As a farmer all my life I've seen many changes and challenges in the industry throughout the years. Now in it's latest state our farm produces solely for the shop. Through this blog Tom allows me to keep everyone updated with the bigger picture and generally get things of my chest.... So to my first topic!
DEFRA has recently published figures showing that we now only produce 59% of the food we consume. Not since 1968 have we been so dependant on food imports. NFU president Peter Kendal recently argued that the Government must change its policies to encourage more self sufficiency. Over the past decade governments have repeatedly insisted that: ‘ food security is based on an international trade’. In other words it’s cheaper imported – but for how much longer? With political instability in Africa and fuel apparently heading for £2.00 a litre, surely shipping perishable food around the world could soon be a very expensive and possibly unreliable pass time, and things can change very quickly!
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| Our tractor fighting last winter's snow! |
Here we try to maximise the food we produce but in a sustainable way. We have recently signed up to the Bradford on Avon Community Area 2050 Carbon Neutral Declaration, so work on reducing our carbon footprint in underway. Our new Case Tractor has an innovative new engine which will run on used vegetable oils which we can produce on the farm. However, the biggest area for carbon reductions would be investment in renewable energy. As nearly all of our produce is now stored / prepared here on the farm for the farm shop, we use a lot of refrigeration with electricity consumption to match. Our options range from a wind turbine to Solar PV panels or Bio- mass digesters, but it’s a very big investment and will no doubt be the subject of future rants.
We would welcome your thoughts too.
All the best
Richard
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