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Last week’s newsletter questioning the sustainability of eating meat has stimulated a lively and thoughtful debate on our blog and Facebook page. Interestingly, our meat attitude survey suggests that for the general public, 27% have reduced meat consumption compared to a year ago, largely for health or financial reasons. Among our own customers the picture is markedly different, with 47% eating less meat due to animal welfare or environmental issues, suggesting you are more thoughtful and altruistic; but then I always knew that.
When I was a school boy, my father’s annual act of civic responsibility was to run the ‘Bowling for the Pig’ stand at the school fête; the winner got a real live weaner (piglet) to take home and fatten up. Food rationing, having ended just ten years earlier, was still fresh in many memories so in a rural area, the idea of fattening a pig in your garden using kitchen waste wasn’t so weird.
Three weeks of gloom and relentless rain have caused a few problems with weeding and harvesting, but have done little to dampen our spirits here on the farm; with most of the planting finished, 2015 still looks like being a very good year. A bright September would allow us to get on top of the weeds, harvest in good conditions and ripen the tomatoes and squash, but sunny or not it will be the Soil Association’s Organic September. With organic sales rising again, my wife Geetie and I have been asked to give a talk in London as ‘organic pioneers’.
Finding chefs, butchers and growers is the bane of most food businesses. Despite years of celebrity TV cooks and gardeners and all the blogs and newspaper columns devoted to food, there is a dearth of good practitioners in the nation’s fields and commercial kitchens. It’s true that many of the skills needed can be acquired on the job, but there’s always a place for classroom study to give perspective and depth, and add status and thus pride in work.
It’s wild, grim and muddy out there, bringing growth to a standstill which will last six weeks. With so little vegetable stimulus, my thoughts fell to Brexit for this newsletter, but you are spared; it was so depressing I have junked it. Like many, I feel powerless, tired, and disappointed in our politicians on both sides. Better to concentrate on the positive changes that can be made without them.
Issue 12: Fairness and five years.
Find out more about Wicked Leeks and our publisher, organic veg box company Riverford.