David's Digest

I don't know what all the fuss is about. Yes, we had an inch or two (sorry - a few millimeters) of snow here yesterday morning. But by mid afternoon the flurries had turned to rain and most of it disappeared. A few stupid motorists who presumably thought they should be able to turn corners at the same speed as they normally do ended up skidding off un-gritted highways. But it really wasn't bad enough to close schools, curtail train and bus services and so on.

I must concede that conditions were worse in the far south east (as shown on TV news bulletins and reported by FW colleagues). That meant, of course, that the London-centric mass media assumed the whole country was the same. But it wasn't. Indeed, although we had a sharp frost here in Norfolk last night and the lanes were pretty slippery to start with, since then the sun has come out and I was tempted just now to go out into the garden to sunbathe. Fortunately for anyone who might have been watching I resisted the temptation. Global Warming continues here in the balmy east of the country.

But I do think we have become a nation of wimps. How we would cope if we had snowfalls and low temperatures like they do in Canada, the Alps, Russia, etc I don't know. Its time to toughen up - not allow ourselves to be ruled forever by Health and Safety legislation. Let's make Britain Great again and begin by facing up to and beating a bit of bad weather.

I heard a story the other day that I found almost unbelievable. It was told to me by a farmers son in his twenties and not long out of university who works in the agriculture industry but still mixes with friends who know nothing about farming.

A young lady of his acquaintance who loved animals had joined Compassion in World Farming. She had been persuaded by the propaganda subsequently sent to her that milking cows was cruel. That the twice daily ritual of drawing milk from their udders made cows miserable. Furthermore, that she could make the life of at least one animal more bearable by giving money to the organisation spreading the propaganda.

She had therefore, according to my young friend, sponsored a cow not to be milked. How much this had cost her I don't know. But I wondered if she had thought through the reasons why the cow existed in the first place. Or if she knew about distended udders and the pain that could cause. Or any one of a number of other questions obvious to those of us involved in farming but not to those who support CWF - including the possibility that it might be a big confidence trick.

You watch a programme like Jamie Oliver's about the high welfare enjoyed by British pigs and how it is better to eat home produced meat if you want to ensure tthe animal has had a good life and you think - Great, the message is getting through. Then you hear a story like this. And you think - there's a whole lot more education and reconnection still to do. 

I was there when there were nearly 1.5million allotments in this country. It was in the 1940's and, against a background of the 2nd World War and its aftermath and food rationing, it was the only way many people managed to get enough to eat. Most houses had big gardens in those days too, unlike the tiny lawns and concrete driveways constructed today, and it was normal to produce at least some of your own food.

Since then we've degenerated into a society that relies on cheap food and ready availability from ubiquitous supermarkets. Today the average expenditure on food as a percentage of household income is about 9% compared with nearer 30% back then. And most people have lost the ability, the knowledge and the incentive to grow food for themselves.

But apparently this is changing. There is said to be a waiting list of some 100,000 people wanting allotments (on top of the 300,000 who have them already) and local authorities are seeking sites. The National Trust is one of the organisations ready to provide them.

The motivation for all this demand is rather mixed. It began with a resurgence in the desire to eat home grown food. Then as the credit crunch began to bite last year and food prices increased, some consumers thought they could grow it cheaper. Others decided the exercise of digging an allotment would do them good.

Whether all these benefits will be fully achieved by those involved is doubtful. They may well find the costs and the time spent growing fruit and veg rather higher than they would have paid in the supermarket. Some may also find the healthy exercise more demanding than they thought and might give up. Others will experience crop failures as a result of their own ignorance.

Despite all that, however, all will learn something of what it takes to grow good food to fill supermarket shelves. By digging for victory 21st Century style they will also have gained some appreciation of the realities and frustrations of growing crops. The total production of all the allotments will hardly dent national demand and all in all I am convinced the trend is a good thing for Britsh agriculture.