WOLVERCOTE
FARMERS' MARKET

The material on this page is evolving, so please send your views about what should be here.  For example, we could start a blog.  Subjects which it would be good to discuss include the impact of climate change and peak oil on our future food supply;  fair trade for Oxford farmers  -- the real price of good, fresh  food;  what Oxford could be doing to become self-reliant in food;  Community Supported Agriculture and a food hub for Oxford;  and so on.

At the moment, articles are just listed in date order (starting with the most recent). 

Farming Today – BBC Radio 4
In a convoluted interpretation of the actual interviews broadcast, Farming Today headlined its piece on the 60% decline in UK biodiversity reported by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), with the suggestion that GM crops would 'help Nature' given the 'significant environmental benefits of the GM field trials'.
This turned out to be nothing more than the unsurprising answer from the pro-GM vice president of the NFU, Paul Temple responding to the question from the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 'Are GMs a threat to biodiversity?', that he believed there to be 'significant benefits'. In fact, the Committee was enquiring into the broader issues around the UK's biodiversity decline as set out in the OECD report. Yet Farming Today pursued the GM question with the Committee's chair, Tim Yeo. His response suggests his own perplexity at the programme's dogged GM line,
"I don't think the evidence is conclusive yet re: claimed benefits. I remain puzzled by the keenness of farmers to grow GM crops when there doesn't appear to be a great consumer demand for food which contains GM ingredients.
There's a danger here that farmers are falling back into their old ways of thinking they are producers, but they are also in the marketing business and if you ignore what the market's looking for you'll do yourself an awful lot of harm.
There appears to be quite a significant body of consumers, as reflected in what the supermarkets in this country are asking for, who would like food free from GM ingredients. And that given what the same witness said (Paul Temple) that most countries abroad can no longer produce such types of food that would give them (farmers) a terrific advantage if for the time being at least they continued following a GM free policy in this country."
Listen again (18 June)

When it comes to productivity a small farm is unbeatable
In a full page comment piece George Monbiot writes, "The issue of whether or not the world will be fed is partly a function of ownership. This reflects an unexpected discovery. It was first made in 1962 by the Nobel economist Amartya Sen, and has since been confirmed by dozens of studies. There is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield… A recent study of farming in Turkey, for example, found that farms of less than one hectare are 20 times as productive as farms of more than 10 hectares. Sen's observation has been tested in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Java, the Philippines, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay. It appears to hold almost everywhere."
The Guardian (10 June, p.25)

Americans urged to grow their own fruit and veg
Americans are being urged to help offset high food prices by growing more fruit and vegetables in their back gardens. Amid growing unemployment, and rising food and petrol prices, one in 10 US households is now experiencing hunger or the risk of hunger, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
The Daily Telegraph (10 June, p.15)

Get unlabelled GM ingredients out of your local restaurants
It is illegal for caterers to use GM ingredients unless they are clearly labelled on their menus or displayed on a prominent notice. But despite this many cafes, restaurants, takeaways and pubs are routinely using GM oil in their cooking without letting their customers know. In fact, they might not even know they are doing it themselves.
The Friends of the Earth website has more information about how to take action

Free markets push farmers into poverty
A letter from John Hilary, executive director at War on Want is published in The Independent in response to Dominic Lawson’s opinion piece on ‘free trade’.
Hilary writes, "It is important to debunk Lawson's claim that "food sovereignty" means rich land-owners extorting monopoly rents at the expense of the poor. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Food sovereignty entails the redistribution of land from the rich to the poor and landless so that they can exercise their right to food. This, not market liberalisation, offers the prospect of a fairer future for developing countries, and we should support it."
The Independent (10 June, p.28)

Interview - Waitrose managing director, Mark Price
Times2 features an interview with Mark Price, managing director of Waitrose. Price says, "I think, philosophically, that the way we manage food and the relationship people have with food is going to have to change. Twenty-five years ago, 25 per cent of disposable income went on food. It's now 9 per cent. I don't think that's a sustainable position. I think people will have to start spending more on food as a proportion of their total disposable income… Price is totally serious. The years ahead will be no picnic."
Times2 (10 June, p.10)

Trans-fats
Hydrogenated vegetable oil has been banned in two European countries but not in the UK. Andrew Collier asks, "Why are we eating them?"
The Independent Extra (10 June, p.11)
Daily Express (10 June, p.42)

Alarm at flood of bogus pesticides
The new phenomenon of counterfeit pesticides to treat crops is growing at an alarming rate, according to agriculture experts, putting people's health - and farmers' livelihoods - at risk.
The European Crop Protection Association recently set up a taskforce to fight the trade, uncovering a vast business run by criminal gangs, according to Rocky Rowe, who heads the association. The biggest scare to date came in late 2006, when - German authorities conducting random tests found - isofenphos methyl, an illegal pesticide, in peppers from southern Spain. They issued an alert and authorities in 14 European countries, including Russia, found the same problem.
Financial Times (20 May, p.12)

Food inflation could get worse
A prediction from the forecasting group, the Ernst & Young ITEM club, has warned that food inflation - running at 6.6 per cent, according to Government data - could get worse.
Joel Segal, the head of consumer products at the accountancy firm, said: "Higher-end consumers will have to make a trade off. Either they stick to their principles, or - as they batten down the hatches - they may decide that they can live without fair trade or organic in order to avoid cutting back in other areas."
However, no retailer has reported any fall off in organic food, so far. Indeed, sales of free-range eggs and organic chickens rose earlier this year, following a series of television programmes presented by Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef, highlighting poultry welfare.
Clio Turton from the Soil Association said shoppers could save money without ditching their organic favourites by choosing seasonal and local food. Riverford Organic, which runs one of the largest vegetable box schemes, has found that supermarket organic food, on some lines, is over 70 per cent more expensive than the same produce at farmers' markets or local shops.
The Daily Telegraph (20 May, p.6)
Daily Mail (20 May, p.32)

DNA damage 'caused by pesticides'
New research in India suggests exposure to pesticides could have damaged the DNA of people in farming communities, leading to higher rates of cancer. Scientists at Patiala University, Punjab state, did the study, tracking a group of farmers for several months. Professor Satbir Kaur said the study ruled out other factors such as age, alcohol intake and smoking, concluding that the probable cause of this fundamental change in the building block of life was use of pesticide sprays.
BBC News online (19 May)

Fears over oil supply move into mainstream
A full page feature in the Financial Times looks at concerns over future output levels and how high prices could bring changes in behaviour. Journalist Carola Hoyos goes along to a Cirencester Transition Towns meeting. Hoyos writes, "For years, such meetings have been dismissed as eccentric... But with the oil price at a record $126 a barrel, more than 1,000 per cent higher than a decade ago, fears of the end of the hydrocarbon age have seeped into the mainstream. Many in the industry itself now accept that supply constraints are shaping the price as much as rampant demand."
Financial Times (20 May, p.15)

 
Farmers face losing EU subsidies unless they promise to go green
English farmers could lose cash handouts from Brussels next year unless they agree to make environmental improvements to their land. The European Commission is to announce today an end to the controversial set-aside payment scheme - under which farmers were paid to leave about 8 per cent of their fields fallow - as part of further reform of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP).
The Times (20 May, p.8)

Farmers’ Weekly (May 16)
Price no barrier to organic sales
Organic farmers should work on developing consumer loyalty rather than concentrating on cutting costs, a survey into shopper’s perceptions of organic fruit and vegetables has found. The research, carried out by Kent Business School, found that although producers and retailers thought price affected people’s purchasing decisions, only 16% of shoppers were driven by cost when buying organic fruit and vegetables. Instead, health, safety and taste were the key factors leading people to buy organic produce. (p.36)

Farmer’s Guardian (16 May)
Organic and traditional returns similar
Organic farmers in Wales are achieving similar returns for their milk, lamb and beef, despite lower yields than conventional farmers, according to the latest Farm Business Survey benchmark data. "Output figures are usually higher for organic, reflecting the premium price achieved, while variable costs are similar, resulting in higher gross margins for organic. However, overhead costs are typically higher for organic production, mainly because costs are spread over lower total yields, resulting in a similar net margin," said Nic Lampkin, director of Organic Centre Wales. (p.16)

Cost of farm land rises by 40pc in a year
Buyers for farms in England are outnumbering sellers by 30 to one, pushing arable land prices up by 40 per cent over the past year. Arable land is routinely selling for £6,500 per acre, while premium acres are fetching £10,000.
Daily Telegraph news in brief (12 May, p.10)

Bloggers grill Ramsay's seasonal food call
When Gordon Ramsay fulminated that restaurants should be fined for using out-of-season produce, the result was inevitable. Foodie bloggers rushed to scrutinise the menus of his restaurant empire for any hint of hypocrisy. They weren't disappointed. While Ramsay's comments were welcomed by the Soil Association and chimed with the growing popularity for locally sourced food, they did not completely accord with his own menus.
Emma Noble, director of the Soil Association led Food for Life Partnership, agreed that seasonal menus were an important way to cut the environmental impact of our food. "If schools can do it, chefs and restaurants should do it too."
The Guardian (10 May)
'Has Gordon Ramsey bitten off more then he can chew?', The Independent (10 May, pp.14-15, Leader p.38)
'Eat your own words, Gordon', Daily Mail (12 May, p.11)

Families now need £1,000 more than this time last year - just to put food on the table
There is now a worldwide crisis over supplies of key crops such as corn, wheat and rice. It has triggered food riots in some countries. And in the UK it has brought the biggest rises in bills in a generation.
Daily Mail (12 May, front page, p.4)

While stocks last
In just a year, the cost of eggs is up by 40 per cent, butter is up by 60 per cent and wheat has more than doubled. As prices soar and British production plummets, Joanna Blythman investigates the crisis in store: we are running out of food.
The Observer magazine (pp.40-45)

New Evidence Confirms the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-Based Organic Foods (State of Science Review) The executive summary includes the following statement:  'Across all 236 matched pairs and 11 nutrients, the nutritional premium of the organic food averaged 25%.  The differences documented in the study are sufficiently consistent and sizable to justify a new answer to the original question -- "yes, organic plant-based foods are, on average more nutritious. . ."

The British Pig crisis (Daily Mail, March 2) A Suffolk rare-breed pig farmers explains why he can no longer afford to breed pigs

The Soil Association Replies to a BBC Horizon programme Soil Association Press Release (Tuesday February 26), which asserts that there is little evidence that an organic diet provides greater nutritional benefits or that non-organic crops grown using pesticides and chemical fertilisers are more harmful than their organic competitors.
 

The Pitfalls of Fish Farming (The Observer Food Monthly)  Just how humane and sustainable is fish farming?

Vegetable Seasons in the UK (Fresh -n - Local)  Find out the seasonal availability of fruit and vegetables.