You Vote Three Times Every Day

For some reason I've always been under the impression that organic food - and organic farming - was the environmentally friendly choice. Organic farmers avoid pesticides or herbicides or fungicides, and they only use environmentally friendly fertilisers, right? They use methods like polyculture, soil-building, companion planting and encouraging beneficial predators, and when they have a problem they deal with pests manually or use strictly-controlled organic pesticides if they really, really have to, right?

Wrong! I got quite a shock when I saw this video:

(For the purposes of this post, I'm talking only about the first 1m40s of the video - the rest is another issue, which I've commented on before, here, and about which I'll have plenty more to say in the next few weeks...)

It seems some organic farmers don't give two hoots about environmentally-friendly methods, and use organic-certified pesticides, fungicides and herbicides liberally - in fact, at much higher rates and much more often than conventional fertilisers. Apparently I should have known this back in 2010, when a study showed that use of organic pesticides could actually be more damaging to the environment and its wildlife than synthetic pesticides. In fact, some organic-certified (i.e. derived-from-nature) pesticides are much more toxic than their synthetic counterparts: organic-certified rotenone, derived from the roots of tropical bean plants and effective against caterpillars and beetles, is six times more toxic than carbaryl, a synthetic product used for the same pests. Nicotine sulfate, extracted from tobacco, is six times more toxic than its synthetic counterpart, diazinon. 

Now, some say this study is irrelevant:

"...the implications of the study are minimal because organic farming is not about replacing synthetic pesticides with organic pesticides, say organic farmers, retailers and regulators.

The culture and approach of organic farming is what distinguishes it from conventional farming, organic farmer David Cohlmeyer said. He runs Cookstown Greens, which supplies organic produce to restaurants and hotels in Ontario. Organic pesticides are "irrelevant" to his business, he said.

"When you're doing it right, you don't have pest problems," Mr. Cohlmeyer said. "We don't use any pesticides because we don't need to."

Organic farmers are only supposed to use natural pesticides as a last resort. Instead, crop rotation, planting habitats for beneficial predators and good soil are an organic farmer's first priority, said Simon Jacques, Ontario representative for organic certification program Ecocert."

- Cigdem Iltan, The Globe and Mail

Good news! I wasn't completely delusional about the good of organic farming then. But the attitudes of the two farmers in the video demonstrate very clearly that an organic farmer is not necessarily a farmer who cares for the environment or supports wildlife on his land. For the two farmers in the video, organic farming IS about replacing synthetic pesticides with organic ones. I don't know why I hadn't seen it coming, to be honest: profit trumps the greater good every time, doesn't it? If you're going to grow big monocultures, you're going to need more pesticides, whether organic or synthetic. And - as well as rendering the 'organic' label fairly meaningless - this revelation highlights again what I think is really wrong with our food supply chain: industrialisation.

It's the sheer scale of industrial farms that causes the trouble. Monocultures push out nature. Small farms and big gardens are far better suited to chemical-free growing, good soil care, manual pest-control and rich biodiversity. On a huge industrial farm, a relatively small number of workers have to deal with a vast area of land in the way that makes the most profit. Doesn't our food supply deserve a little more attention-to-detail than that? They plant monocultures because they're simpler to care for and make the most money. They use chemicals because they're the easiest way to deal with a problem, not the best way. They don't feed or protect the soil any more than they must to get their crop. Wildlife? Wildlife doesn't make a profit.

Food is the foundation of our survival and wellbeing. It's the cornerstone of economy; the number one most important commodity in every country. It's the linchpin of society; civilisations have risen and fallen according to their ability to produce it. You can't build a shelter, use a computer, drive a car or win a war without it. It's our first and foremost concern when it comes to looking after our families and our health - food is personal. As human beings, it is and must be our primary industry, and because it's SO important - because we must throw so much time and energy and resources and land into it - HOW we do it is crucial too.

So why are we so dreadfully out of touch with our food supply? Why have we pushed food production out of our communities? Why have we given up responsibility for it, preferring to pay money for other people, often in other countries, to sort it out for us? How much time and energy and resources and land do we as individuals and families and communities give to it?

Our modern food and farming system has transformed some 700,000,000 hectares of woodlands, forests and meadows into vast, featureless swathes of cereal crops, replacing natural ecosystems, displacing wildlife and sometimes destroying whole species. It depletes soils worldwide up to ten times faster than nature can restore them. It's an enormous source of pollution - the biggest source in many countries - and could even be depleting the ozone layer, scientists say. It's the world's biggest source of animal cruelty. And the worst thing of all? It's not even working! 12% of the world still goes hungry, and a good deal more than that struggle to get the food they need.

And I'm sick to death of claims that GMOs are the answer - the only way to feed the world. Recent news of a GM potato that resists blight failed to mention the naturally-bred potatoes already developed by the Sarvari Research Trust. These 'Sarpo' potatoes are resistant to all strains of blight and have been around for six years - if you grow your own you may well already be familiar with them. The trust is currently busy trying to crowdfund £50,000 to expand their business and make their blight-free potatoes available to farmers and growers across the globe (you can help them reach their target here). Meanwhile, £3,200,000 of public money has been spent trying to genetically-engineer potatoes to do exactly the same thing that Sarpo spuds can already do - and it has taken three years to achieve resistance against just one strain of the disease! Whatever the GM industry is about, it is NOT about feeding the world. Imagine the benefits to the food supply by now if Sarpo had been given that £3.2 million, three years ago!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: divide the worlds 21,800,000 square miles of agricultural land by its 7 billion people and we get nearly two acres each! That's more than enough to feed the world by anyone's logic; we're just managing the land - and its produce - insanely badly. Once upon a time, everyone was involved in their own food production. Today, we get our food from shelves, in buildings, without a second thought, and for that reason we've forgotten that because it's SO important, food production is perhaps THE biggest influence on how our world is run.

Every time you eat, you vote for how you want the world to be. You vote for or against biodiversity. You vote for or against animal cruelty. You vote for or against wildlife, and deforestation, and pollution, and slavery, and CO2 emissions, and chemical food additives. You vote for or against the corporations that seek to own the food supply. You vote for or against your own local economy, and your personal food security in times of trouble. Change never happens overnight, but every pound you spend, every consumer choice you make, every meal you eat is an opportunity to influence the system.

We need to take back responsibility for our food supplies; we need to bring food production back to our communities. We need to get involved. Please, get involved. Support your local farmers and producers and, crucially, talk to them about how the food was produced. Join a CSA, a community garden project or a similar group in your area - or start one! If you don't already, grow some food for yourself! Take the One Pot Pledge. Start some herbs and salad greens in containers - they're easy and some of the most heavily-sprayed conventional crops. Put your name down for an allotment. Do anything to take the power back and have some say about how you want our food system to run. Do it now!

Around a Squash in Eight Days

Last year's hot, sunny summer brought trouble and triumph to the plot - while our potatoes and salads struggled, our tomatoes and squashes had a glorious time and produced like crazy, and we're still eating some of those squashes now!

That's the biggest - a 'Musquee de Provence' squash, which is only just ripening (my fault, I think, for planting out rather late) and weighs a whopping 12kg! We're eating its smaller brother this week, and it's gorgeous - chestnutty brown on the outside, vivid orange on the inside, light and moist, and sweet with a slightly citrussy tang about it.

It's quite a challenge, getting through a whole squash that's more than a couple of kilos in weight, and once you've cut one open you know you have a limited time to finish it up! This is how we've been doing it so far:

Day 1 - Sunday: Sausage and Pumpkin Casserole - currently one of my favourite recipes ever, and previously featured on the blog here. It's packed with goodness and just tastes wonderful. If you haven't tried it, DO!

Day 2 - Monday: Vegetable Tagine and harissa couscous from an old blog post here.

Day 3 - Tuesday: Squash and Kale Tart, from this recipe in the Telegraph, as recommended by Jono from Real Men Sow a couple of weeks back. It's cheesy and aromatic and delicious, and I'll definitely be making it again. This first attempt was slightly on the soggy side - you need to drain the cooked vegetables very well before adding them to the tart!

 

Day 4 - Wednesday: Squash and Chorizo Pasta Bake, inspired by this recipe and then made up on the spot, by roasting chunks of squash, pan-frying chopped chorizo with red onion and lots of Swiss chard from the garden, seasoning with nutmeg, pepper and sage, then mixing it all up together with cooked pasta, a splash of milk and some grated cheese, and bunging it in the oven for a while. It was easy, very tasty and satisfying - though it took a while to make, what with having to roast the squash separately first.

Day 5 - Thursday: Squash and Stilton Pie, a lovely recipe which I adapted from a food magazine last year and will share with you now!

Squash and Stilton Pie
(serves 4 quite generously)

• Preheat the oven to 180°C.
• Sauté around 180g leeks and 180g cabbage in a little oil with a pinch of rosemary for 6-8 minutes, until soft.
• Add around 480g diced squash and cook for 2-3 minutes.
• Add 3 tbsps plain flour and stir in thoroughly, then add 400ml stock, stirring well, and simmer for another 10 minutes until the squash is cooked through. Remove from the heat.
• Meanwhile, butter a pie dish (20cm diameter and 4cm deep is a good size), roll out two thirds of a block of ready-made pastry and line the dish with it. Roll out the other third to fit the top.
• Into the vegetable mix, stir about 120g crumbled Stilton and another pinch of rosemary. Check seasoning, then spoon the filling carefully into the pie.
• Brush the edges of the pastry with water and lay the pastry top over the pie. Crimp the edges with your fingers and cut off the excess pastry. Then brush the top with milk or beaten egg to glaze, poke a hole in the centre to let hot air out, and place in the oven for 20-30 minutes, until golden brown.
• Serve with buttery mash and peas.

A photo of a wedge of pie is probably never gonna look that good, but here goes:

Day 6 - Friday: A couple of weeks ago we dined with some friends at Rabot 1745 in London - a new restaurant from Hotel Chocolat, featuring cacao as an ingredient in every dish! See the menu here - ooooh, it was good! Here is my cacao-marinated steak with root veg, white chocolate horseradish mash and red wine cacao jus...

Before our meal we each were served an amuse-bouche of delicious and sweet butternut squash soup, and though we could only guess what was in it, my friend Dave and I decided to try our hands at recreating it for lunch! We roasted chunks of squash, a wedge of red onion and two garlic cloves, infused some chicken stock with a star anise, then blended the roasted veg with the stock, grated in a little nutmeg, added some butter and melted in three squares of quality white chocolate! It was very nice - buttery and nutty with a hint of vanilla - and pretty close to the soup we were trying to imitate, though I'm planning on having another go at perfecting it... I always find squash soup recipes overdo the spices and don't truly make the most of the flavour of the squash - you'd think pumpkin actually tasted of nutmeg, ginger, allspice and cinnamon, the amount people add all the time! - so this is an approach I really liked to bring out the rich and sweet qualities of what should be the star of the dish!

Day 7 - Saturday: Well, I'd like to tell you I made something else new and exciting, but it was a long and tiring day and I really needed something easy to throw together... So we made another pasta bake (similar to Wednesday's) with frozen spinach, lots of sage, a handful of toasted pine nuts and oodles of melty cheese. Lovely jubbly.

Day 8 - A couple of days later I remembered I just had a few extra chunks of squash left from roasting the last wedge on Sunday, so I mashed it up and whipped up these cheesy squash fritters for lunch. They were yummy, but I'd use just a little less salt next time. And I should probably have served them with a salad instead of munching them down just on their own...

So there you go - that's how we get through a great big squash without boring everyone silly. When it's time to eat the 12kg one, though, I'll have to give some away - or have a big dinner party! (I make that enough squash for about 24 meals for four!)

We'll definitely be growing Musquee de Provence again this year, along with our reliable favourite Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato squash (still got one of those waiting to be eaten too), some Crown Prince (another new one on us last year and it really is as good as they say - such rich, sweet flesh!), Uchiki Kuri (which we've never succeeded with yet but I'm determined!), the rare Blue Banana, and whatever pumpkin seeds I've got left over from last year. With their versatility, variety, low maintenance plants and great storing ability, I just love winter squashes!

The Rain Came Down and the Floods Came Up...

Well there I was, all ready to throw myself back into this, and then...

Though most of St Albans is on a hill and in little danger of flooding, the River Ver cuts a valley round it and, like many allotment sites across the country, our site is on the land no-one else wanted - a floodplain that actually sits below the level of the river; a basin that just filled up when the river burst its banks last Friday. Being on such low ground, we're no strangers to a little winter flooding affecting a few plots in the bottom of the basin (see my previous post on how to deal with flooding), but this is a different matter - this week nearly every single plot was flooded, and some of them several feet deep!

Immediately I thought of all the things I should have done. I should have harvested my six remaining swedes and kept them safe at home. I should have made certain that my watering cans and buckets were secure, and labelled them with my name and plot number. I should have properly disposed of those half-empty paint cans and the Round-Up I misguidedly bought a few years ago, instead of leaving them in a corner and forgetting about them! But I was thankful, at least, that it was still early in the season and I hadn't yet started sowing potatoes, parsnips and broad beans! It was pretty horrible not knowing how long the flood would last, or what state the place would be in when it went down again - how much would have died, whether all our things would still be there and unharmed, whether all the soil life would have drowned.

By enormous luck of the draw, our plot is among the highest onsite - an island, in fact, among lower plots, and after three days we could reach it again, though the plots on two sides were still completely submerged and those on the other two sides still had some huge puddles. We gathered up our watering cans and some loose pots, though our bucket of fish, blood and bone seems to have floated away, and brought home some belongings from our storage bench (a drenched box of tissues and first aid kit got thrown away pretty promptly) as well as those containers of paint and weedkiller, which thankfully still had their lids tightly on - and we pulled some stray bits of timber out of our pond. We'll return again tomorrow, water-level depending, and start to pick up the debris!

The swedes and leeks look unharmed, and though I had thought that we were supposed to discard any crops touched by floodwater, the FSA website's advice is more lenient than I expected: 

"For fresh fruit and vegetables that are grown either for sale or for your own consumption:

• You should throw away any produce covered by flood water if it is ready to eat, and is grown above ground, such as lettuce or strawberries. It is fine to eat produce that is growing above the water and not contaminated with flood water e.g. fruit on trees.
• It is OK to eat produce that has been cooked, even if it has been contaminated by flood water this is because cooking will kill any harmful germs that might be present.
• You should wait at least six months after the area was flooded, before harvesting any new fruit or vegetables from that affected land. This is to make sure that any harmful germs that might be in the soil from the flood water will not survive and contaminate the produce. You do not need to wait before planting new crops if the fruit or vegetables will be cooked before being eaten."

So it looks like we'll still be able to eat our winter crops if we leave them a little longer, wash them thoroughly and cook them well. To be honest, it's unlikely our floodwater has anything too terrible in it, but you just can't tell.

I wish I'd brought more of our tools home now, as the rain continues to come down and I know the water could easily rise again. One of our forks was already starting to show a little rust. And of course I'd like to get a move on with digging a new potato bed and prepping the soil for spring, but as long as this weather continues and the Ver remains a raging torrent, I think that the threat of flooding will remain, and the soil is unlikely to dry out to a useful degree.

So while I wait, I'm contenting myself sowing seeds at home: peppers in the propagator, leeks and artichokes and celeriac on the windowsill, and parsnips in pots in the garden. (They say you can't transplant parsnips, but last time I tried it they did amazingly well and were huge! I'll make a second sowing in the soil when I can too though, just in case - and 'cos I like parsnips!)

Of course, the disappointment and inconvenience we're suffering here is nothing compared to the misery those with flooded homes are going through. Let's hope this stupid weather comes to an end soon, and let's hope for a more responsible approach to the environment and its potential hazards in future.

New Beginnings

Well hello. It's been a long time, but I finally got round to realising that the only reason I wasn't posting anymore was simply for that reason; because it had been such a long time. Sometimes the hardest part is just showing up, isn't it?

So I'm not going to do a big long catch-up about everything I've done in the last year - partly because it's too much work and partly because it'd probably bore you all in one go anyway (and because the last time I did that was only three posts ago, which is a bit embarrassing). Instead, I'll just let you know that last year was pretty good and plans are afoot for an even better year ahead.

We seem to have finally beaten the grass in the middle section of our plot, allowing us to convert to no-dig growing for the most part, and this year we plan to work hard on the even grassier area down the bottom, and beat that too. This will involve some serious weeding and mulching of the raspberry bed, moving our compost bin to smother some of the troublesome grass, and digging over a tough area to plant our potatoes. Meanwhile, growing beans, roots and squashes on the middle part should be easy-peasy (though we've given up on onions and garlic thanks to the pernicious white rot in our soil), and we're going to commit one weed-free strip to perennial vegetables, including a brand new asparagus bed, some globe artichokes, and space for a new strawberry patch which we hope to plant next winter from this summer's runners. We've got some exciting new varieties to try, such as sweet-leafed stevia and Suffolk Herbs' "perennial salad mix", and we're also going to be trying out a new system for fertilising and remineralising the soil, from a fascinating book by Steve Solomon called The Intelligent Gardener: Growing Nutrient-Dense Food. More on all that to come!

For now, I'm sitting on my hands trying to resist sowing seeds, and wondering if this is it for winter or if it's finally going to kick in next week... or maybe in March or April just to wind us all up... I will permit myself to sow peppers from 1st February but, well, this happened...

...so before that, my first priority needs to be somewhere new to put this year's tender seedlings!

Save Our Seeds - Update

The draconian new seed laws described in my last post passed the EU commission last week, with some important last-minute changes for the better. The law will now go to parliament for modification or approval, so there is still a chance of further changes, with competing and vested interests trying to change it for their own benefit. What follows are extracts from Real Seeds' press release (read the whole article here) describing the good and the bad of the final draft of the law:

WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?
The law starts from the premise that all vegetables, fruit and trees must be officially registered before they can be reproduced or distributed. This obviously is a major restriction on seed availability, as there are all sorts of costs in both time and money dealing with the bureaucracy of a central Plant Variety Agency. Then, after making that the basic rule, there are some exceptions made in limited cases:

• Home gardeners will be permitted to save and swap unregistered seed without breaking the law.
• Small organisations can grow and supply unregistered vegetable seed - but only if they have less than 10 employees
• Seedbanks can grow unregistered seed without breaking the law (but they cannot give it to the public)
• There might be easier (in an unspecified way) rules for large producers of seeds suitable for organic agriculture etc, in some (unspecified) future legislation - maybe.

SURELY THIS IS OK THEN?
No, not really. These concessions might be helpful, but are still limited. They are subject to all sorts of 'ifs' and 'buts' in the small print. And the small print hasn't been written yet, and in fact won't be written until long after the law has been approved.
And the rest of the law is still overly restrictive - there are all sorts of rules about labelling & sealing packets for example - and in the long run will make it much harder for people to get hold of good seeds they want to grow at home or for small scale sustainable agriculture.
For years the availability of freely reproducible open-pollinated seedsuitable for sustainable agriculture has been shrinking due to the seed laws, and this new law doesn't address the problem. It just considers the needs of the agri-tech industry and makes it easier for them to market their industrial seed on a big scale.

WHAT IS THE BASIC PROBLEM?
The real problem is having a starting point that all seeds are prohibited unless officially tested and registered, and then adding some small exceptions as an afterthought.
This is really back to front - testing and registration should be voluntary. Then some people (like massive industrial farmers) who might want the sort of seed that can pass certain types of test - they can choose to use the 'officially registered' seed. And normal people would be free to choose freely what they want to grow from all the myriad of normal seed in the world.
There are also clauses that mean the above concessions could be removed at any time in the future without coming back to the Parliament for a vote.
 
WHAT DO WE WANT?
This law was written for the needs of the globalised farm-seed industry, who supply seed by the ton to industrial farmers. It should not apply at all to seed used by home gardeners and small market growers, who have very different needs.
Freely reproducible seeds are an inalienable part of our heritage. Listing and official certification of vegetable seeds might be helpful for industrial-scale farmers, but it should be a voluntary scheme that people can choose to use if they need it.
So we are calling for registration and testing to be voluntary for all non-GMO, non-patented, non-hybrid seed. That would fix all the problems with the law, while still allowing the giant agri-companies to protect their business the way they want.
But if that does not happen, then the law needs improving - because allowing tiny organisations to supply seed outside the regulations is a good start, but it is not sufficient.
Only in this way will we have a broad supply of quality seed for the needs of home gardeners and small growers.

Do keep signing the petitions if you haven't already, and keep an eye on Real Seeds or Bifurcated Carrots for updates - this isn't over yet.