Yesterday's farm..what if it comes back?

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

CSAs in my area? Nope. Garden share in my area? Nope. Allotments? Nope. (the council have made gazillions flogging them off for blocks of flats - the only one remaining required the use of 3 buses, even if I could live long enough to get to the top of the list).

Ah well. I can shoot and I can fish (pity there isn't any surface water for 15 miles round where I live). I'll manage somehow. Whether it is animals that I would end up shooting, though, is another matter.

RAS

A couple of links from recent time - both Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/22/science-museum-climate-map

Having done that will try and post some more positive points later.

choille

T'would be nice if people would stop buying New Zealand lamb, flowers & fruit from Africa & started eating stuff that's in season.
In Ullapool Tesco they had fish from Cambodia, Prawns from Indonesia - fer !!!!'s sake - it is not sustainable.
Prawns go from here across the globe to be processed & are then brought back in in neat plastic packaging - coz it's cheaper - well it aint cheaper in the long run.
All this big whoo haa about supermarkets' plastic carrier bags, that is a drop in the ocean, everything is packaged in plastic - even bananas which come naturally packaged. Leave your packaging at the check out - that'll show em.
Rant over.

Lotus-eater

choille wrote: »

T'would be nice if people would stop buying New Zealand lamb, flowers & fruit from Africa & started eating stuff that's in season.
In Ullapool Tesco they had fish from Cambodia, Prawns from Indonesia - fer !!!!'s sake - it is not sustainable.
Prawns go from here across the globe to be processed & are then brought back in in neat plastic packaging - coz it's cheaper - well it aint cheaper in the long run.
All this big whoo haa about supermarkets' plastic carrier bags, that is a drop in the ocean, everything is packaged in plastic - even bananas which come naturally packaged. Leave your packaging at the check out - that'll show em.
Rant over.

Can I go back to something I referred to earlier on a different rant.

People are lazy, ignorant and basically don't give a toss if it means their life has to change.

You and me can rant about it as much as we like, but it ain't going to change baby.

rhiwfield

Trouble is choille that I dont think a lot of people know the food seasons any more. They've become so used to having what they want when they want.

One of the levers used to justify buying from abroad is to support their farming community, but one of the features of the cuban crisis was the realisation that they were not growing what they needed, but growing instead an export cash crop.

RAS

choille wrote: »

T'would be nice if people would stop buying New Zealand lamb, flowers & fruit from Africa & started eating stuff that's in season.
In Ullapool Tesco they had fish from Cambodia, Prawns from Indonesia - fer !!!!'s sake - it is not sustainable.
Prawns go from here across the globe to be processed & are then brought back in in neat plastic packaging - coz it's cheaper - well it aint cheaper in the long run.

Totally agree.

Patrick Holden was speaking at a meeting on food security recently and this issue came up; basically fair trade is great but unless we also have a fair deal for our farmers an audience member suggested that there would be no-one left to supply our food. The audience of about 200 pretty much agreed. Something may come of that locally. There are several initiatives locally which look like getting together in the next few weeks to create active buying partnerships with our more local farmers.

The biggest bleeding (does that get past the swear check?) problem is the single point distribution networks that mean that soft fruit grown in the Hebrides has to go to the distribution point just north of Glasgow for packaging and then back to the island for sale! Duh! How sustainable is that?

Did you know there are only 4 or 5 milk bottling plants supplying all the milk in E&W, none of which are in Wales? Every Welsh supermarket pinta goes to England and back!

I was delighted to see that Marsden have started down the local food route. Their greengrocer retired having rather run down the shop, some of them panicked about the potential hole in the street frontage. 13 weeks later they had created a community shop which sells as much local produce as possible, buys in fish and shares its space with the community bakery, making slow fermented breads. People bring in produce to sell, which goes on their slate. They can have the money or take it as produce. So they had very local apples, lemon/limes from one producer, vegetables and home made jams and preserves. Next year several of the locals are going to grow specifically for sale.

And as you suggest fish from Cambodia in Ullapool is CRAZY. The places with the finest freshest fish I have ever tasted are in NW Scotland. Choille, when I was in Arctic Norway (Kabelvag), there was an incredible allotment site, fanning out from a firepit. They grew loads of stuff.

The problem is that in the absence of a market (literally in many cases), there is no point in growing much of the stuff that is quite easy, let alone the stuff that takes a bit more trouble. Do other feel the same as you?

RAS

rhiwfield wrote: »

Trouble is choille that I dont think a lot of people know the food seasons any more.

I helped staff an Apple Day recently and was surprised at the extent of the ignorance but also the frustration a lot of people expressed because they could not buy most of the varieties on show, even though we had some for sale.

I feel like a broken record but I keep having to explain two things

1. There are English apple varieties that ripen from July to May the following year (June if you include GD). There are 20 Scottish varieties that do well.

2. The newspaper coverage that NZ got claiming that their apples were more environmentally friendly that English ones compared a new season Cox from New Zealand with a Cox harvested in the UK in September and cold-stored until June the following year. The cold storage used more energy that the single way shipping. The report did not therefore compare like for like.

RAS

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

CSAs in my area? Nope. Garden share in my area? Nope. Allotments? Nope. (the council have made gazillions flogging them off for blocks of flats - the only one remaining required the use of 3 buses, even if I could live long enough to get to the top of the list).

Ah well. I can shoot and I can fish (pity there isn't any surface water for 15 miles round where I live). I'll manage somehow.

So where is the nearest area to your home where food is grown in quantity? Find out who arms/market gardens and start talking to them. Develop local food networks that bring their produce to your area.

And next spring star fruit spotting; see a tree in flower, make a note of the address. Try and find out what it is. Come autumn, check these out and if the crop is not harvested, ask the householder if you and some mates can harvest it for them. Given them a little good stuff if they want it and then use, sell, jam, preserve or juice the rest.

Ditto elderberry trees, hawthorn, rowan, nut trees etc.

choille

There is good stuff happening - The plant to plate in schools is great.

There are local markets - well localish.

Tesco in Inverness now allow traders in their carpark on Saturdays, but have them stuffed away at the back & charge them £70 @ pitch - which is not on for most small producers.

When I was down at the Crofting Foundation Gathering at Granton On Spey all the food in the hotel was local & they are making a very big play on it down there & I think it's working.

The countries not growing what they need scenario - I think there's a lot of parts of Africa growing flowers when the people in those localities need food. These flowers then end up in Tescos here.

The programmes on the TV with how to use up left overs, eating stuff past their sell by dates etc seem to have been an attempt at getting people to create less waste, therefore less land fill, as most food does end up there - not everyone composts, keeps animals that will eat it. Because people are getting skint - well a lot of people not all, maybe we will become more eco-friendly?
Where you have wealth you have waste.
Maybe people will be forced to tighten their belts - buy cheaper cuts of meat, cook from scratch etc - Goodness knows. Turn the heating down. Grow stuff.
A garden supplier place said that this year they sold more veg seeds than flower seeds - first time since I don't know when.
If all schools went back to teaching practical stuff - gardening, husbandry, cooking then that would be a good start, but I hear that the Gairloch has just taken Home Economics off their syllabus - don't know why....Money probably.

Yes - food is gathered up in Scotland, taken down motorways & then packaged & driven straight back up again.

I haven't grown enough stuff to sell apart from lambs, but the price I got was heart breaking - shall not be doing that again.
I do tend to swop things - food, surpluses with others & that works informally.
I do use supermarkets - difficult not to really, but less than I did, but I think they are getting bigger market share as individuals go to the wall. It's a shame.

rhiwfield

RAS wrote: »

I helped staff an Apple Day recently and was surprised at the extent of the ignorance but also the frustration a lot of people expressed because they could not buy most of the varieties on show, even though we had some for sale.

I feel like a broken record but I keep having to explain two things

1. There are English apple varieties that ripen from July to May the following year (June if you include GD). There are 20 Scottish varieties that do well.

2. The newspaper coverage that NZ got claiming that their apples were more environmentally friendly that English ones compared a new season Cox from New Zealand with a Cox harvested in the UK in September and cold-stored until June the following year. The cold storage used more energy that the single way shipping. The report did not therefore compare like for like.

RAS, I'm not sure I follow totally.
For 1 above presumably apples are picked aug-oct and ripen in storage thru til May/June but would need refrigeration in latter months?
For 2 cox would normally be eaten by March if left at external ambient temp (say garage) with no energy cost but last another 3 months if refrigerated?

So is the main UK apple harvest including stored but ripening fruit (without external energy usage) August-March, but August to June with external energy usage? For my benefit what UK apple is ready in July?

Assuming that UK apples are available for at least 6 months of the year, why dont people just enjoy the soft fruit season for the rest of the year?.

Lots of good posts on here, just sorry I've got no computer access for next few days