Vocal Voices

In a series of social justice warrior (SJW) agenda articles the BBC, who else, has given voice to organic this, vegan that, and vegetarian the other. Its latest piece asks, "What if we only ate food from local farms?" and it paints a rosy picture of us eating hearty stews and leafy salads all year round with produce sourced from local farms.

Well stop right there. The short but truthful answer is that if we all ate locally many of us would starve, and if it was all organic half as many again would join them. That's because the UK imports about 50% of its food. OK a lot of it is seasonal and / or exotic but even with those being allowed we still have a shortfall of about 40%.

Part of the problem is that only about 56% of the land is suitable for food production; 29% pasture and 27% grazing. The rest is a mix of 9% Peat bog, 7.5% Moorland, 7.5% Forest and woodlands, 6% Natural grassland, and 6% Urban. It is further messed up by the fact that our arable land is already intensively worked to produce what it does using fertilisers, pesticides, and insecticides.

So, Could we live on home grown food? Answer: not a chance in hell.

You're no doubt right, but interestingly there has been some talk today on the town's FB page about the possibility of starting a self-grow commune; the glasshouses are apparently available and all that is needed is some spare land to erect them. Mere (5 miles north of here) has been touted as a venue. I would support an initiative like that, I think it's commendable, but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating - what will the quality be like and would we be prepared to accept food of inferior quality.

Yes, we are happy to buy "a little less than perfect" fruit and veg in our shops, but it's still very good. I'm minded by a hippie-type commune in Somerset 30 years ago who used to sell their produce at the local midweek market in the town we then lived in. It was, with the best will in the world, manky …..

The other thing I noticed, driving across Wiltshire on Saturday, was the amount of agricultural land that has been taken out of use for solar farming. Radical, but to what extent can this be returned to agriculture and the solar panels transferred to roof-tops?

I must admit to being tired of "We fed ourselves in the war, we can do it again" comments on social media Erm, no, actually the incredibly brave Atlantic convoys risked life and limb to keep us fed, the population was much smaller, and people today would not have a clue how to eke out rations

My brother-in-law has two allotments, side by side, overlooking Lyme Bay, but even so he couldn't feed his family solely on what he grows there

Ossie, don't get me wrong, I am not against these initiatives in any way. We have a local one where about 30 children from 'homes' or those with no formal qualifications from school go to learn some life skills. It has five polytunnels and a few acres for crops and and also a fairly large flock of chickens. Its farm shop is fine and filled with own produced jams and preserves etc, as well as the veg, fruits and eggs, you get the picture.

What it does not have is the capacity to grow enough food to feed even the smallest of estates, and there's the rub. The BBC, and ever so many others, make out that these ideas can feed us all, Utopia like, and that is nonsense.

Kaz, I know people with allotments or who grow their own in fairly large gardens and, as you say, they come nowhere near being able to feed themselves. It's all a Hugh Fairly-Wettinghimself type's pipe dream.

It is a pipe dream! You'd need animals for protein, wheat for bread. Man cannot live on veggies alone, even vegans need nuts or soya

Even during and just after the war, many families kept chickens for eggs and meat. My dad's grandparents kept rabbits for meat - my dad, bless his heart could never eat any Mum's family kept a pig for meat, she named him Horace, and wept buckets when he went to the butcher and refused to eat either chicken or pork until the day she died!

Kaz wrote:Even during and just after the war, many families kept chickens for eggs and meat. My dad's grandparents kept rabbits for meat - my dad, bless his heart could never eat any Mum's family kept a pig for meat, she named him Horace, and wept buckets when he went to the butcher and refused to eat either chicken or pork until the day she died!

Growing up we lived in a police house on a council estate until I was ten years old. Most of the houses had big back gardens. They were this way because many people wanted to grow their own veg. My mum used to grow potatoes, carrots, peas, cabbage (why does nobody eat cabbage any more?), sprouts (ugh), strawberries, runner beans and so on.

But we couldn't have lived on it. It did help with the family budget though, quite a bit.

Today this wouldn't happen because building land is so expensive there's no way you'd get a thirty yard long back garden.

When we first moved to Somerset in the '80s, we had a brand new semidetached house with a reasonably sized garden which was completely bare. It sloped quite a bit, so we had it tiered, one small part of which was put down as a lawn and, having also installed a greenhouse, the remainder was put down to veg. We grew runners, broad beans, mangetout peas, cabbage, corn-on-the-cob (inspired by what the local farmers were growing - but we were never that successful with it ), and (because we had a depth of earth) gorgeous huge carrots and leeks. Tomatoes, cucs, peppers and aubergines in the glasshouse.

Not every crop was brilliant every year, but we regularly had good surpluses to give away, and as Crommers said, it certainly helped the budget …...

Our garden is about 1000 sqm, once you get past the two courtyards. The bottom 300sqm is dedicated to fruit (trees and berries), and veg. We had chickens but a fox got the first lot and a human the second lot. We are in progress of building a better home for them before we try again.

The veg beds have been raised and blocked in and there are 9 of them of a good size. We grow sweetcorn, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, cabbages, broccoli, courgettes, aubergines onions and a host of other veg.

In total, our garden could feed us with a poor diet for about 2 months of the year. We do put in some winter veg but not much.

The whole thing is mad. Unless you have 1 or 2 acres and breeding stock, machines and all day, every day, you don't feed yourself..

The food from the garden is wonderful though. We never have tbuy corn on the cob (at all}, or salad in summer.

Oh, you can't best home-grown veg, freshly picked! My dad grew a few bits in our back garden - we had a tiny council house with a massive garden No way could we have lived on it though - as you've all pointed out they were supplemental to other shop-bought foods!