I spent three weeks in India at the start of this year. It was my first visit to that wonderful, extraordinary country and I brought back many great memories. Hair-raising tuk-tuk rides through the crazy Bangalore traffic, the vibrant hustle-bustle of the huge Devaraja fruit and vegetable and flower market, beautiful lakeside sunsets up in the hills of Wayanad, tea plantations gracing the slopes around Coonoor, sailing a converted rice […]
After this year’s long, hot, dry summer in the UK it’s hard to remember that just a few months earlier a spell of snow and severe weather (the “Beast from the East”) closed roads and led to some supermarket shelves being emptied of bread, milk and fresh fruit and vegetables. This loss of stock was due in part to panic buying but also reflected the supermarkets’ own weather-related transport problems. […]
The Gaia hypothesis, conceived by Professor James Lovelock, contends that the Earth is a self-regulating mechanism. According to Lovelock, this means that the planet as a whole is able to calibrate a highly complex set of interdependent relationships. These relationships are between living organisms (animals, plants, micro-organisms) and inorganic entities (air, water, soil). In fulfilling this regulatory role, the Earth’s ultimate objective is to achieve “steady state”, in other words […]
Farming in the UK began approximately 6,000 years ago with the gradual clearance of forest land to make way for fields for the growing of crops. Over the ensuing centuries, and until the industrial revolution of the late eighteenth century, farming methods and techniques evolved at a gradual pace and remained relatively simple, relying upon sustainable practices and techniques handed down from generation to generation. The introduction of mechanisation, which […]
For those who wonder whether consumer pressure ever works, consider this. When I first began writing, several years ago, about the unseen contribution made by supermarkets to the problem of food waste there was already a growing concern amongst various pressure and consumer groups over the issue. At the time, supermarkets were estimated to be responsible for around a third of all food waste in the UK, mainly due to […]
The UK’s level of self-sufficiency is in long-term decline. We now produce just over half of the food we consume. Of the shortfall, nearly three quarters is currently made up of food imported into the UK from the European Union (EU). Climate change related uncertainties – highlighted by scorching temperatures and insufficient rainfall over this year’s long hot summer – are an additional food security concern. Some UK crops were […]
I grow a modest amount of fruit and vegetables in my back garden. This year the list has included cherries, pears, strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, raddichio, peas, beans, courgettes, red onion squash, cabbage, chickpeas, leeks, kale and chard. Aside from the sheer pleasure which gardening provides, I also know exactly how each plant has been grown: carefully and tenderly nurtured. Of course, I grow only a tiny proportion of the […]
It is now three years since the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that glyphosate, the key ingredient of the popular weedkiller Roundup, is “probably carcinogenic to humans”. In response, Monsanto (the manufacturers of Roundup) has set about trying to discredit the WHO’s findings by, for example, setting up and funding numerous research projects, each of which, unsurprisingly, has gone on to conclude that Roundup is safe. Safe or not, glyphosate […]
The Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS), which allowed UK fruit and vegetable growers to employ migrant workers from Bulgaria and Romania as seasonal workers for up to six months at a time, was closed under the last government – a knee-jerk response to British media hype about immigration levels. Ironically, SAWS had a 98.4 per cent returnee rate, so was never actually an immigration issue despite being presented as one. […]
Regular readers of this blog will have come to realise by now that I regard the UK’s Brexit vote as an act of national self-harm. That is also pretty much how I view the election of Donald Trump to the office of president by the voters in the United States of America. Since his inauguration, climate change denier Trump has set about undoing much of the environmental protection that had […]