The UK government is at last waking from its long complacent slumbers and asking serious questions about food security. After enjoying an abundant supply of ever cheaper food for the last five decades, the developed world is beginning to realise that we can’t take the essentials of life for granted indefinitely.
The Co-operative Group has announced today that it’s agreed to buy Somerfield for just short of £1.6 billion. The co-op is different from other retailers. It’s owned by its customers (those who elect to become members) and has a long commitment to quality, healthy food and to the environment and animal welfare. This is a momentous development in British retail.
Food Matters, the new Cabinet Office report on food policy
Opportunties and approaches for growing food for London in or near the city, from domestic production, allotments and transformed public spaces to community food groups, city farms and the surviving working farms on London’s fringe.
Barack Obama supports US union’s campaign for union engagement and better working conditions at Tesco’s US Fresh and Easy stores
Absence Still from Our Daily Bread – spraying sunflowers Loyal visitors to the Tracing Paper will have noticed a distinct lack of activity over most of the last year. I’m ashamed that I only just avoided a clear six month hiatus with a (very) brief post about the superb documentary on the modern food industry, [...]
Early August and the harvest of the winter sown oilseed rape (Brassica napus, its edible varieties also known as canola) is well underway in the UK. Rape is combine harvested to yield its tiny black seeds, destined to be crushed to produce oil for food, industrial uses and, increasingly, biofuels. A growing number of farmers are cold pressing the seeds themselves to produce extra-virgin rapeseed oil.
Each of us has to eat every day to provide the energy for our daily lives and to maintain our health and the substance of our bodies. But eating is more than a mere biological necessity, but something worth living for.
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