Lately I have been very interested in reading about the issue of food waste and all the facts and hot air that come with the subject. So I thought I would offer a farmer/layman’s view on this.

First, it would appear that there are many people spending a lot of time and money trying to come up with solutions, such as consumer awareness, better transport links and of course the old chestnut banded around about sustainable agriculture and organics. Yet again people like the Soil Association are jumping on the band wagon to justify their existence.

This all seems, even to a simple country boy like me, to be pretty straightforward. We know all the answers, so why can’t the governments around the world get on with implementing them. If Tesco want blemish-free potatoes, fine, then find a home for the not-so-pretty spuds, encourage producers and processors to throw less away.

I know it is not that simplistic, for example, most of the people struggling to feed themselves are in war-torn or poor parts of the world, but the only bits we seem worried about are the areas with oil, or that the US tells us are important.

Politicians of the world have the answers to the food waste issue now, so can every one stop harping on about it and start to do something, such as don’t build stupid high speed railways to Birmingham and use that money to tackle food waste instead.

Perhaps I am missing the point here, but it just sounds a lot more straightforward than is being portrayed. Enough said.

Oh and don’t even get me started on taking more land out of production for “greening”.

That’s got that off my chest, now for the last couple of days’ shooting, it’s tough at the top.

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