Oil Prices, Climate Change and Food

Yesterday saw lorry drivers in Britain lobbying Parliament over the price of fuel. While from an economic prospective, I can understand that people are feeling the pain of the increase in the price of oil, but there is actually nothing that government can do.

I have watched the situation carefully, trying to understand what is really going on. What was perplexing was simply that when the price of oil started reaching new and record highs, it was the forward price that was rising. That meant oil for delivery in six weeks was at $120 to 130 per barrel, this price for immediate delivery stayed at $75-80 per barrel. While this has now changed upwards, the oil companies profited from this for over eight weeks selling petrol at the price it would be in six weeks time, while they were only paying for it at the $75-80 per barrel mark.

While this profiteering by the oil companies was a factor driving this it could not explain the whole of what was driving the market. The other aspect that doesn't make sense is that while the current global use is close to the current output, there is still more production than use. On the classic supply and demand principals of economics there is no logic to this.

There is a new factor that has come into play, that of the speculators. While there has always been some speculation in the commodity markets, with the rich and the super rich no longer making money from property vast sums are being ploughed into commodities like oil and wheat. However, while this is an important aspect that is driving the price, it is not the only factor. If it were then they will get their finger burnt when this bubble bursts. As it will.

The real difficulty is that of politics and the lack of political will to tackle climate change. Part of the political factors is the Iran question. While I personally don't like the idea of Iran having nuclear weapons, the rhetoric that the US government is using, is making the oil producing states and the emerging economy of China very nervous as they fear that Bush could suddenly rack this up to war.

While I personally doubt that even Bush could be that stupid, I can understand the rest of the globe becoming wary about this and the effect upon oil supplies. Thus some nations are increasing their stocks of petroleum.

The other political aspect is the lack of action regarding Climate change. This is the part that really makes my head hurt trying to understand the logic here.

There is a lack of investment in refining capacity, and the oil companies don't want to make that investment because they are worried about immanent sea level rise. They don't want to build on or at the coast where refineries have traditionally been constructed, as they would be lost when the seas rise. Nor do they want to build inland at a greater elevation, as that would mean the oil industry is acknowledging the reality of dangerous Climate Change.

Even looking at all these factors together still only provides an incomplete picture. But before we look at the other factors, I want to deal with three issues, not least the price of Diesel. The truck drivers protest and lobbying of parliament has provided a useful hook to examine the problem of rising oil costs. But the price of diesel is actually a symptom and not the problem. The reality is that there are to many trucks on the road. That's not a political or environmental statement but an economic one. There are twenty five percent more trucks than there are loads to carry. Even if the fuel costs were stable or even falling, there still would be businesses failing. The difficulty is that the price diesel is accelerating the failure of businesses that are failing anyway. It is painful, that I understand, but nothing can or should be done to keep lorries on the road.

The other area where the price of diesel is hastening the end of a moribund industry, is fishing.

For the last twenty years in Europe, we have continued taking fish from the breeding populations of the fish we use for food. It has also been happening all around the world, but here in Europe we actually have good data that shows what needs to be done. As during the Second world war when fishing was not possible particularly in the North Sea, fish stocks recovered and when fishing resumed fish was abundant. The only way of ensuring a fishing industry in the future is to stop fishing now. Not reduce the catch but a complete cessation to fishing and that has to be for ten years.

Fishermen will wail in protest at that, but if not there will be no fish to catch in ten to fifteen years as we are currently harvesting the breeding stock. The increase in diesel costs means that the boats can no longer afford to travel the great distances searching for the fish. They are having to search for fish that are not there. When they do catch fish, they are smaller, often not even having reached sexual maturity. Again this increase in the price of diesel is not the problem it is and has been the industrial scale harvesting of the seas that has eliminated the fish stocks. There are also additional factors such as warming seas driving the remnants of the fish populations further north, but the longer that fishing continues the faster the fishermen will kill their industry.

The last point regarding oil prices is that of speculation. The immorality of the rich gambling on the price of oil and foods, beggars belief. They are making money off poor and vulnerable people. Here in the UK the price of heating oil will be around £1200 ($2000) per delivery this winter at current prices. In many rural areas where there is no gas, that will mean the poor, the elderly will suffer, as in cold weather that delivery would only last four to six weeks. I fear that people will end up dyeing from cold this winter. I am saying this now as I will rage when it happens.
However, the speculation on the oil price is only part of the picture as it is the speculation on foods that is really what is driving the up the coast of oil. I can see the puzzled looks from here, but as the value of crops like wheat and maize go up, more farmers are planting them. That means there is and will be, a greater demand for diesel to power the tractors.

It doesn't end there, as our chemical based farming is reliant upon fertilizers that are made from oil. It is in fact this factor that is what is really driving up the price of oil.

We obviously do need to feed the world, but we have become so fixated upon the chemical inputs to grow crops that we are failing to utilise the traditional methods of feeding the soil.

This is why we are all having to pay more for oil and food.

It is a complex picture, and it has taken a while to unravel what is really happening, but this is all the result of our addiction to oil.

Chickens and the power of Big Business

This week saw the AGM of Tesco's the largest retailer in the UK. What is worth remarking on is that they receive eight out of every ten pounds of the retail spend in Britain. That is not just of the food spend, but of all of the retail spend.

Therefore it was not that surprising that the TV chef, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall attempt to get Tesco to raise the welfare standards for the chickens they sell, failed.

By becoming a shareholder in Tesco, he was able to get a motion tabled that called upon Tesco to raise the welfare standards for the chickens sold as food. Tesco made this as difficult for him as possible, forcing him to pay eighty thousand pounds on the literature to contact all the shareholders regarding the motion. As anyone who has heard the news he got support from ten percent of the shareholders, but the motion was ultimately defeated.

While other supermarkets need to shoulder their share of responsibility in the way that animal welfare is abused to bring cheap food to the supermarket shelf, as the largest retail in the UK, Tesco should have provided a moral lead here. But they have shown it is profits at any costs that is their motivation not quality or welfare.

In tests in a food laboratories it has been shown that the so called Standard Chicken has more than one hundred grams of fat per kilo than does a free range bird. Further, free range birds have a higher proportion of Omega 3 fatty acids, the good fats that we need, than do barn reared birds.

With a epidemic of health problems related to obesity, the standard chickens that the supermarkets are offering are far from the healthy food that we are being deliberately misled, to believe them to be.

Tesco make as profit about seventy pence ($1.30) per standard chicken sold, the farmer makes only three pence (5c), from a retail price of £2.50 ($4.75). The difficulty that most people overlook at the checkout is that for anything to be so cheap someone must be loosing out somewhere. Here it is the farmer, and ultimately the chicken. This callous disregard for the welfare of the animals we choose to eat, lessens us as people.

Additionally the intensive keeping of animals for food has a serious environmental impact, as the volume of manure produced becomes a problem. In the past with the less intensive production of meat animals, the manure was a benefit that fed the land. Now it harms it.

However, the real threat from intensive animal production is that any disease problems quickly become an epidemic. In history it was only when there was a realisation that overcrowding, sewage, clean water and hygiene that were key to solving the problems of public health, that many of the diseases of the past were finally overcome. Yet we seem to have forgotten that lesson when it comes to animal health and welfare.

With an increase in the prevalence of campylobacter in chickens, we could be paying for our cheap food with the costs of treating food poisoning. Just as we made some dumb decisions that lead to BSE, who knows what problems will emerge from this.

While I do appreciate that food prices are increasing and that this effects poor people much more than it does the more affluent, but there is a hidden cost to cheap food and with Tesco's posting record profits, it clear that they are profiting from the backs of the poor.

Honey Bees & GM Update

This is a bit of an update posting. As my regular reader may know I posted some carefully worded details of some partial research that seemed to indicate that there could be a link to the problem of “Colony Collapse” in honey bees and genetically-modified-crops. However, the data I saw raised more questions than it answered. Further, I questioned why the researchers were not taking this data to the main stream media.

Therefore I posted with caution and caveats. Anyway here is the original posting.

About a week following the posting I was contacted by someone who had been told of the posting. I mailed this prospective reader the story. This reader was using a dot ac address.

Now before I continue I should point out that for me personally, the jury is still out on GM. As most of the crops thus far produced are just breed to allow the use of more chemicals, the benefits have yet to be proved. Especially as the promised yield increase from them is only one percent. Further, the much promised ability to feed the developing world has yet to happen. So while they have promised so much they have delivered so little.

Additionally the cost of development for these crops means that for farmers and growers in the developing world to grow them, they have to borrow money for the seeds. This is causing some farmers and growers in the developing world, effectively become indentured to the seed companies.

There is one exception that I have heard of, that of a rice verity that survives flooding and is benefiting the people in Bangladesh.

However, my main concern is that we don't yet understand what genes do. At the moment all we are doing is acting like children, switching on pretty lights, without knowing what they do or what else is happening.

Now, in the research that seemed to suggest that bees feeding on the pollen from GM crops were dying, seemed to be an example of this. Where an unknown effect of a gene was producing an unwanted and unexpected effect.

Therefore, while I have serious reservation about GM crops, I am not totally against them per say, but I do think that there needs to be much more rigorous testing of these crops for safety.
Thus when the prospective reader contacted me I was not surprised that this person was sceptical. However, once we overcame the rather tetchy initial communications made to me, this student started asking many of the questions I had about the original posting. Further, we both acknowledged that more research was needed. This was something the student did.

While the results are far from conclusive, the student mapped out where GM crops are grown, or have been grown, and where the Colony Collapses have occurred and more or less they do match. I emphasise again that this is not conclusive proof that GM crops are at the root of this problem but it does raise questions that need answering.

I don't have access to all the data I would need to retest this hypothesis, but as there are no other evidence based theories offering an explanation I feel it should be properly tested. What data I have had access to though, does show that there is a mirroring of the incidences of Colony Collapse and where GM crops are grown.

I will end this posting with a further caveat. As I have in the past been contacted by people who have tried to feed me miss information regarding Climate Change, in the hope of undermining my credibility, I am making this posting with caution. While the evidence and data that I have seen seems to point to a smoking gun, I am still wary of why these people have not take this data to the mainstream media?

No Poker Face

It's a good job that I am not a gambler, as if I were I would surely lose at poker. I am not very good at hiding my emotions especially when faced with a confrontation.

This was illustrated yesterday when I went to visit the local greengrocers. I had gone there to to buy some eggs for a dish I wished to make. In previous postings I have spoken about the poor quality of the produce there however as it was only a few items that I needed I decided to make my purchases there.

Recently the greengrocer's in the village had moved in to a new and larger shop unit and I was hoping that they would be improvement in the quality following this move. On the Wednesday when it reopened I had made some purchases and the quality seemed to be quite good. All the produce was fresh. So I was not expecting any problems when I went in on Saturday.

I have been quite busy during the day, so I was pressed for time, and just wanted to quickly make the purchase of the eggs. When it looked for the eggs all I could find were the eggs from the cage birds. Therefore I asked if they had any free range. I was directed to another collection of egg boxes and was told that they were free range. However, I looked at the codes that are printed on the eggs, I thought that the owner had made a mistake as the codes clearly showed they were from cage hens. Now had he just acknowledged a mistake then there would have been no problem, however he tried to con me into believing that these were as special code for locally-produced eggs. Having kept chickens myself and knowing the regulation for marking eggs, I realise that this was not just a mistake but that he was deliberately trying to sell eggs from caged birds as free-range.

Even so I did try and point out that the codes on the eggs indicated that they were form cage production, at this point the shop owner lost his temper and started ranting and raving so I just walked out. As a say, I know I have not got a poker face, and my emotions were written all over my face, and I had given him a withering look however I did not expect him to leave the shop and following me started ranting and raving at the top of his voice in the street.

On previous occasions when I have visited the shop and pass comment on the poor quality of some other produce, the owner has tried to obfuscate the issue by telling me how regularly he is inspected. It was not until think in about these events, that I realised that I have not been the only one that has received poor quality and poor service from this local shop.

While I do genuinely want to support the local businesses in the village, when it comes to food you have to be a trust the supplier that your buying the food from. That trust has totally broken down and I will not be using the shop ever again.

Perhaps I should explain for my overseas reader, that here in the UK and in Europe the Eggs themselves are printed with codes that designate the type of production they come from.

Organic 0
Free Range 1
Barn 2
Caged 3

Apart from the welfare issues of the different forms of production, the main factor here is one of price. caged eggs are the cheapest and the difference between organic and Cage production can be as much as three times the price. That incentive is why he has been selling caged eggs as free range. Further this has not been the first time that this has happened to me, and it looks as though this has happened to other people in the past. the number of inspections have taken place in the shop shows that other people have been complaining about the quality of his produce and his labelling.

As I've said before in previous posts, I regularly go into Consett for my shopping and frequently I'm told of the poor quality of the produce in the local greengrocers. Personally have think this is a real shame that a village this size is so poorly served by a charlatan who only cares about the profits he can make from the village. If he didn't treat his customers with such contempt he could have a really good business as there is a ready market for the service he provides.

Well sooner or later he will get close down as the locals will stop using the shop and complain to the health and Hygiene authorities over this form of mis-selling

To me it is clear that others have already complained, or why would he ever over-reacted in the manner that he did, I suspect he thinks that I have been the person has complained about the shop in the past, well not in the past by will be contacting the local council on Monday to make a complaint.

A Small World or Balls Up at Blackhill

Yesterday (Tuesday) I had three tangible demonstrations of just how incompetent I am.
In my defence on Monday night I had been out watching the Badgers. Therefore in part I am offering a defence of tiredness (your lord ship). And while I think of it, and I had better use the thought before it gets lonely, I did get to see a Mole while out watching the Badgers.
I had planed on getting some sleep during the day, but a telephone call meant that I couldn't do that.

The caller was someone that I have been writing to for more than fourteen years, but I had never met before. I started writing to “The Professor” after reading an article that he had posted in a news group. It turned out that he genuinely was a climatologist working for one of the universities in Cambridge. That fact never stopped from giving him a hard time over some of the assumptions or his interpretation of the data looking at ice loss in the Antarctic All in a good humoured way I should add, but I have been signing off my mails by calling myself that pain in the butt (that's the clean version). He had been visiting Newcastle University and had made the time to visit as he hoped to see a Red Kite.

Now I knew that we had friends in common, as I know that he has worked with people I know. However, as he showed me some pictures of his last trip to Antarctica, he slipped in a couple that had been taken of me years ago. I asked him how he got them. He told me that his daughter had taken them. Well if he had a feather he could have floored me with it.

When my ex-wife and I first split up, I started to build a new circle of friends. One was a PHD student who was remarkable in so far as was one of the few people who had not only heard of Climate Change, but understood some of the science. Well the discovery that I had nearly been dating The Professors daughter was almost a Hommer Simpson moment in its self. But what really floored me was that she had been much more interested in me than I ever realised. However, as I now repeated to her farther, I was married at the time and while I was separated it would have been inappropriate to have started a relationship then.

And this is really the first demonstrations of just how incompetent I am, while I had thought about trying to contact her, when I knew I was single, I didn't even though I knew there was mutual interest.

As the professor and I went out to see if we could get a sighting of the Red Kites, we talked and I asked him if it had not been that his daughter knew me would he have come to meet me? And did she know you were meeting me? The answer was no on both counts. However, he said that a couple of years ago she had gone through a “messy” divorce and she had mentioned me only a few weeks previously, wondering what could have been. While making me feel uncomfortable I said that we can all think of events where we made choices and where we could all think of ourselves in different lives...

While in one of those awkward silences, not one but three Red Kites came over. I had chosen to take the Professor up to a ridge overlooking some fields, and it paid off. For a good five minutes we had a clear sighting of the birds. I was thrilled as I trained the video camera on them, I really thought that I was getting some great shots. It was not until I got home and tried to review the footage that I realised that I had been trying to film with the camera on pause! The second demonstrations of just how incompetent I am. But I got twenty minutes film of my legs and feet as I slogged up the hill!

When the Professor went he gave me a little gift, some sausages from his local farmers market. As I may have bored people with here before, I love trying sausages made by craft producers from quality food markets. So he had brought some as a gift.

Well while I do pride myself on my cooking skills, I think I must have left them by the Badger sett. I got out the griddle pan and switched on the wrong ring on the cooker to start with. I prepared the potatoes and Broccoli and then only put one pan on for both, this resulted in overcooking the potatoes. I did finally get my dinner cooked, but it was more Joe's Café effort than Gordon Ramsay meal. Well as things are supposed to happen in threes, I hope that I can get back to the illusion at least that I know what I'm doing now.

One last thing, I mailed the Professor, and told him that yes he could pass on my details to his daughter. She and I were good mates eighteen, nineteen years ago, but that she should only expect friendship now.

Its events like this that reminds me of how small our world really is. Further it shows that it only takes a woman to turn me in to a gibbering wreck.

Food and Population Follow up - Plan A? Or Plan B?

Following my posting about Food shortages and Population growth, a rather interesting comment was made. Sometimes when I am writing about something I feel so passionately about, I can occasionally say something that is not as clear as intended. Often as I am writing a stream of conciousness, although many of my readers may say that is more a stream of unconsciousness, I don't always provide the clarity that I aim for.

Additionally, I do try to hard to be diplomatic at times. This posting and the comment are a classic example. Personally, I think that as a result of Climate Change, there will not be the projected increase in the global population. In fact I we will soon start to see population decline. That will be as a direct result of food shortages giving rise to famine and to put it bluntly, people starving to death. This is not alarmist as it is already happening. This occurs not from lack of food, but from poverty. As I stated in my previous posting, eight hundred and fifty million people will not get enough food today. That is nearly three times the population of the USA, or over fourteen time the population of the UK. The reason for choosing these two countries as examples is that in both enough food per day is thrown away that would feed the underfed the under nourished and the starving. I thank my contact in the UN for clarify the situation in the US.

Now if we cant feed the world now, how can we hope to feed the a growing population? Add in to that the difficulties of a changing climate and the whole concept of a population reaching nine billion looks impossible.

Put quite simply without the political will to distribute food fairly now, the population will not grow as fast as projections estimate. In the natural world food and water is the limiting factor regarding population size. Therefore without the food or the capacity to grow the food the human population will never reach the projected twelve billion humans on the planet. Personally, the way that we in the west are dealing with the problem will result in the global population falling. In nature, no population like ours can be sustained. Further in biology, any cell or group of cells that grows out of control is called a cancer. Is that the way humanity wants to be remembered, as a cancer on the planet?

That brings me on to the main are that I need to provide clarification on. Currently in the developing world there is a crisis brought about by HIV/AIDS. So many of the solutions that the western developed world has proposed or has been prepared to fund, involve preaching abstinence. I use the word preaching quite deliberately, as while intellectually I can see that if we got the whole world to stop having sex would stop HIV/AIDS, it is just not going to happen. Via this naïve and frankly ridiculous policy, inspired by religious morality, it has condemned millions in Africa alone to grow up with out parents. In some parts of Africa the HIV+ rate is as high as forty percent of the adult population. Had the religious busy bodies kept their noses out, we would have seen twenty years of good family planing, far lower rates of infection not just of HIV+ but of other STD and lower birth rates.

While I am not saying that family planning is the only solution here, for the last twenty years the interference from religious groups has done more harm than good in providing development to the countries of Africa. Yet where non judgemental healthcare and education has occurred, in Africa and Asia, it has not only helped stem the spread of HIV infections it has helped reduce the birth rate.

The one aspect that all of the NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations) agree on though is that educating women really helps. Even organisations like Oxfam, the UN Food and Health programmes and many others don't fully understand why, but it seems that by even teaching women something as basic as the ability to read and write, helps empower women to access information regarding women's health issues and in particular information regarding family planning. That helps reduce the size of the families. Put simply the fewer children the families have the lower the financial cost. Further, there is also lower child mortality rates in the families where the woman has been educated.

We in the Western developed world just don't realise just how easy we have it, and just how difficult it is in other parts of our planet. However the real point is, that had we not tried to impose our morality upon other people and cultures, it is possible that we would not now be facing the projected growth of planets population to such unsustainable levels.

While I am not advocating any form of forced population control, if people in the developing world were provided with the education and choice, most would use family planning as they see it as the most sustainable way out of poverty there is.

The trouble is so far we have not even tried plan A so no one has thought of a Plan B.

Global Food System Must Change Population and Food

Here is a mind boggling fact;

There are more human beings alive on the planet today then have ever lived in the whole of human existence.

Human population is the elephant in the room when it comes to climate change and the environment. Not least in the moral abhorrent image of genocide sparked by raising the issue. Thus, very few governments, will actually even discuss the issue. Or when they do they only talk about it in economic terms, such as the so called demographic time bomb. That's where with an ageing population, there are fears that we will not have enough new workers entering the job market to pay the taxes that will enable a government to pay for the health and social services. Even then it is only in terms of increasing the population further.


This prospective of only seeing people as economic units, consumers and or as producers is very short sighted. As quite simply a constantly growing population requires more resources: Food, Water, Shelter and Warmth. These are the basics of life, no matter if you live in the developed world or in the developing world. The problem is that at a global population of six and a half billion we cant get this right, so how are we going to cope with nine billion? Or even the twelve billion that is the expected peek?

I have constantly tried to write a posting on this topic of population growth, but I kept on getting sidetracked. I now understand why, it is simply that I can not see it happening. It is not that I can envisage that many people on the planet, but that I can not see how the this can happen without the already stressed natural systems breaking down.

Even if you take out of the equation the likely effects of a changing climate, the two key elements are food and water. Water and food poverty are already serious issues around the planet. People are already starving, 850 million people will not have enough food to eat today. With another two or three billion mouths to feed, how will we grow that food?

Already the over use of non organic chemical fertilisers has created a run off into the oceans creating dead zones. Therefore, if we expand yields by this method, it will only work in the short term. Add to that the very real problem of expanding deserts, water scarcity and degraded soils, then that too will prevent the planet from expanding its food production to meet this growing population. Further, the way we are polluting the seas, as well as over fishing them, we will lose that resource as a means of feeding people too.

Now if you then add in the effects of global warming, an already mind numbing situation starts to look like a disaster. Even if we only add in the most conservative effects of Climate Change, drought from the loss of the mountain glaciers, coastal flooding causing salinity of the farming land around the worlds coasts, and hotter dryer summers combined with sudden flood events, the problem of water becomes obvious.

Already, there are problems with food shortages. The effects of Climate Change are reducing yields of important food crops already. Wheat, Corn and Rice. This is provoking food riots among the poor around the world. This is happening now, so how much worse will it be if we have a population of nine billion?

Quite simply we will face refugees fleeing famine.

This is why I can not see that level of population ever occurring. We are just to selfish and wasteful to provide an equitable distribution food around the world today, so how can we feed another three billion people?

Here is another fact that should shock people. Here in the UK every day eight million pounds worth of food is thrown out. Exclude the environmental cost of shipping in and then throwing out all that food, and you still have enough food discarded to feed all of the under nourished around the world.

The one key fact that I have learnt about providing good development is that education is vital. Further, educating women is the cornerstone of good development policy. As well as the simple fact that women in most of the world are the food growers and providers, but educating women empowers them to have greater control of their bodies. Put quite simply educated women have fewer children. Additionally, providing an education to women has been proven by the Non Government Agencies, charities providers of aid and education, is the most effective route out of poverty for most families. However, there is another factor in this equation that of religious and social taboos regarding sex. This became most apparent in the fight to stop the spread of AIDS/HIV.

Rather than enable the use of Condoms, religious leaders would advocate abstinence. While that may sound a reasonable way forward to many people, it actually ignores the reality of cultural differences and the way that women are still treated as property.

I have spoken before of my repugnance of the policy of people like Bush who will not fund any development project that enables the use of Condoms or provides education regarding family planning. However it is not just George W, there are almost all the religious leaders; Christian, Muslim etc., who are promoting this form of keeping women oppressed and keeping people in poverty

If we are to even start tackling this crisis of over population then we really need to start tackling poverty head on.

I don't see the future as a desperate one. We can make the future better for all, what is needed is the political will.

Global Food System Must Change

Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapses

While there was a time when people dismissed Climate Change as some unproven theory, at least now we have an awareness of the reality of this serious problem. The most serious humanity has ever faced. Yet it is the unwillingness to take the situation seriously that causes me to feel despair.

In part it is that people are still viewing this as a problem for the future, something that will happen. Yet the effects of a changing climate is real and immediate. In the UK we are seeing early signs of spring coming four to five weeks earlier, while the weather is still predominantly that of winter. All of this adding to the decline of a number of species.

Yet the real effects of Climate Change that are being noticed are not to do with weather but with cost of food. While part of the reason for this is an increased demand out striping supply, the effects of a Changing Climate are inhibiting the growing of food crops. This removes our ability to increase production to accommodate this new reality. Thus climate change is hitting us in our pockets first.

The reality is that the majority of people are unwilling to change the way they live for the benefit of themselves or the future. We continue to consume vast amounts of the earth's resources on trivial items that we don't need. We are to lazy to walk to the shops, we prefer to drive. We are so inactive that its a effort to get out of a chair to change the television channel or even turn the TV off.

Well what has this all got to do with another lump of Sea Ice breaking away from the Antarctic? It in its self doesn't raise sea levels, but it removes the barriers that prevent the land based Ice from sliding into the Sea.

Well to all you who don't believe this can happen, in Russia that's exactly what did happen in the Caucasus Mountains. A glacial slid down the mountain at one hundred miles per hour, as a direct result of global warming. Its already known that the melt water on glacial is percolating down to the base, lubricating their flow...

Therefore in a few years, three or four, we will see a sudden and dramatic rise in sea levels.

A link to the News Story

Filming Birds and Village Life

Before I even moved to the village where I now live and I was looking around for a place to live, a location that enabled me to be in touch with the environment, was vital. Partly this was because I find cities such depressing places to live, but also and mainly I wanted to live in a location where I could see wildlife daily.

So when I needed to obtain a video camera to collect evidence of my then landlords appalling and illegal behaviour, I thought ahead and bought one that I could use for filming wildlife. When I took her, my landlord, to court the camera paid for itself as I won the case. However, as one of the many problems with the property was faulty electrics, this damaged the cameras electronics. Therefore, I was not able to film the wildlife in and around the village as I wanted to.

That was until now, as finally I have bought new video camera. It arrived on Saturday morning, I am lucky as my post woman is very reliable, well as she lives just up the street from me, so I was able to read the instructions and get the battery on charge. However, I also needed to get into Consett to get some shopping as well.

Therefore I was pleased that the battery charged quickly. It meant that I could go out and test the camera and still get into town to get my shopping. I was out and not more than two hundred yards from my home, when I stopped to film a Blackbird feeding on the ground. I had only taken the mono pod out with me, so as I discovered my first filing was most definitely wobbly cam! However, I was leaning against the hedge as I (tried) filmed, and just two feet from me a long-tailed tit perched in the hedge. Right in my line of sight. I tried to keep the camera steady on the Blackbird while I also watched the tit. Absolutely amazing.

Filming is very different from taking still images, and I will have to develop my skills, but on the whole I was very pleased with the results I have gotten so far. Playing them back through the television, the picture quality was as good as the images broadcast on TV.

That is why in part I have not been able to post here, as I have been busy playing with my new toy. Also, on Saturday, while looking at a good friends Blog, she tempted me in with a nice snowy scene... and wham she gets me with a snowball!

As I said previously, I also needed to go and get some shopping. While I have supported the local greengrocer in the village since I moved here, I find the quality really poor. On the last three occasions when I have bought from there I have found the items have gone bad by the following day. Its not that I am storing the items poorly, it is the fact that the produce is just not up to standard. Therefore, I was prepared to pay the extra cost of travelling into town to get better the quality.

Well I was pleased that I did as even with the cost of the bus fare, I only spent what I would have in the village. However more importantly the quality was excellent.

While I do want to support local businesses and support local food, the quality has to be there though. It does annoy me that food businesses don't do more to ensure quality. While I will criticise the supermarkets the one thing they have got right is the quality of the produce they sell. The local shop, could do well but almost everyone I talk to say that its the poor quality that has stopped them from using the shop. What amazes me is that the people running the store don't even know much about food, they don't have the passion for food they need to succeed with a food business in this day and age.

While thinking about this, on the radio yesterday there was a programme that enlightened me. The Food Programme, BBC Radio 4, was talking about wholesale fruit and veg markets, and it confirmed my long held suspicion that many greengrocers buy the junk in the hope of a quick profit. Well the local greengrocer has lost my custom by doing that.

However, I was pleased to find a much better greengrocer in the town.

The trip back caused an interesting incident too. Apart from the fact that on the bus was one of the cantankerous and obnoxious residents of the village, it was for me without incident.

However, when I went to the Pub that evening, I have not been for many weeks as I was saving for the video camera, this cantankerous and obnoxious person was there. He greeted me by saying what am I lying about now. I long worked out that he is jealous of the fact that I have seen more wildlife in the woods in the couple of years I have lived here than he has all his life. Well you cant see wildlife if all you do is sit in the pub getting pissed. Anyway, when I had gotten off the bus, I had allowed this woman with her child to get off first. I had also made a joke about the unicorn hobby horse the child had.

Well, this cantankerous old bugger had been running around telling everyone that he had seen me with a woman. Now I know that in villages all over people get very nosy, but it did amuse me that so many people are so interested in my love life. As we have real problems with crime and anti social behaviour, why cant they worry about that?

Well if they want to know, I am not seeing anyone at the moment... but I am open to offers!

Are Genetically Modified Crops Killing Bees?

Several months ago I started writing a piece about the rise in food prices and the unethical way that we in the west are diverting food crops to Bio-Fuels. I was going to also talk about the effects of climate change and the way that our changing climate could be effecting bees. As has been reported bees are suffering from a condition called, Colony Collapse Disorder.

Now while I strongly suspected an environmental reason for this, however as I always use good quality research as the basis for my postings, I did not want to blame global warming for this Colony Collapse Disorder if that is not what the sciences shows. Therefore I contacted people that would know what the current state of knowledge is. While I thought that it was likely to be an environmental factor, what I was told shocked me.

However, I needed to verify if what I was being told was accurate. Therefore I have been very busy ensuring that the data I was being shown was accurate. Further was the interpretation of the data correct.

Well I have long thought that big business, global business and its total disregard for the environment is pushing us to hell in a hand cart, but the data “Appears” to show that pollen from GM crops is killing the bees.

While I have strong reservations about Genetically Modified foods, I am not against them as long as they are properly tested. Something that has never happened. The research, while not conclusive, showed that when bees were feed on various GM crops lost their ability to navigate. Why this should happen is still a mystery, but its the only effect demonstrable in the laboratory that mimics what's happening in the wild.

I have spent much of my time asking some hard questions of the people who have supplied this data. Why have they not made this data public and why not go to the media? They told me that effectively they have been gagged as research funding is dependent upon “pleasing” vested interests. They cant go to the media as while the research appears to be impacting the immune system of the Bees the data was not conclusive proof and they reminded me of Arpad Pusztai. For those that don't know or don't remember, Arpad Pusztai gave a television interview where he expressed concern about GM as in his experiments of feeding GM potatoes to rats, they failed to thrive. Effectively the potatoes were less nutritious.

Arpad Pusztai, paid the price with his career.

While the science is not conclusive proof, yet, as the powers that be have halted any further research by these scientists, I now find this knotty problem in my lap.

As the Internet is the home of every nut job, and I am fully aware that to many as an Environmentalist I fall into that category, in breaking this news I could be being set up.
While all the documents I have seen look genuine, and while the story I have been told sounds “reasonably” credible, I still don't fully understand why I have been given tacit approval to break this story. While I know that I do have my readers here, three Americans and a cat, I have to trust that their reasons are genuinely altruistic. They needed a conduit like me to get this story out in the public domain.

If True and Accurate then we really have destroyed our planet. Charles Darwin accurately predicted that without Bees we would (The Human Race) suffer a total collapse of our ability to grow food in six years. Colony Collapse Disorder is a real disaster for us all. We really are going to hell in a hand cart.

The Jackdaws Ate My Trees

One of the delights of travelling is the little gems you pick up on the way. While I was off helping with what I am calling the Deer Project, I was able to buy some home crafted cheese from the Mull of Kintyre (Cue The Music). It is one of the things that delights me is finding gems of food suppliers like this, and the cheese is gorgeous.

On the subject of food, while I do enjoy cooking, it is something that I have been neglecting for many months now, partly because I have been so busy. However much of what I have been doing has been sorting out everyone else's problems. When I got back from my expedition, I had a mass of messages and emails to plough through. Yet the one common factor was that while they were all vital at the time, because I was not available, they had to find their own solutions. While it may seem tough, I am no longer willing to be at everyone's beck and call. While it is in my personality to try and be helpful, I have had the feeling for a long time that many of the people were in fact just using my willingness to try and help as a way of them not doing what they didn't want to do.

So since getting back I have been having some quiet time and doing some proper cooking. I am loving rediscovering the pleasures of taking time to cook fresh meals. For months I have been cooking meals just to put them in the freezer as I knew that I would be pressed for time here or there.

It has been like getting control back of my life. So often it has been I/We need you here, not can you help, or is it convenient. Having this extra time also enabled me the opportunity to go out and check on the badger setts. What was noticeable was that none of the females (sows) were out at all only the Brock's. That's a clear indication that there will soon be the patter of tiny paws.

One thing that occurred while I was away that has disappointed me, was all the trees seeds that I sowed in the autumn have gone. When the snows came recently, I spotted the Jackdaws taking an interest, and they did take some then. I have been doing my best to stop them as once they realised that each pot contained a beech nut or acorn or whatever, that was it, they were probing every pot. Don't tell me that birds are bird brained, they are clever. If I do it next year I think that I will need netting.

Tesco Lies to the BBC

While I am sometimes up early enough to catch Farming Today on BBC Radio Four, it starts at 5:45 in the morning, I was really glad that I did today. As I have written about previously, here in the UK what's called a standard chicken some supermarkets have been selling for three pounds each or two for five pounds.

Following a series of programmes on television that highlighted the low standard of welfare inflicted upon these birds to achieve this price, initially Tesco's said that it had seen no impact on its sales. On farming today they even reported that Tesco reported an increase in sales of standard chicken. My sources tell me that this was a lie. In fact as I posted just last week Tesco have notices up in store saying that they are trying to expand production of the high welfare chickens.

Today, Farming today were reporting that Tesco will be selling standard chickens at one pound and ninety-nine pence as a special offer.

After checking with my sources, I discover that far from the television campaign not impacting sales, Tesco have lost sales. People are rejecting the low welfare standard chicken and as they have done little to source high welfare chickens, they are loosing market share.

It just goes to prove that the supermarkets don't follow the customers lead as they claim but will inflict on us whatever rubbish will make them a profit.

Processed Food Is Causing Tropical Deforestation

While the link to quality food, supermarkets processed foods, deforestation and climate change is not in the forefront of many peoples minds, the link is a direct one.

The food industry will always use the cheapest ingredients it can source. While there is the obvious link regarding the miles that food travels, however the more damaging problem is in fact regarding the use of palm oil in almost all processed foods. The economics are simple, palm oil, freshly processed from Indonesia sells for less than .09 pence (20 cents US) per kilo. Thus as would any business, the food industry uses palm oil by the tonne (many million tonnes), as a way of maximising profits. Something that all businesses are legally required to do for the benefit of shareholders.

While all the talk in the media has been about palm oil as a bio-fuel, an alternative to petrol and diesel. What people are failing to recognise is that there already is a very high demand for palm oil from the food industry. Also it has to be said, most soap is made with palm oil. The brand Palmolive takes his name quite simply from the fact that it is made from 90per cent Palm Oil and ten percent Olive Oil. I am not singling out that particular brand as almost all soap is made using Palm Oil.

Therefore, in relation to climate change, the bio-fuel industry will have a tough time sourcing enough palm oil. While this commodity pressure should be good prices, the reverse is actually the reality. This is because vast areas of rain forest is being felled and replanted with palm oil. In Borneo half of the rain forest has been lost in the last fifteen years. While some NGOs are saying that this has happened in the last ten years, but I am quoting and relying on official figures here.
While the governments of Borneo and Papa New Guinea, are trying to stop this happening the planters are getting in the illegal loggers and clearing the land. It has also happened by burning down the forest, but as the timber can be sold even as illegally felled timber, the companies that create the plantations are creating clear land. The governments then agree to this now cleared land being planted with palm oil.

This is creating an oversupply, that is depressing the price of the palm oil. Additionally because of the loss of government revenues from managed and sustainable logging that the illegal logging, it is no wonder that the governments agree to these new plantations being established. These are developing countries who do not have the resources to replant the forests.

There are other financial and social impacts from the use of palm oil by the western food industry. As many of the peoples that live on and around the land where the plantations are established are predominantly creating and deriving their livelihoods from the forests, they loose their means of existence. Often these indigenous peoples are not earning money or generating monies by this hunting and gathering, their needs are ignored. However, without their traditional lives, they then become a burden on the state as they become jobless even homeless.

This is the reality of our so called cheap food in the UK and the west. Furthermore we already have many other fats and oils that could be used in manufacturing these processed foods are available. Olive oil, Grape seed oil are but two and they are considered beneficial for health. They are not used not because they are drastically more expensive but because they can not be manipulated to greatly extend shelf life. That also raises a question about how fresh our food really is, but I may tackle that at a later date. However, with all the problems of obesity that we face in the western world, in my mind at least it makes me wonder if the prolific use of palm oil in our foods is part of the problem? That said what is clear is that precessed food is a significant contributing factor in deforestation.

While this posting has focused upon the unknown or ignored aspects of why our food industry and our eating habits are significantly adding to deforestation, and our changing climate, as in Borneo deforestation is placing the Orang-utan at serious risk of extinction. All this as a direct result of our demand for palm oil. Climate change affects us all, in ways that most people don't understand or realise, from the poor displaced peoples in Indonesia to the rise in obesity in the west. That is why conservation is really important for all our futures.

As climate change is a reality we all need to send signals to the food industry and stop them supporting, indirectly, illegal logging and directly other unethical business practises.

Education Is De-skilling our Children

Earlier on today I was drafting out a posting on a completely different topic, but as today is Shrove Tuesday, the topic I was writing about reminded me that in the village store I had seen an instant pancake mix. My initial reaction was that surely people know how to make pancakes?
However, I realised that actually it is quite likely that people don't. Further, I realised why this was and it is in fact at the root of many of the social problems that exist today. Back when I was at school even us boys were expected to do one term of cooking. It had the fancy title of Home Economics, but basically it was simply cookery. I enjoyed it and predominantly by teaching myself, I learned how to cook. I am not perfect, even now I can get my timing wrong and I have served starters after the main course!

However I went to school just as the industrial age was ending. No matter what your real talent was the schools then were churning out factory workers. Or so they thought, during my last two years at school on the bus I would pass the factories where I was expected to work. Yet in those two years I saw factory after factory close. I was fortunate as I got a job in a Horticultural Nursery, very poor wages, but a job.

The certainties of the whole basis of the education system just fell away. The education system then emphasised, even more than it had previously, that exams were the way to go. When I left school O-levels were what was required. Then the emphasis was pushed onto A levels, (the equivalent of a high school diploma). Now all the emphasis is on getting a degree.

What has been lost in this overly academic thrust in the education system is the chance to experience different subjects, especially the practical ones.

That's the base of this triangle, another aspect is the number of women that are now working. This is not an anti-feminist rant, the fact that a woman is just as good as a man in any job has been proved time and again. However, this change has not come as a choice that women are free to make as most of the time women have to work just to make ends meet. When I was a child on the news you would hear about “A Family Wage”, now even two young working professionals together struggle to afford to live on a joint salary. Therefore, parents are so busy working that they don't have the time to pass on the skills of cooking. Additionally, the food industry and the supermarkets are tricking us into buying all these highly processed convenience foods. Further undermining the confidence of people in their abilities to cook.

Finally is the hype that is marketed to us about what we should be consuming and the lifestyle we should be leading. In the developed western world, while we are all richer, anxiety and depression rates are at an all time high.

I don't know first hand what the situation is like in the US, as an example, but here in Britain very few families sit down at the table for a meal. More often than not, its a plate on the lap in front of the television. Further, sometimes because of shift patterns or other commitments different members of the family are eating at different times.

While I am not advocating that it should be the woman that does the cooking, when I was married I did most of the cooking. But the loss of household skills and the reliance on “Fast Junk Food” is de-skilling a whole generation. This all impacts upon the loss of social cohesion, as a family sitting around a table eating and talking builds bonds, while eating microwave mush in front of the television just deadens the mind.

It would have been all to easy to have dismissed the appearance of an instant pancake mix on the shelves of the local store as people being lazy, but its really the loss of skills and the confidence to try that enables the food industry to make and market products like this successfully. When I first started to cook, I made my own recipe book. Pancakes was the first recipe I wrote in the book.

Personally I would encourage everyone to make their own. Apart from it being way cheaper than this manufactured junk, it can also be fun.

Here's the Recipe:

3oz (75g) of flour
¼ pint (150ml) of milk
One Egg (Medium or Large)

Mix the milk with the flour until you have a smooth paste. Season to taste with salt and pepper, beat in the egg, you should have a pouring paste but you can add extra milk to make a pouring paste.

It really is that simple, but if you have never been shown or had the opportunity to learn, well now is your chance.

What is particularly crazy about all this processed food is that it all contributes to climate change. The factories that create this stuff use far more energy per portion that you would do in your own home manufacturing it, then with child and frozen food its all kept in open chillers in the supermarkets. Add in the energy used to transport it around and the economics of processed foods start to look crazy.

It is worth noting that the supermarkets don't sell convenience foods for our benefit, while they may say they are offering choice, really they do it because they make more profit on these foods.

Therefore save money and save the planet by learning how to cook.

Closing Down Four Coal Fired Power Stations

Yesterday, because of the poor weather forecast, I decided I would do my shopping early. Following my previous comments about wanting to avoid the chemical contamination of my foods by the “Food Industry” I have been using up more of the ingredient, stock and store cupboard items that I always keep, so I knew that this would be a big shop. At times like this I keep on saying I should hire myself out as a pack horse.

Sticking to my resolve of avoiding anything that would be better suited to a chemical factory, I loaded up my trolley. I knew it was not going to be a cheap trip, but even I was surprised when the bill came in at under forty pounds. Normally when I have to restock its over fifty.

So while its not yet proof, it does look as though avoiding processed foods is cheaper. Nor had I stinted on quality or quantity. But I had looked for any bargains. One of those bargains that I got was a Brisket of Beef, that was reduced because of a short sell by date. While I prefer to use the butchers, a joint of properly matured, 21 day, British beef was not one I was going to miss out on. And as I write, I am happily digesting the first meal this produced.

The other item that I bought was a Chicken from the high welfare standard range. Normally I would only buy free range, but I wanted to make a statement to the supermarket, that I will only buy chickens, or any meat for that matter, that comes from a high welfare standard. I also noted that the “Standard” low welfare birds have actually gone up in price. Further, the supermarket has signs up saying that following the television programmes, that they were striving to meet the increased demand for the higher welfare standard chickens, but there was now a shortage. Coincidently when I got home I made some enquires and discovered that the price rise on the “Standard” low welfare birds was forced upon them partly by farmers who are now earning triple from each bird, up from three pence to nine pence, but more importantly from customers who were appalled by the fact that the supermarkets were only paying the farmers third world prices.

Back at the supermarket, as Consett is situated at the top of a hill, it gets quite battered by the weather, and the high winds were battering us yesterday. However, while waiting for the bus to get back home, I spotted a bird that I surprised to see a Great Bustard. I wished I had had my camera with me, but with all this shopping to carry...

That was not the only pleasant surprise I had either as when I got back home I took my recycling to the recycling point and discovered that the council has installed a new bin for plastics. It has long been frustrating that plastics the biggest polluter and the greatest volume in most peoples bins, is not recycled. Finally it is happening.

Then to top all this, I got a phone call. As I mentioned in a previous posting, I helped one woman in the village reduce her electricity bills. Suddenly with the substantial rise in gas and electricity prices people are starting to see the wisdom of reducing energy consumption. I was being asked to help a small group of five women who were trying to reduce their bills. So today I went and had a chat with them.

The first comment I had to make was just how hot it was, in this woman's home. Granted it was blowing a blizzard outside, it was boiling in the house and everyone was wearing tee shirts. So the first thing I suggested was that everyone put on a jumper. The woman who was hosting this symposium said; “Oh no need I will just turn the heating up”

By explaining that it a lot cheaper to put on a jumper (American translation: Sweater) than racking up the heating they could all save up to forty percent off their heating bills, suddenly they could see the point. For example one woman last year had a winter quarter gas bill of over four hundred pounds. She is still paying this off. So reducing her bill by one third or more would make a real difference to her and her family.

The real shock was that all of these women had each got two low energy light bulbs but had not fitted them. One of the tabloid papers here, I will not name one of Rupert Murdock's trashy papers here, on 19th January gave away four and half million low energy light bulbs. All of them had these twin packs, but none had bin fitted. So I did a trail around fitting light bulbs. I gave some other advice but I am amazed at how people don't seem to be able to do the obvious things. I know that this is all small scale but little by little people are realising the value of saving energy even if only to save money.

However, the real story here is that in this consumer give away, if all those bulbs were fitted, in one year alone it would stop three thousand five hundred tonnes of CO2 going up into the atmosphere. Even more staggering is if we all changed to low energy bulbs we would reduce energy consumption by the equivalent of closing four coal fired power stations.

So why not change your bulbs today?

If the list of ingredients looks like a chemistry lesson then...

This Last week for me has been very busy. The demands on my time are coming quite thick and fast. Some of these I will detail in latter postings. However there are two instances that I want to tell you folk about. Firstly, as I previously said I bought a new computer and have been busy setting this up. As I have needed to add hardware and software, I do this an item at a time test it before adding the next bit. This is far more time consuming than just putting it all together and hopping for the best. It has and does pay off in the long run.

However, this meant that I had lots of spare time to sit and watch the birds as they come and visit my yard. This occurred at the same time as the snows came, so I was able to see that my efforts were really worthwhile.

Then as I was awaiting the computer load some software, I went off to make some tea. On returning I suddenly realised that a Sparrow hawk was perched on the power line that runs parallel to my property. I rushed downstairs for the camera but it had gone by the time I got back, but it had been only twenty feet from my window, a real treat.

However, it doesn't end there, while out and about I missed seeing the bird again.
I had returned and noticed that two of the fat balls had been pulled off and were laying broken open on the ground. I presumed by the jackdaws, this wasn't deterring the birds as they were still feeding on them where they lay on the floor. Then a day or so latter I bumped into one of my neighbours who told me that they had seen a bird of prey, that had swooped in and (they think) took a small bird. This could be the explanation of how the fat balls were felled. As they were securely tied I had been surprised to see them on the ground. I would have loved to have seen this, but I cant be everywhere.

This has made me look carefully at where I am positioning the food so that I am not providing a bird table for the hawks.

It just shows that doing just a little can help a lot.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is food. Following the programmes on the food we are having foisted upon us, I have been even more careful about what I am buying. While I am pretty clued up, even I was appalled and revolted by what I was discovering. When I did my shopping last week I took more time to look to see if I could avoid all the foods where the practices of the food industry are unethical and unhealthy. That day I found that by avoiding the products that I would not want to eat, my bill at the checkout was seventy five percent lower.

This got me thinking, was it possible that by buying and eating ethically was cheaper?

As I had a receipt from a previous big shopping trip, this is an unexpected advantage of using reusable bags, and I looked to see if I could buy similar goods without compromising ethics and not breaking the bank either. For example, pasta that contain what is called the hidden egg. These are the broken eggs that come from battery farms. They cant be sold but go into ninety percent of the foods that contain egg. While I support free range by buying free range eggs, it looks as though I have for years been unwittingly supporting unethical farming via these products.

Additionally I wanted to avoid eating anything that was “mucked about”. I do try and eat healthy foods, so the products that are supposed to be more healthy will appear in my shopping basket. But as was shown in these programmes, most of these are still full of salt and sugar. Not only that the fats in them are far from healthy, and in the UK at least, the labelling regulations enable them to hide all the crap, more from what they don't say. While I have known for a long time that we need to read between the lines on labels, it became clear that no matter how aware you are, you can still be fooled. Therefore I am now adopting the simple rule; if the list of ingredients looks like a chemistry lesson then I am not going to buy it. On that principal I will stop buying the instant soups that you make in a mug. Looking at the ingredients in one of them, made me realise just what garbage is in them. Further, as I enjoy making soups, why not go back to what I used to do and make a big pan full when the veg is cheap and freeze some for latter.

Well I following my chemistry free approach, and I saved myself thirty five percent on my grocery bill. It has meant that I have to spend a little more time in the kitchen, but it is still fast food and I doubt that I have spent more than an extra hour in the kitchen this week. And part of that extra time has been spent cooking something special anyway.

What I did that was a bit special was as the result of actively seeking out a decent butchers. The one in the village is not that brilliant, and while the one that I had been using in Consett is reasonable, there is a lack of choice and variety. I don't understand how or why anyone would want to limit what they are prepared to eat, but locally it seems that folks will stick with eating the same limited foods day in day out. Therefore, I went looking for a better butcher, and I think I have found what I wanted.

I have two ways of telling a good butcher, the first is one that makes his (that's not being sexist its just that most butchers are men) own sausages. And if they have offal or the less popular cuts of meat available. It was the discovery that they had an ox tail available that prompted me cooking a large pan, three litres, of oxtail soup.

I also got some of the sausages, Lamb and mint, and they were a wonderful flavour. What's amazing is that a real butcher is cheaper than the supermarket anyway, and the quality is normally superior to the supermarkets anyway.

So it looks as though even with my time pressures this week, cooking and eating a healthy ethical diet is cheaper than the supermarkets would have us believe.

Chickens and Welfare Standards in Farming

Here in Britain on one of the TV channels there has been a season of programmes looking at the production of cheap chickens. For my overseas readers, it has been possible to buy two “standard” chickens for five pounds. Even buying them individually they are still only three pounds each.

Now having once been a vegetarian simply because when I adopted that diet in the late 1970s it was simply that I could not trust the quality and the ethics of the meat being proffered to me. Over the years farming practices did improve amongst a few enlightened people, and it became possible to buy meat from ethical sources. I even kept my own chickens for meat and eggs so I know from experience how well chickens can be kept.

That experience also highlighted for me just how detached people have become from their food supply. Even when offered a fresh, humanely killed plucked and dressed bird they would rather eat a cheap chicken from the supermarket, as they didn’t like the idea of knowing where their meat came from.

It is this fact that allows the supermarkets to control the way that farming and welfare standards are administered. The supermarkets and the food industry in general are forcing farmers to reduce the costs of production by constantly sourcing some of its product from cheep low standard overseas producers. Effectively forcing farmers to produce low welfare standard meat at the costs of third world farming within a developed world economy.

Here in the UK every attempt to raise welfare standards by farmers, NGOs and even the government are being undermined by the supermarkets. The only ethics that these businesses have (Supermarkets and the Food industry) is that of making a profit, no matter what the cost.

Listening to the discussions and debates on the news it struck me that all the excuses that were being proffered by the industry could so easily have been interchanged for a debate on slavery. Apart from the ethics of low welfare standard production, it is these intensive methods of food production that have lead to the food scares. In the UK there was a problem with salmonella in eggs, now happily eliminated, but it would never have occurred had the welfare standards been higher.

All the supermarkets could eliminate this problem if they were to pay farmers more than three pence per bird, and only selling chickens from the higher welfare standard methods of production. While I would love to see only free-range production I am realistic and realise that far to many people don’t care about the food they eat. That is reflected in the rubbish that most people eat instead of real food.

Equally the food industry needs to respect when the government imposes higher welfare standards. Here in the UK a pig production company, DRS, has gone into administration leaving around ninety farmers unpaid. While the reason for this company going bust is related to Foot and Mouth, an important aspect is that the supermarkets refused to pay more for the higher welfare standards of UK pig farmers and switched to buying imported pork where welfare standards are lower.

All this means that we the consumer are being conned into thinking that food must be cheep. Yet while we can add to the carbon footprint by importing foods, we will eventually loose our means of producing food. That makes us in the UK vulnerable to any sudden hike in energy costs, or even any terrorist action that disrupts food imports.

In the UK there is a major problem with obesity, if the government actually started to impose higher standards on food and food production then this would improve health and go a long way towards the UK reducing its green house gas emissions.

This is all a pipe dream I know, as the trouble is that profits are more important than ethics.

The Myth of Cheap Food

Before Christmas on the BBCs Farming Today, I heard a discussion about the fall in prices that hill farmers were getting for their lambs. The reasons for this are a complex collection of problems, but while I risk over simplifying the factors, they are; the increased cost of feed, the oversupply from imports, and the restrictions caused by the outbreak of Foot and Mouth.

With the restrictions on movements that the outbreak of Foot and Mouth caused, farmers were not able to move the lambs off of the hills, even when the sheep had eaten all the grass. Some farmers were able to provide supplementary feeding, but this was not always possible either due to cost or lack of feed. For these hard-pressed farmers the cost of feed was and is important as lambs are only selling at market for five pounds (Eight Dollars US) in extreme cases. The average price has been lower from twenty-eight pounds (Fifty Dollars US) per lamb to fifteen pounds (twenty-eight Dollars US) per lamb. That obviously reduces the income of farmers who are making very little to start with. Incidentally we also had two hundred and fifty thousand lambs slaughtered in what the government called a welfare cull. An oxymoron if ever I heard one.

So with falling prices at the market we the consumers are getting cheaper meat? Using misinformation the major supermarkets increased prices for lamb. This brings me to what I heard on the radio. One of the farming groups looked at the price of the cuts of meat from the lamb and by reconstructing a lamb from the cuts of meat they worked out that the average price of the meat was about five pound fifty per kilo, ten times the price the supermarkets were paying for the carcass. That also represents an increase of nearly twenty percent on the price that consumers are paying.

So I carried out the same exercise and again after Christmas to ensure that it was not just a hike in price for the holiday season. I found the same prices myself.

Environmentally, this is a disaster. If farmers can no longer stay in business we lose the custodians of our landscape. The countryside only looks the way it does because of the way those farmers manage the land. Further, particularly on the hills, it is only because of grazing that the habitats for much of the wildlife exists.

In the past and I am only talking ten to fifteen years ago, subsides meant that farmers could only afford to farm the hills by overstocking the hills, this lead to large-scale erosion and environmental degradation. Fortunately the way support was paid was changed and this dramatically improved the situation and reversed the problem. What the supermarkets are doing will destroy ten years of hard work.

Additionally the way that the supermarkets protect their margins by dictating to farmers the price they will pay for meat, means that farmers can only make farming pay by increasing the number of animals on any farm and reducing the welfare standards for the livestock. Most farmers do care about their animals, but farmers are often forced to cut corners to make farming pay. The supermarkets know this but hide behind systems that are supposed to ensure welfare standards.

If we look at chicken as an example, where the birds are regularly feed antibiotics to grow faster and fatter, this practice has caused antibiotic resistance and has major implications on human health. Further, having large concentrations of any animal in a small area creates pollution. Farming always used to be exemplars of recycling, as nothing was waste it all had a use on the farm.

Had farming and particularly factory farming had to pay for the pollution it created, then food prices would double at least. Yet we still have to pay for this, indirectly by higher water bills and higher taxes. Also as the supermarkets will utilise anything that can be considered food, take the example of mechanically recovered meat, while they make billions in profit, they are poisoning our children and us.

While that trolley may be full of cheap food from the supermarket there is a hidden cost.





My gratitude to Fran Purdy for the kind permission to use her magnificent picture of the Ewe and Lamb taken on the Yorkshire hills, her website can be found at www.pbase.com/jenga

Living in a Food Desert

Yesterday morning I went into Consett on the free bus that the big supermarket chain provides to do the last of my shopping for Bah Humbug day. As I stood waiting for the bus the milky disk of the sun was just about visible through the clouds that blanketed my village, and I mused on the problems of the lack of decent food shopping locally. While in the village there are food shops, we even have a post office but for how much longer I don’t know. The problem seems to be that very few people actually cook anymore.

I know that I have been greeted by awe and amazement when I have told people that I can cook. Further, as I have provided friends in and around the Village with samples like Chutneys or Soups, they discover that I really can cook.

Therefore I realise that while I may want decent fresh ingredients, I am in a minority. Most people in the village buy on price and seem to relish the high fat, highly processed food that is available.

Even when I returned to the village and went to get the fresh Fruit and Vegetables from the green grocer in the village, I was disappointed by the fare that was on offer. Often the produce there is less than its best. The difficulty they have is that people will not buy anything unusual, nor will they buy the best in the market as anything cheep, no matter how poor quality, will sell.

I wish that I had a Farmers Market near by, but while they do exist, they are only in the most affluent areas.

Well at least I got my Organic Duck for Humbug Day, so while it may feel as though I live in a food desert, I will be able to feast like a prince.

A Planet fit To Live On

I am well aware that most people think that this mouse is being alarmist by talking of the complete destruction of our planet and of the human race, but this new report by the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), demonstrates that this is a reality and not some doom leaden fantasy.

We are stripping our home world of resources faster than they can be renewed naturally and we seem hell bent upon despoiling what we leave behind. If we take water as the key resource, which it is, humans seem to have lost the understanding that we need to keep our water clean.

Globally we are pumping out billions of tonnes of Carbon Dioxide into our atmosphere, plants will absorb some, and some will be absorbed by the oceans and seas. But in doing so, the seas change their ph value and become more acid. If you dissolve CO2 in water you get Carbonic Acid. Quite simple school level science, as has been discovered recently, our oceans are now saturated with CO2, they are not absorbing any more by natural means. Therefore, we have polluted our seas so much that the fresh water they release, in the form of clouds and rain is no longer pure.

As well as speeding up the degradation of our environments, it makes it much more expensive to purify the water. In the Western developed world we can at least throw money at the problem and produce clean water, but in the developing world we are condemning these people to illness and disease.

Not just directly from contaminated water, but impure water will effect the ability of the crops to grow thus reducing yield for peoples that are eking out a subsistence level of living anyway.

This is why this mouse doesn’t like the idea of crops being flown around the world. Its not because of the carbon footprint they leave, but because a water rich west is importing water from water poor areas. As vegetables are mainly water, each crate of vegetables is taking water away from the people who most need it. This is all speeding desertification especially in Africa.

It is the individual choices that we all make that add to this global disaster. None of us seem to be prepared to make do with what we have we all seem to want more and more. But beyond being well fed, adequately housed and warm, we don’t need most of the consumer goods we buy. While I hate to mention it, Christmas will soon be upon us, an orgy of consumerism and I can guarantee that in the rubbish of most homes will be last years must have items.

The more we consume, especially in the developed world, the more damage we do to our environment. But what use will any of those toys be when we no longer have a planet fit enough to live on?

You can find a copy of the report to down load via this link. Not bedtime reading I know and at nearly six hundred pages long not an easy read either, but if you really want to know what we are doing to destroy our world…