Ed Dowding

Category: Agriculture & Food

Link round up

Find out what the soil is like in your area using the soil database from the National Environmental Research Council Did you know that Henry Ford encouraged soldiers to strike during WW1? He took a ship full of peace protesters to Europe on the Ford peace ship to appeal to the “good sense of the lads” to ...

100 years of unsustaintable fishing

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jun/03/fish-stocks-information-beautiful

Can you feed a family on fifty quid a week?

Sainsbury’s believes you can but when Alex Renton took up the challenge, he found his household had serious misgivings. He writes: “Most supermarket sales campaigns are about “value”, which means “lower prices”, though those are not the same thing at all. In pursuit of what would seem impossible, greater earnings with ever-lower prices, the big ...

Skipping dinner

I went skip raiding last night around the back of Waitrose with a friend who lives locally.We thought we’d go see what’s thrown away and liberate some meals from the tragedy of landfill. It’s illegal, but as an imaginary legal team suggested, “being immoral is clearly worse than being illegal.” We parked around the corner ...

Eat smart.

If a healthy school meal service, linked to good food education, can help reduce the incidence of Type 2 diabetes by just 1% then it will more than pay for itself in savings on diabetes costs alone. via The Soil Association

66 things to grow in any house

From the marvellous Planet Green comes a list of 66 Things You Can Grow At Home – in containers, without a garden Tree fruits – including apples 1. Apples 2. Kumquats 3. Avocados (plenty of extra tips online if you search) 4. Blackberries 5. Blueberries (sometimes helpful videos are available online) 6. Pomegranate 7. Cherries ...

With great power doesn’t come great responsibility.

I believe that this is an act of premeditated genetic pollution of the gene pool of alfalfa and related plants by Monsanto. They know exactly what they’re doing. What they understand is that if you pollute enough alfalfa across the country to where it becomes impossible to grow organic alfalfa that isn’t contaminated, perhaps then ...

Almost enough to make one optimistic

Egypt demands better governance, and lots of countries follow suit. MPs do a semi-u-turn and decide not to sell of forests Caroline Spelman issued an extraordinary apology yesterday as she scrapped plans to sell off England’s forests, telling MPs: “I’m sorry, we got this one wrong.” The Environment Secretary’s act of public contrition helped to ...

Organic is the only game in town. Get playing. Now.

The facts are these: Resources key to non-organic food production are either running out or becoming priced beyond viability. GM’s advantages come mainly from their convenience, but that convenience is only accessed through intense use of fossil fuels, for which, see (1). Food for 9bn people needs to focus on nutrition. Organic delivers this. (See ...

What’s stopping progress?

This afternoon, Monty Don headed up an excellent panel in a session entitled “What’s stopping progress?” “The evidence for changing everything is overwhelming,” says Prof Tim Lang (Food Policy at City University, London). “The good news is that the process of articulating the necessity has begun. The bad news is that we don’t have the ...

The nature of human change and the change of human nature.

What a day! There’s been quite a lot of discussion around grand systemic change – the idea that we’re on the edge of something big and exciting and a little scary. But as with most situations when the world changes, there is some debate, uncertainty, and fear about what’s going to happen. The lack of ...

What is the Future of Food?

The first session of the Soil Association conference has kicked off with a simple question: What is the future of food? Caroline Spelman was not present to give the keynote speech, but recorded a disappointingly political video. “The Foresight Report points to the vital role of organics in future food provision in the UK… we ...

Nothing Is As Powerful As An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

For the first time in history the mind of man was really attempting to control his destiny. Hitherto usage, tradition, external necessity, accident had furnished the unchallenged framework within which he had devised his explanations and his consolations. He had resisted any clear knowledge of his own nature and romanced about his destiny. He had ...

Blogging from the Soil Association conference

I’m going to be blogging from the Soil Association Annual Conference on Wednesday and Thursday this week. This years theme is Food and the Big Society (pun quite possibly intended, I’m not sure), addressing the vital role that food can play in making us healthier, more connected to our communities, reducing our carbon footprint, and ...

It’s spring. Plant something. Feel good.

Two lovely services I’ve written about before in various places, but mainly here. Click the images for their links.

When is food security going to become an issue for you, too?

A polar bear swam continuously for over nine days, covering 426 miles, animal researchers were astonished to discover. And the scientists studying bears around the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska and Canada, claim this endurance feat could be a result of climate change. “This bear swam continuously for 232 hours and 687 km and through ...

Pay more for your food

I suspect a few people reading this may have seen a new series about farming which started on BBC2 today, which is about making a successful business from a smallholding. Over the next few weeks I’m going to write about what this means, and why so many good, organic farmers find it such a struggle ...

Fish, Forests, and the 21st Century commons

An extract from a letter I’ve just written to my MP, George Freeman, the PPS to Gregory Barker as Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change. In the meantime I wonder if I might press home one or two contemporary issues? Firstly you are no doubt aware of the “Hugh’s Fish Fight” campaign. ...

Reasons to be cheerful: Peak Phosphorous

Graphs like this make me very happy because they hint that thing might all work out OK. via Peak Phosphorus: the sequel to Peak Oil. I’m sure you know that phosphorous is one of the critical components to the most abundantly used fertilisers. I’m sure you’ll also know that it’s what causing algal blooms, feeding ...

EU organic food push

The European Union (EU) is co-funding a $2.8m (£1.8m) publicity campaign to convince UK residents that organic food is good. According to the industry body, the Organic Trade Board (OTB), the aim is to democratise organic foods and make people aware of their benefits. In other words, the OTB wants people to buy more organic ...