Opinion - Page 98 - Wicked Leeks

Food, Farming, Fairness.

Opinion

Guy's news: time for a radical re-think?

Cheap, freely available food has been taken for granted for so long that few journalists and politicians would have expected to see global food prices and supply dominating our news as they have recently. Spiraling food prices and accompanying riots in over thirty countries, the European and American bio-fuel fiasco, a rash of reports questioning the yield benefits claimed for GM crops and now a 2500 page UN and World Bank backed study of the options for world agriculture.

News from the farm

Opinion

Guy's news: the question of meat

News from the farm

Opinion

Guy's news: sweetcorn stories from France

News from the farm

Opinion

Guy's news: Organic September

When I converted the first of my father’s fields to organic in 1986, my motivations were primarily to avoid the agrochemicals that put my brother in hospital and made me ill as a teenager, and also a sense that it offered me a better chance of making some money. Over 25 years my commitment has grown; organic farming is much more than simply rejecting synthetic chemicals; it’s about balance, harmony and humility, and an acceptance that we share our planet with six billion others, and are part of an ongoing ecosystem rather than its short-term master.

News from the farm

Opinion

Guy's news: harvest woes

As I write, a ridge of high pressure is edging in from the Atlantic and threatening to build into the high pressure system we have been waiting for all summer; too late for most schoolchildren’s holidays, too late for many a fair, festival and fête; too late for our stunted pumpkins and sweetcorn, blighted potatoes, mildew-stricken onions and rotten strawberries.

Opinion

Guy's news: KBO

The sun is out, I’ve just swum in the reservoir and I have instructions to write my 400 words without moaning. If I carry on with my weekly liturgy of doom, my sister Rachel, who looks after marketing, is going to give this job to someone more cheerful. Back in April, with a drought threatening and the reservoir dropping, I was cursing myself for not fixing the leaks, but as I write this, the water is lapping at my feet.

Opinion

Guy's news: the worst is behind us

The rain has abated, the ground has dried up well and it’s time to gather in and make the most of what has survived the deluge. No one will starve, indeed the carrots and parsnips are doing pretty well, but we will have only half the projected yields of potatoes.