we must all either pay that increased price, or start to grow
our own and put the spare time we currently spend in a pub, in a club,
sitting around watching our children playing in ball pits, into learning
how to take control of our food supply for ourselves. It's not easy and
it's hard work, but it's a choice, and in no way have I found it to be a
negative choice, not even in the coldest darkest days when something needs
doing. It also helps bring a family together in a common goal.

2) We should indeed make better use of our land. As Roger has mentioned,
so many gardens are being turned to useful production, but so many more
aren't. The original cottage garden was not the pretty flower paradise we
all think of, stuck on the lids of chocolate boxes. They were gardens full
of useful plants and flowers - sure they looked pretty, but they also
served a purpose. There were no lawns either - a waste of space. Others on
here will know more about the land availablity in the UK - I have heard
anything from 1 acre to 1/16 of an acre per family. A full-sized allotment
is 1/16 of an acre, and I know we can produce most, if not all, of the
food we need in terms of veg. There are people with views that we can do
better than that, given the right methods. The fact is, the more you can
do for yourself, the less of a burden you are on the food production
system - the farmers, the distributors, the importers, and therefore the
environment.

Production on a small scale also allows for a more 'fiddly' system - it
takes more time to do anything, more 'human power' needs to go into the
production of food, but heaven knows we have spare time in abundance. By
fiddly, an example is orchard use - in a small-scale orchard you can use
the various levels of the land in a more productive way than a mechanised
system. Assuming you pick fruit by hand, you can plant the fruit trees in
rows, between these rows you can either grow grasses tall for animal use,
or plant shade-tolerant fruit such as raspberries, or graze animals such
as chickens, geese or sheep. You essentially create your own ecosystem
where each element helps each other - the animals help keep the grass
down, the chickens help keep the tree bugs down, the trees provide dropped
fruit and shade for the animals, the animals fertlise the ground, and so
on. As humans we can take eggs, meat and fruit from this system, with no
use of oil. In a commercial orchard we rely on oil and have no other
produce except the fruit it produces.

3) Yes we should, and eventually we will - even the cheap food. The cheap
food depends on oil, that's the long and short of it, and it always will.
The really cheap food depends on human power, but only if you grow your
own and don't count the cost of your time.

On a side-note, I had a friend who was determined to help the world by
moving into the field of GM crops. Whilst I do understand the argument for
GM crops, the fact that the players in the GM market are massive, really
massive, and often take the control of a crop out of the hands of the
grower, scares me to the core. They are also, more importantly, taking the
control of the crop out of the hands of nature, and that is lethal.

You develop a bean that greenfly don't like, you get no greenfly. You get
no greenfly, you deplete the food supply of their predators - the
ladybirds, the lacewings, the wasps. You lessen these insects, you also
lessen food supply of their predators - birds, toads, frogs, spiders,
rats, bats, dragonflies etc. Sooner or later, you lessen the food supply
of a creature we really depend on directly for our own food supply. The
one thing I have noticed over the last four years is the
interconnectedness of nature, and to tinker with that in the arrogant way
we humans have the capacity to do, is in my mind a bloody stupid thing to
do. Take too much honey from a bee hive and the bees die. Take too much
from nature and it too will suffer.

One thing to remember, is that given the time, money and effort it takes
to develop a GM crop, resistant to a given bug, all of this can be undone
by nature. Fill a field with a bug-resistant crop, and sooner or later a
bug will develop a resistance itself to the GM crop. Natural selection can
get round the problem and soon you're left with a GM crop that is no
longer effctive. This has already happened.

At the end of the day, we need to address humankind's laziness and
unwillingness to tackle the solution head on. Nothing replaces hard work
and a more empathic view on the world. I seriously believe we can grow
enough of the right kinds of crops to feed us all, but it needs everyone
to do their bit and to pull food production out of the hands of the
commodities market and the profiteering that happens.

Duncan

[Duncan Hewitt]

Hi Roger,

I have the same sentiments as yourself - so much rings true to me. We
ourselves started to 'grow-our-own' three years ago, this is our fourth
season, and to me it's a way of doing my bit, but more importantly I see
it as arming our family with the necessary skills in order to feed
ourselves. We really noticed the price difference in our weekly shop when
we had to suppliment our own produce with shop-bought as the cold winter
dragged on. We have also planted fruit trees, so we can serve the local
population with fruit, and have found buyers already who are literally
crying out for local produce. Whether they're intersted in paying the
appropriate price is another matter altogether.

I do agree that the food production has to become, and will become, very
local in the future - from back garden growers to local farm shops. We
will also, no doubt, have the supermarkets attempting to continue their
hold on the food distribution system. Local supermarkets here are already
stocking what they call 'local' food, but my real worry is that
supermarkets will continue their move to buy up actual farms and move into
food production themselves, so doing away with farmers. I can't see any
other way for them to survive when they're forced to buy local in the
future, and I can't see the Walmarts and Tescos of the world giving up
their empires easily.

So whilst we are doing what we can on a local scale, I do worry about the
big players that pull so many strings today, and their plans for the
future.

Duncan

[Roger Priddle]

Duncan, Zara -

I'm really conflicted about GM foods.  As I understand it, they were developed to encourage huge monocultures that are machine-dependent but "efficient".  One problem as I understand it is the complete dependence on oil - without massive "inputs" of synthetic fertilizer and pesticides the soil is almost completely depleted after just a few years.  The fuel costs of running huge equipment is staggering as is the damage that equipment can do to the soil.

There are other problems but I don't want to diminish the impact that a world return to small scale farming would have on the hungry - I'm aware of it and am concerned about it.  My issue is that "we" (as represented by the Monsanto's of the world) try to "improve" the lot of small scale farmers by selling (what is to me) very suspect technology and products.  As a result, they get foods that don't reproduce and (again) provide only a few years of improved yields before the land is a mess.  I don't have an answer.

However, David Suzuki (if you don't know who he is, I can provide more info) is quoted as saying that anyone who claims that GM food is safe is either ignorant or lying - we really have no idea what the long-term impact of eating these foods will be.

I was creating a small presentation for high-school students on the subject of food.  I listed 13 ingredients, along the lines of "sodium metabisulphate", and asked if they felt comfortable about predicting the long-term effect of eating it - if, even if they know what the effect of one would be, how comfortable about predicting the effects of 13 of them in combination.  Obviously, they had no idea what the effect would be - they're 15 year old kids! - but they felt that there might well be a risk that would be hard to identify without a multi-decade study.

Then I told them that the list came from a bag of "snack food" I was eating as I typed.

Most of them had never read an ingredients label in their lives.  And in Canada we don't even specify whether the identifiable ingredients are GM or not.  It's just "vegetable oil".

Some were thoughtful, some just kept eating their Twinkies. 

Sometimes I'm hopeful, sometimes despondent, but I have to believe that if "we" (the "greenies" of the world) keep on doing our best and encourage the kids, it'll be alright.

Roger.

[john]

Zara-
It's late, so this will be half-baked; I just thought that it's an
obvious problem, but surely not a mutually exclusive pay-off.
After all, forests aren't the only ecosystems worth saving- look at
the (now largely destroyed) bio-diversity of unimproved meadowland.
Nor can animal welfare be so easily put aside.
If there is to be any answer, it would surely have to involve people
eating a lot less meat, as it is so particularly inefficient and
destructive when produced on an industrial scale. That's a cultural,
even a psychological, issue, rather than an economic one.
I agree, though, that ultimately, the problem seems unsolvable, short
of a population crash. Which is where I feel responsible for
inflicting the terrifyingly un-self-aware Karen on everyone.
John

> On 12 May 2011 22:52, <PAdams3...@aol.com> wrote:
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> > In a message dated 12/05/2011 00:26:50 GMT Daylight Time,

[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 14/05/2011 01:44:26 GMT Daylight Time, zara....@gmail.com writes:

A few things that Andrew Mitchell mentioned stuck in my head though:

1) End-users/Consumers don't/won't pay a premium for sustainable goods

2) We should make better productive use of our land

3) We (in the UK) should be paying more for our food 

These three points put together worried at me because I've lived in a couple of LDCs and feel that people in LDCs shouldn't be paying more for their food. So logically, that should mean that we should make better productive use of our land. But we have this movement in the UK which I don't really care much for (but I know some of you do, and apologies! It is my LDC viewpoint) for non-GM, organic food, which consumers DO pay a premium for. Cruelty-free meat, as well, which I do care about. And all this, to me, means less productive land.

So I see this basically as a potential conflict - saved forests with productive land and associated GM/non-organic/cruelty meat versus decimated forests with not so productive land and non-GM/organic/cruelty-free meat.  And it seems at the moment that the UK middle-class consumer is choosing the second choice (and willing to pay that premium) without much awareness of what that means with regards to forests.

I think the fundamental problem with food is the divide between producer and consumer. This is encouraged by the political desire to make food as cheap as possible. Cheap food means lower wages and lower benefits, while making the consumer more dependant on the system and less free. Expensive food destabilises the state.

 

This divide impacts on the producer as much as the consumer. It reduces food to a market commodity. It devalues the land - its fertility, its potential, its scarcity - while it undermines the status of the farmer in society. The divide sustains practices which are unecological and inefficient - efficient in money terms though - as money is the bottom line, and the money economy is not determined by what should be determining farming and food production. Food is a global commodity. Its production has become more dependant on cheap oil than any other commodity. The global food industry is also dependant on access to cheap land and cheap labour in developing countries.

 

These distortions have rebounded to such an extent in areas such as Europe, (the classic "high cost" agricultural regions - high land pricers and high labour costs) that its no longer possible for farmers to earn a living from what they produce - even with the most advanced technology and extreme oil intensity - without large state subsidy. The subsidy means they can carry on, as long as they produce what the market demands - and even then many sectors, such as dairy, are going bankrupt. Add speculators driving up land values, and the system has become so unsustainable and divorced from any reality other than short term money, that it has become dangerously unstable.

 

In what other industry is it necessary to have assets of £2m tied up in a farm, equipment and stock, and make no profit at all, year in year out, while depending on a state subsidy - which could be reduced or withdrawn?

 

I will give a couple of examples of what this means. I have 2 neighbours with average sized farms for this area (Devon). They both have about 250 acres. One produces only lamb and beef. His crop is about 400 (at most) lambs a year and a few dozen bullocks, which he simply buys in as young stock and finishes. To acheive even this he must buy vast quantities of fuel, fertiliser and some feeds. The other has specialised in factory farmed pigs and egg production, and uses all his land to grow wheat and barley for them, even though much of it is unsuitable for continuous arable - with even more oil and chemical inputs. They would both be bankrupt but for the subsidy.

 

Both of these farms were traditional mixed farms only a couple of decades ago and have a range of crops from potatoes to milk. Go back a generation and the farms were much smaller - they have swallowed up neighbours who have got out of farming and sold their houses to motorised commuters and converted their barns to housing for even more motorised commuters.

 

Thats the general backdrop to the scenario. A niche market for organic local produce doesnt infuence it much, especially as even this niche has become fickle in these straightened economic times.

 

We have a system of food production which suited the post industrial revolution era. It was based on making an agricultural system, which draws its biological limits from the dawn of agriculture (a few plant and animal species bred to suit it) with succesive tecnological innovations to make it more efficient. R & D has aimed at increasing productivity, while shrinking diversity. GM is another step on this road that becomes ever faster but ever narrower.

 

Only a revolution will change this. How this revolution will happen is anyones guess. There are plenty of political revolutions going on because the system is breaking - food and oil are becoming expensive, but they will only apply sticking plaster at best.

 

As a biologist/amatuer politician turned farmer I look around me in horror. Mankind is not stupid, its been dumbed down - quite deliberately. Its happened thoughout history. Bread and circuses. Vernacular bible is heresy, and so on.

 

Having been both a city dweller and a rural smallholder, I see this from both sides. Our coutryside and forests could be so much more productive. But, above all, urban areas could produce much of their own food. Veg, fruit, bees and livestock. Yes, livestock - poultry, pigs, goats, rabbits, carp, tilapia,. and much more could live off the food and vegetation that gets wasted, if we dropped our urbane taboos.

 

Will end on a positive note - I am still using last seasons apples - Cornish Longstem keeps till June - small and withered, but they are delicious cooked. In July I will get a few very small green apples called White Joaneting, followed rapidly by other early varieties. In the meantime I already have strawberries and will soon have masses of blackcurrants and gooseberries. Stir-fried some young reedmace rhizomes today - even better than the water-chestnut that they are compared with. I made some goat and nettle curry recently - sold some too - very positive feedback.

 

Patrick

 

 

[Roger Priddle]

Patrick - I read your whole post with interest and wouldn't disagree with a word.  Here, with more land and a smaller population, we should have more choices but we seem to exercise them less.  (BTW, for fun, look at a map of Canada.  Way out West, look at Vancouver Island.  To get a sense of scale, England fits on it, more or less!

We produce a lot of food and could produce more but with only 35million people in all that land, large scale, mechanized production is (has been) the solution.  Early settlers each got a "Quarter section" - 160 acres.  I know several farmers in the prairies farming 6, 8, and more quarters, but they're all mono-crops. 

Efficient? yeah, I guess but the cost is staggering.  About 10 years ago I read that 25% of the prairies are no longer considered "arable land".  Also that a foot or more of topsoil has been lost on most of the land.  The answer?  Bigger, heavier plows and tractors.

I wish I had some clever ideas.

Roger.

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[Roger Priddle]

Oh, and Patrick, I'm sitting here cursing you and your fresh strawberries!  Ours won't come until about the last week of June and the season will only be about 2 weeks long.  Time to gorge, make jam and freeze.

Roger.

[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 16/05/2011 00:33:05 GMT Daylight Time, roger....@gmail.com writes:

Oh, and Patrick, I'm sitting here cursing you and your fresh strawberries!  Ours won't come until about the last week of June and the season will only be about 2 weeks long.  Time to gorge, make jam and freeze.

Hi Roger,

 

Its only a few very small strawberries brought on early by the sunniest warmest and dryest April in my lifetime. My season lasts all summer though - they are small fruits but very tasty - too small to be commercial - a gardeners variety. I once had to take samples from a polytunnel growing early commercial strawberries - they tasted of nothing!

 

Getting back to your main point about clever ideas and the lack of them, I think the cleverest things to do are the simple ones. Produce good food from the land you have, however little. If you live in a city, then campaign for allotments and urban farms. When I lived in a small flat in Oxford, I got a nearby allotment, and was soon giving surplus veg to neighbours.

 

Patrick

[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 14/05/2011 18:02:25 GMT Daylight Time, dun...@kopperdrake.co.uk writes:

At the end of the day, we need to address humankind's laziness and
unwillingness to tackle the solution head on. Nothing replaces hard work
and a more empathic view on the world. I seriously believe we can grow
enough of the right kinds of crops to feed us all, but it needs everyone
to do their bit and to pull food production out of the hands of the
commodities market and the profiteering that happens.

I dont think its inherent laziness. Idle lifestyles are sold to people by the consumer system, the notion that its only worth getting out of bed if theres money to be made. You cant buy the stuff you produce yourself, thats the message.

 

Patrick

[TIMC...@aol.com]

 

 

In a message dated 16/05/2011 23:10:22 GMT Daylight Time, PAdam...@aol.com writes:

I once had to take samples from a polytunnel growing early commercial strawberries - they tasted of nothing!

 

Strange,

my daughter worked picking them once and said the same.

Definitely an early year here in Essex too. We've had our first courgettes, the raspberries are turning colour, the first pumpkin is cricket ball size, peas are well into flowering

Main downside is the wheat's all dying.

Tim

[TIMC...@aol.com]

 

 

In a message dated 16/05/2011 23:37:59 GMT Daylight Time, PAdam...@aol.com writes:

the hands of the
commodities market and the profiteering that happens.

Anyone else wondered if the whole Chris Huhne (sp?) affair has been raked up again just to divert attention from his pronouncements today?

A useful weakening of his position for many big businesses.

 

I'm no conspiracy theorist but it makes me think.

Tim

[Roger Priddle]

Inverse Relation Law of Berries:  Flavour varies inversely with size.

True here of blueberries as well as strawberries.

Roger.

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[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 18/05/2011 02:37:42 GMT Daylight Time, roger....@gmail.com writes:

Anyone else wondered if the whole Chris Huhne (sp?) affair has been raked up again just to divert attention from his pronouncements today?

A useful weakening of his position for many big businesses.

 

I'm no conspiracy theorist but it makes me think.

Tim

Huhne has been the most effective LibDem minister in the coalition, and is clearly in a diferent league to the rest. The Dept of "Energy and Climate Change" itself probably wrankles with many Tories.

 

Rather pathetic that the only dirt they have dragged up on him is this lame allegation dating back 8 years.

 

Patrick

[TIMC...@aol.com]

Hi Zara,

food is definitely very cheap, we are facing a serious loss this year as a primary food producer.

Whilst this per se is not a real problem for the world it is a small indication of a larger problem with food production. It all depends on the weather.

Most of the public probably think Essex is experiencing a nice warm summer. In reality the drought means we will produce enough wheat on this average size farm for 1 to 1.5 million less loaves of bread than last year, possibly more than that if we get no rain in the next four weeks.

We also have to budget for an extra tanker load of diesel for irrigation of potatoes and onions.

The productive capacity of land is very dependent on weather and how much oil you can throw at the problem, many of the recently cleared forests produce cheap food for say ten years until the natural fertility from a long fallow is exhausted.

i would feel we have exterminated enough of the natural world already in the drive to turn our earth into a monoculture growing humans.

 

Living in the country i think the public transport system in London is fantastic! Took a train down last weekend, £12 on first class, used the tube a few times and only needed a tenner on the Oyster card.

At home i have to drive a couple of miles to even see the daily bus.

 

ATB

Tim

[Duncan Hewitt]

In south Derbyshire here the rape seed is barely over half the height of last year and the wheat has also been stunted due to the lack of rain. Not going to be the best of harvests even if the year follows a more 'normal' pattern. We had some decent rain just over a week ago which saved the crops around us, very cloudy skies at the moment, but the rain just doesn't seem to want to drop.

Duncan

[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 18/05/2011 10:29:47 GMT Daylight Time, dun...@kopperdrake.co.uk writes:

In south Derbyshire here the rape seed is barely over half the height of last year and the wheat has also been stunted due to the lack of rain. Not going to be the best of harvests even if the year follows a more 'normal' pattern. We had some decent rain just over a week ago which saved the crops around us, very cloudy skies at the moment, but the rain just doesn't seem to want to drop.

Same here (Devon). A week now of brisk drying wind, constant cloud cover, but barely a spot. Grass isnt growing, crops look stunted and showing signs of premature ripening. Theres an old saying "summer in May, no corn nor hay". Dont know if there is one for summer in April.

 

Patrick

[Duncan Hewitt]

"Summer in April, buggered"

Duncan

[Susan Braddock]

Whilst, here in the Midi, we have had a warm spring and also a wet one - fantastic for our broad beans (already over) and mange-tout, but I'm not so happy about the knee-high grass, which I haven't ad time to cut back - now attempting and being blighted with hayfever.

[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 14/05/2011 17:19:16 GMT Daylight Time, dun...@kopperdrake.co.uk writes:

Local supermarkets here are already
stocking what they call 'local' food, but my real worry is that
supermarkets will continue their move to buy up actual farms and move into
food production themselves, so doing away with farmers. I can't see any
other way for them to survive when they're forced to buy local in the
future, and I can't see the Walmarts and Tescos of the world giving up
their empires easily.

They dont need to buy the farms - they just set up supply contracts with farmers. Often, they finance a new enterprise themselves, instruct the farmers exactly how to produce the goods, supply the raw matreials (it could be chicks for an egg production unit) and of course determine the price paid.

 

The farmer becomes effectively a serf.

 

Patrick

 

 

[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 18/05/2011 02:37:42 GMT Daylight Time, roger....@gmail.com writes:

Inverse Relation Law of Berries:  Flavour varies inversely with size.

True here of blueberries as well as strawberries.

Not with blackberries it doesnt. The best blackberries come early in the season (August). Last year they were massive and delicious. Same with black-currants, so its not just a wild fruit thing.

 

What you are talking about is commercial varieties, bred for size and marketability. The same applies to many commercial veg varieties. Why sell food when you can sell water?

 

I grow several varieties of potatoes. Theres good spuds, indiferent spuds and tasteless pap, fit only for mashing and adding cream, eggs etc. Couple of years ago I discovered a new variety of first earlies - Duke of York - a golden yellow colour and superb. Mine are already in flower this year, so will be harvesting in a couple of weeks. I only grow spuds for home consumption, as too labour intensive without mech for market, so I sometimes run out and buy a sack from a commercial grower. The best variety he grows is Wilja, but his Wilja arent a patch on mine for flavour and look much paler than mine - so that must be down to organic growing.

 

This is where organic production comes into its own. The food - veg, fruit or meat - is more concentrated. It tastes better and must be more nutritious. The crops are also more resilient to drought and disease, because it relies on good soil and natural cycles.

 

Patrick

[Roger Priddle]

Patrick, you're absolutely right. With blueberries (not sure you have
them in England...?), the big impressive looking ones are commercial
and the tiny wild ones are tasty. But (of course) the wild ones cost
way more - about 40 or 50 Euros (I know there's a symbol for it but I
forget) for a 9 quart basket. I freeze them and make them last all
winter.

I live on a beach so all soil has to be "made", and I have a long
history as a lousy gardener but I have friends who are generous enough
to share some of their produce - heirloom, organic, local and
delicious. If I were a neighbour, I'd be raiding your veggie patch -
it sounds wonderful.

Roger

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[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 19/05/2011 02:55:12 GMT Daylight Time, roger....@gmail.com writes:

I live on a beach so all soil has to be "made", and I have a long
history as a lousy gardener but I have friends who are generous enough
to share some of their produce - heirloom, organic, local and
delicious.  If I were a neighbour, I'd be raiding your veggie patch -
it sounds wonderful.

Any raiders here will be required to do some weeding and shift some dung!

 

Barmouth in mid-Wales is a coastal town on a rocky hillside. I was told by a local that the wonderful terraced gardens were made using seaweed as a soil former. I believe it should have lime added, and that the rain soon washes any excess salinity out. Indeed we have an organic fertiliser here called "calcified seaweed"

 

Patrick

[Roger Priddle]

Patrick, you know not what you ask. As in, no-one asks me to weed a
patch twice! I can never tell the difference between what we want and
what we don't so, by the time I'm done it looks like what the Russians
left as they retreated before Napoleon. Shifting dung (or as we say
over here "shoveling manure") is something I'm not unfamiliar with.
After all, I'm a part time school teacher <grin>.

Roger.

On 5/19/11, PAdam...@aol.com <PAdam...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> In a message dated 19/05/2011 02:55:12 GMT Daylight Time, roger.priddle

[Edwar...@aol.com]

Sue,

 

My family circumstances are perhaps an example:

 

I live in Norwich near the football ground at the centre of a triangle 1.5 miles from each of three schools.

 

I work days, my wife works three nights/week, so I drive my 5 1/2 year old daughter to school in the morning.

It is not possible for me to deliver her to school and get to work on time by public transport.

 

As my government employer is sacking 25% of us, it would be unwise for ne to seek more flexibility.

My wife is a carer but budgets are being cut so it would be unwise for her to try to leave early.

 

Part of the problem is that schools have (like supermarkets) optimised on medium to large size only

for internal cost efficiency reasons, externalising the resultant transportation cost on their customer base.

 

I am fairly confident that as the fuel runs out a new school will be introduced very near where I live;

there is increasing population, but that may not be for 10 years by which time my kids can cycle.

 

Edward

Running a 2 lite 7 seater Renault very nearly every day - when I would rather walk!.

[Susan Braddock]

Edward,

I sympathize immensely. It's true, I wasn't considering the plight of parents with children in widely separated schools.

Susan

[Roger Priddle]

You know, I was thinking as I caught up with this thread, that each of
us has to make compromises in how we live out lives. I can't get rid
of my car either - I'm 10 miles from the nearest town in a part of
the world that gets a winter full of snow.

To me, it's not a function of how "pure" each of us is but a matter of
how hard we're trying. 20 years ago, I (and others, I suspect) was
mostly oblivious. The issues were not really on the radar - too much
"life" going on.

But I know lots of people who have made major changes in the way they
approach living - out of genuine concern for the planet.

Until we (as a society) go back to local - shopping, learning,
working, eating - some facets of the ideal green lifestyle simply
won't be possible. However, "greener" is better than nothing.

(I sound pompous and I don't mean to be - I was asked a question
during a presentation 2 nights ago and I had no good solution. All I
could do was be encouraging, noting that the simple fact that these
people were at the presentation and that the question was being asked
was a good sign.)

Roger

On 5/21/11, Susan Braddock <sbra...@broadband-testing.co.uk> wrote:
> Edward,
>
> I sympathize immensely. It's true, I wasn't considering the plight of
> parents with children in widely separated schools.
>
> Susan
>
> On 21/05/2011 12:31, Edwar...@aol.com wrote:

>> *Sue,*

>> My family circumstances are perhaps an example:
>> I live in Norwich near the football ground at the centre of a triangle
>> 1.5 miles from each of three schools.
>> I work days, my wife works three nights/week, so I drive my 5 1/2 year
>> old daughter to school in the morning.
>> It is not possible for me to deliver her to school and get to work on
>> time by public transport.
>> As my government employer is sacking 25% of us, it would be unwise for
>> ne to seek more flexibility.
>> My wife is a carer but budgets are being cut so it would be unwise for
>> her to try to leave early.
>> Part of the problem is that schools have (like supermarkets) optimised
>> on medium to large size only
>> for internal cost efficiency reasons, externalising the resultant
>> transportation cost on their customer base.
>> I am fairly confident that as the fuel runs out a new school will be
>> introduced very near where I live;
>> there is increasing population, but that may not be for 10 years by
>> which time my kids can cycle.

>> *Edward*

[PAdam...@aol.com]

In a message dated 21/05/2011 19:54:04 GMT Daylight Time, sbra...@broadband-testing.co.uk writes:

Part of the problem is that schools have (like supermarkets) optimised on medium to large size only

for internal cost efficiency reasons, externalising the resultant transportation cost on their customer base.

 

Something needs to be done about school transport. The drop in traffic levels during school holidays shows just how much of a problem this has become.

 

I attended a number of schools in the late 50s and through the 60s, and they were all well over 1 mile from home. My parents had no car, even when we lived in a country hamlet (although this was on a well served bus route) and I never got to school by car. We walked, cycled or used the bus.

 

The general problem does not lie with the centralisation of schools, nor with the roads being too dangerous - they were just as dangerous in the 60s, if not more so. The problem is the level of car usage and ownership, and the fact that so many young families have both parents working.

 

Patrick