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News

Mackerel is no longer sustainable. So, what fish can we eat?

As Waitrose removes all fresh, chilled and frozen mackerel from its shelves, Lizzie Rivera asks whether fish can ever be a sustainable choice?

Environment and ethics Fish
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News

10-year zero-pesticide study proves positive – but will policymakers pay attention?

As Big Ag pushes for more chemicals in the name of "food security", the findings of a landmark study provide hope for nature friendly farmers

Agroecology Organics Pesticides
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Features

Farming’s big plastic problem – and emerging solutions

A study of soil taken from 100 British farms found microplastic contamination at every site, writes Nick Easen

Environment and ethics Farming Plastic
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Features

A return to the whole foods our grandparents recognise

From frugal, glycine-rich cuts of meat, to better protein & fibre sources, Hannah Neville-Green explores what's driving a collective shift away from Ultra Processed Food

Diets Eating and drinking Health
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News

Poison for profit – EU exports 122,000 tonnes of banned pesticides

44 Highly Hazardous Pesticides, banned for EU use, are still being shipped to the African continent

Environment and ethics Pesticides
Opinion

News from the farm: A better reason to slow down – join the FIT Count

Guy Singh-Watson News from the farm
The AGtivist

The AGtivist finds: Independent farms squeezed out by a system that rewards scale and uniformity

Intensive farming Animal welfare Farming
Features

Singing with Nightingales: a wild encounter of the musical kind reminds us what’s at stake

Animal welfare Community Nature
STORY OF THE WEEK

Before [the arrival of large industrial farms], local farmers were the heart of this business. We had family traditions… It was our identity, our education, a part of our tradition. Filippo Boffelli, a farmer from Italy

WL Meets

WL Meets: Lucy Vincent – raising the profile of prison food

People Social justice Health Politics
News

Mackerel is no longer sustainable. So, what fish can we eat?

Environment and ethics Fish
News

10-year zero-pesticide study proves positive – but will policymakers pay attention?

Agroecology Organics Pesticides
Opinion

News from the farm: It seemed to work for a while, but now we need a plan

Environment and ethics Ethical business Farming Guy Singh-Watson News from the farm
WL Meets

WL Meets: Ellen Fay – bringing everyone together for the sake of our soil

Soil
The AGtivist

The AGtivist: Local residents suffer ill-effects of air pollution near intensive farm hotspots

UK Gov Animal welfare Environment and ethics
Features

News from the farm: The art of fridge raids

Food waste Eating and drinking News from the farm
Features

The growing alliance between Big Tech and Big Ag and how it’s shaping what we eat

Farming Technology
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FOOD, FARMING, FAIRNESS. Wicked Leeks is a digital news channel joining the dots between food, farming & people, published by @riverford ⬇️SUBSCRIBE

The sky is clouded, there’s no moon in sight, and The sky is clouded, there’s no moon in sight, and the woods are dark; the last lantern has been ritually extinguished, writes @hannahmarshwrites I am among a small group of people walking quietly through coppiced Sussex woodland. Earlier in the afternoon, before dusk fell, the trees thrummed and trilled with lively birdsong. Great tit, wren, chiffchaff, robin, a couple of ducks flying home to their nest and newly laid eggs, the occasional noisy startle of a pheasant, and thrillingly, the first clockwork call of a cuckoo. 

Now it’s late; night is well set in, and our path is lit by milky starlight, and the occasional faraway flash of a low plane coming in to land at nearby Gatwick Airport. The only sounds are the industrious rustles of small nighttime creatures, and the soft, slow sound of our footsteps. Otherwise the woods are silent; we do not talk. 

There is only one bird now that every ear in our group strains to hear. And as we make our way through the woods, it begins to filter through the trees – the plaintive, silvery sound of a nightingale. 

I’ve come to the woods with @singingwithnightingales a series of events founded by musician and environmental activist, @samleesong Is it a performance? Of sorts. An ecological guided tour? In some ways. A spell? Almost certainly. But really, it defies categorisation.

The nightingale, which occupies such a vivid and romantic place in our collective imagination, is under threat in the UK. While it flits through our folklore, fairy tales and fables, in reality, its numbers are now extremely low. Its song may be lavish, but its home is as humble as its dull, brown appearance – it favours scrubby, dense habitat, like the blackthorn bush we sit beneath, which it needs for both nesting and concealment. All of that is in decline. The statistics are stark – between 1967 and 2022 the once common nightingale’s population has declined by 90%, and it has been on the Red List of endangered species since 2015. While it used to be widespread across the south and east of England, it has now vanished from much of it. 

You can read the full feature on Wicked Leeks, via the link in our bio.
Mackerel has long been held up as one of the UK’s Mackerel has long been held up as one of the UK’s most sustainable seafood choices. But from today, fresh, chilled and frozen mackerel has disappeared from Waitrose shelves, after the supermarket said fishing levels were too high to justify continued sales.

The move comes as conservation groups warn that other staples are also under pressure. Earlier this month, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) downgraded UK-caught cod to its lowest sustainability rating, citing falling populations.

If you’re feeling at a loss about what fish you can eat sustainably, you’re not alone.

Tristan Hegarty, 43, has only recently started to incorporate animal products into his diet, after a decade of avoiding them.

Like many, Hegarty didn’t want to buy farmed fish, vaguely knew he should avoid cod, and had heard “somewhere” that mackerel was a more sustainable option, so he opted for that. Then his wife informed him Waitrose are suspending sales of mackerel for sustainability reasons.

“I’m angry with the state of the fishing industry and that it’s very difficult to eat well and choose good options without compromising some ecosystem somewhere,” he says.

By all accounts, mackerel should be a sustainable choice: mackerel breed quickly and are caught with relatively low fuel and low bycatch. It’s a small oily fish, that’s well-suited to preservation including canning and smoking as well as being frozen whole.

Indeed, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s ‘Fish Fight’ campaign urged us to replace cod with a much more sustainable mackerel bap, but that was 15 years ago.

Now the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea has said there is not a high enough rate of breeding to replace the volume of mackerel being caught.

Scientists advised steep cuts to mackerel catches, but governments agreed to significantly smaller reductions. Waitrose said this didn’t go far enough and announced they were suspending sales of mackerel by the end of April.

It’s a move that has been celebrated by environmental campaigners, and one that other supermarkets are also considering. Yet, not everyone is in agreement...

Read the full piece by @lizzierivs on Wicked Leeks, or via the link in our bio.
There are many areas of society, business and econ There are many areas of society, business and economics where the UK is a bit of a laggard and agrivoltaics is one of them, writes Nick Easen. While Germany, France and Italy are ploughing ahead, growing crops alongside or beneath solar panels, the UK is not even out of the starting blocks. There are no big investments, or large-scale trials, and only a handful of research projects. 

This seems strange given that many people have voiced concerns about solar farms gobbling up land for food production. Last year the Campaign to Protect Rural England touted the headline “Two-thirds of mega solar farms built on productive farmland,” saying in a report that an area the size of Greater London would need to be covered in panels to meet our solar energy targets. 

However, there is an obvious solution for the ‘fuel versus land use crisis’ and that involves marrying the two. By putting solar panels on stilts or using vertical solar panels with spaces in between, you can farm effectively and also produce homegrown renewable energy. This can also increase land use efficiency up to 186 per cent. 

“We’ve shown this in Norway – very little loss of yield when demonstrating agrivoltaics. The biomass of the grass grown in between solar panels was not significantly different. This is a really surprising result,” explains Dr Richard Randle-Boggis from SINTEF, a Norwegian research institute, who has also worked on agrivoltaics at the University of Sheffield.

So what's stopping the UK adopting this? Head to Wicked Leeks to read the full feature (via the link in our bio).
Just 1% of England’s population owns half of its l Just 1% of England’s population owns half of its land. Until recently, understanding precisely who owns what – obscured by paywalls and muddled by a lack of maps – represented an all-but-impossible challenge. 

But in March, writes @hannahmarshwrites as part of its new Land Use Framework for England, the UK government announced new plans to open up its Land Registry. If the plans are delivered, it’ll be far easier to find out who owns land across England and Wales. 

@guy.shrubsole a writer, environmentalist and activist, who co-founded Right to Roam, has campaigned for more transparency around land ownership for 10 years, since starting his blog, Who Owns England a decade ago. 

“I’m elated – very excited about it!” he says. 

Guy became interested in the issue of land ownership in the aftermath of Brexit, when the narrative from the Leave campaign had been hooked on the catchy notion of ‘taking back control’. 

“I was like, well, I’d be really interested in working out who does actually control the most fundamental thing in this country, which is who owns the land, who has the control of wealth and power, because land is clearly very much related to that, and has been throughout English history.” 

It was a daunting task. Guy explains that currently, it costs £7 to view a single land title register – “The price of an expensive London pint,” – and that with 24 million land titles registered, it would cost an interested person, or organisation, £168 million to piece together that information. Until now, it’s been a painstaking case of detective work, sifting through information, and following paper trails to track down names of landowners that are sometimes tucked away in obscure places, such as maps that detail farm and heritage subsidies. 

It’s through this line of enquiry that Guy came to his conclusion that 50% of England is owned by just 1% of its population – and he admits that’s likely a conservative estimate. The new policy will certainly make access to this information quicker, clearer and more accurate. 

Read the full feature on Wicked Leeks, via the link in bio. 📸 @emmastonerphotos

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