The completion of winter ploughing gives me a brief
chance to lift my head from the grindstone and look at what is
going on in the wider world. I've become involved, albeit on the
fringes, of the localTransition Town
GroupforDownham
Market.
The Transition movement is simple to understand if you accept
that the world has probably already passed the point of peak oil
flow. By 2050 we're all going to have to accept great changes to
our lifestyles.
Principal in this concept is a radical rethink on food
production and distribution. It involves communities being able to
work together (that alone is revolutionary) to rely on local,
seasonal supplies of food, not just for homes, but schools,
hospitals, offices and so on.
This will require huge changes in thinking by much of the
population. There is a long way to go, but we have to start
somewhere.
The busy UK Grain event also gave me a chance to get away from
the farm for a few hours to see what could be done better to help
dry and condition grain.
Earlier this autumn I had a brainwave about getting my
pedestal-based system to really do some good. I remembered I had
some air extraction fans from an old poultry unit, so I mounted
them in the roof vents of the main grain store to extract the
moist, warm air that normally just recirculates. As a result the
grain actually started to dry. Simple when you think about it.
So my plan for 2009 is to invest in a basic controller to switch
the fans off and on automatically according to humidity levels. The
question then is will 2009 be a wet harvest? The way things are
going I think you can bet on it.
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Andrew Charlton
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