Monthly Archives: June 2017

Food and farming

The vegetable garden in early July

The vegetable garden in early July

On Wednesday 12th July I’ll be giving in a talk in Hereford, 7.30 at De Koffie Pot, on the subject “Can we feed 9 billion people, sustainably?” My answer to that is an emphatic “YES!” with a few big if’s and buts. We live in a world where the old problems of hunger and famine persist and where a global obesity epidemic is emerging. Providing an optimal diet for the 7.5 billion of us alive today, or the projected 9 billion of us who’ll be sharing the planet by 2050, seems to me theoretically achievable but will require change in many ways. Many of the changes required are not to do with farming systems but with social and economic systems. Bringing peace, stability, democracy, development and probably some kind of basic income schemes to the poorest countries will be necessary to conquer the old problems of hunger and famine. Changes to education, taxation and other social measures will be required to address obesity.

Change also needs to come to farming systems, many of which are leading to soil erosion and water pollution and which are in any case often economically dependent on grant support which is unlikely to continue. I’ll be showing slides and talking about at least half a dozen very different farming systems that seem to me to offer hope. They are an incredibly diverse bunch. Some very high tech, some very low tech. Some building soil fertility and in the process sequestering atmospheric carbon, others, like hydroponics, by-passing soil altogether.

I’ve blogged before about Sundrop farms pioneering farm at Port Augusta in South Australia. They use solar power to desalinate sea water, and to provide electricity, heating and cooling for the greenhouses in which they grow huge crops of tomatoes hydroponically. Turning hot dry deserts into centres of sustainable food production seems to me to be one of the greatest opportunities to increase global food production.

The best systems of pasture management can restore damaged and degraded soils and sequester carbon while producing excellent quality meat and dairy products while improving animal welfare. Such systems are promoted by the Pasture Fed Livestock Association and one of my favourites is White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, USA. There is a great 14 min video with Will Harris talking about his farms transition. The resulting ecological and economic regeneration of the area has been hugely impressive.

A very different path is being pioneered by Iain Tolhurst in south Oxfordshire in England. Tolhurst Organics was the first farm to achieve the Soil Association’s Stockfree Organic symbol. They have pioneered building soil fertility with green manures and composting without any animal manure, so making the farm a beacon for those wanting a sustainable and vegan system of food production.

These are just a few of the examples I’ll be talking about at De Koffie Pot. If you’re in Hereford area then do come along and join in the discussion. You may know of farms that are doing great work, and if so I’d love to hear from you.

The end of Neo-Liberalism?

Grenfell Tower

The Neo-Liberal obsession with cutting ‘red tape’ (fire regulations, building regulations, building inspectors etc) contributed to the disaster at Grenfell Tower.

Since the Thatcherite revolution of 1979 a neo-liberal ideology has dominated politics. Rolling back the state, low tax, low regulation unrestricted capitalism have been the central tenets of this worldview. Wealth has trickled up, further enriching the very rich while the majority have seen living standards stagnate or fall. Levels of inequality have risen dramatically. It was an ideology that was especially dominant in UK and USA, and Trump, May and the Brexiteers are the real extremists of this policy direction. The tide seems to be turning. The need to build stronger social and environmental legislation seems more apparent than ever.

The Grenfell tower block fire has brought into sharp focus several of these issues. The obsession with cutting red tape included watering down fire regulations and cutting back on building inspectors and other council services. The fact that flammable cladding materials were used rather than fire resistant ones just to save a tiny amount of money has cost the lives of many people. David Lammy and Jeremy Corbyn have shown empathy and leadership entirely lacking from May and her cabinet.

Poor air quality causes much illness and death and it is an issue which can be greatly helped with the right legislation, but this government continues to drag its feet and is only spurred into action by the legal challenges of ClientEarth and the European Union. The same can be said for the banning of dangerous agricultural chemicals such as glyphosate and the neonicotinoids where this government seems to be on the side of corporate interests at the expense of public safety. On climate change Trump, May and the neo-liberal extremists always line up on the side of the fossil fuel industry and against the interests of people and planet.

Many cities, regions and countries are realising the benefits of stronger environmental, safety and human rights regulation in stimulating a new cleantech economy which prioritises the needs of the many and not the few, the planet and not the polluter. A new worldview is emerging that has not yet got a name. It is pluralistic, pragmatic, cooperative and collegiate, socially and ecologically responsible. Corbyn taps into a part of it, Macron and Merkel to other aspects of it, perhaps in many ways the Greens fit best, but no one group has all the answers: we must work together to overcome the destructive dominance of neo-liberalism and create something very much better.

In much of Europe, particularly in Scandinavia, neo-liberalism never held such dominance, and they have more socially and ecologically responsible governments. We should withdraw article 50 and remain in the EU. Together we can repair the damage that 38 years of neo liberalism has created and that the Brexiteers will only make worse.

My talks

Co2 graph

Atmospheric Co2 over the last 800,000 years. Ice Ages have come and gone but the use of fossil fuels has pushed us into a new and dangerous place. My response is to write these blogs and to give talks about what humanity could and should do to bring us back toward a safer climatic future.

A couple of weeks ago, on the night before the election, I was giving a talk in Bridgnorth. The title was ‘Trump, the Carbon Bubble & the possibilities of a better future.’ I was putting forward a strongly political message and one man got up and left, saying he’d come to hear about climate change and not about politics. As I tried to point out to him, and to the hall full of people, effective action to reduce the dangers of climate change is essentially a set of political decisions. Humanity has the technologies to massively reduce all forms of pollution, and also the technologies to make the situation very much worse. What infrastructure we build, what taxes we implement, how we allocate resources and how we cooperate internationally are all fundamentally political decisions.

The first part of my talk was focused on the global political struggle as Trump, Putin, Saudi Arabia and the global oil, gas and coal corporations who fund them seek to keep the fossil fuel economy going as long as possible. On the other hand the vast majority of countries see the dangers of climate change and the positive opportunities in developing cleantech based economies. Some governments, such as that of the UK, are in a state of confusion, thinking they can do both. Most of the EU, China and many smaller countries are increasingly seeing the necessity and the benefits of ditching fossil fuels.

The second part of my talk focused on the emerging range of technologies that are making it possible to provide a good standard of living and a good quality of life to all 7.5 billion of us, and to do this in ways that reduce the dangers of climate change, reduce pollution and regenerate biodiversity. These positive possibilities get better by the day, yet our time window in which we need to take action gets narrower by the day.

I’ve a few more talks coming up, and I’d absolutely love to do more. One that I’m developing is titled ‘How to create a better world: fundamental principles.’ Another I’m working on is ‘Can we feed 9 billion people sustainably?’ I often do talks about what a 100% renewably powered global economy might look like and how we might get there. If you’d like me to come and speak, show slides, take questions and lead discussions with whatever group of people you’re involved with, please do get in touch.

After the Bridgnorth talk I got some really positive feedback, including that the man who left early complaining that the talk was too political had e-mailed the organiser later that evening to say it was probably his loss to have left early. Very encouraging!