The re-emergence of foot and mouth disease in the UK last Friday is a tragedy, most of all for the blameless farmers who have seen their livestock struck down, but also for livestock farmers across the country; the meat trade, from hauliers and abattoirs to butchers and pie-makers; rural tourism businesses; and everyone who enjoys [...]
No crop dominates the British arable landscape quite like rapeseed (Brassica napus, also known as oilseed rape, the edible variety as canola). From the very beginning of April, previously mundane green fields of this member of the cabbage and turnip family suddenly erupt into luminous flower. Across lowland England, great swathes of countryside are painted [...]
Fair Trade for British Farmers is a new campaign to raise awareness of the problems faced by British farmers and how choosing fairly traded and priced British food can help. Country Living magazine and the Farmers Guardian are leading the campaign, with the support of Waitrose. Our daily shopping choices shape farming and the food [...]
Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation, yesterday compared the big retailers to invasive species like the Nile Perch and Japanese knotweed. Honey fungus (Armillaria mellea and related species) also springs to mind, its superficially attractive fruiting bodies sprouting up prolifically while insidiously killing off surrounding plants. Over the last few decades, the [...]
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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