FOOD SECURITY AND THE LOCAL FOOD CHAIN, Caroline Cranbrook OBE
The world is changing very rapidly. For the developed nations, the past 25 years have been times of great, unparalleled prosperity. Food, energy, household goods, clothing and much else have never been cheaper. But all this is changing.
The world has finite natural resources and we have been living off this capital at an unsustainable rate. The population of one planet is consuming three planets’ worth of resources – groundwater, soil, land, minerals, fossil fuels, eco-systems. What took billions of years to develop is being used up in a few hundred years. And the world no longer produces enough to feed its population.
We cannot take food for granted. The production of most of what we eat depends on fossil fuels, abundant water and on cheap land and labour in third world countries. But the highly efficient global food chain is becoming increasingly threatened by oil and water shortages, by pressure on the land to produce bio-substitutes for fossil fuels, by population growth, by disease, political instability and climate change.
Food security is becoming a real issue, for the world and for Britain. We have to find solutions. One of these will undoubtedly be localisation and empowerment of local communities. We must defend and invest in local food and farming infrastructures – production, processing, distribution and retailing. And at every opportunity we need to inform and educate people about food – that where it comes from and where we buy it affects our lives both now and in the future. By buying locally we can reduce food miles (the distance food travels from farm to plate), CO2 emissions and road congestion (25% of all HGV mileage is food transport); we can improve our health by eating fresher food; and by doing so we will be supporting the countryside and the landscape.
Suffolk is leading the way, showing that local food production and independent retailing not only provide the means to a healthier diet, but are key to tourism, regeneration, inward investment and the environment. We are fortunate in that we have some of the most productive agricultural land in Britain, providing a substantial proportion of the nation’s cereals, vegetables, fruit, pork and poultry. We also have wonderful beef and lamb, grown on the precious grassland of our beautiful river valleys, meadows, marshes, heaths and wildlife reserves.
One of Suffolk’s greatest assets is not only the variety, quality and abundance of our local food and drink but also the increasing number of places where we can find it – the high street and village shops, the delicatessens, farm shops, farmers markets, butchers, hotels, pubs, bed-and-breakfasts – and festivals.
This thriving local food culture has to be a signpost to the future. However, it needs to be wider known. In East Suffolk, the Alde Valley Food Adventures are a unique way of introducing people to food grown in the Alde Valley through food events up and down the valley. The highlight of the year is the Alde Valley Spring Festival*, a month-long celebration of food, farming, landscape and the arts is based at White House Farm, Sweffling Road, Great Glemham, also home to the Alde Valley Food Adventures and Alde Valley Lamb. This is one example. There are many others. The Tasty Suffolk website is a very helpful guide.**
If you wish to make a difference to the future, shop locally – and always ask where your food comes from.
*This year the Alde Valley Festival Exhibition is from 12th April to 10th May (closed all day Monday and Sunday morning). It includes new and commissioned work by some of Suffolk’s leading artists and craft workers. Painters and sculptors include Tessa Newcomb, Kate Giles, Tory Lawrence, Jason Gathorne-Hardy and Lawrence Edwards. . All their work features the surrounding countryside or the animals that live in it. There is also a spring collection of ceramics from Mercury Hare, Marcia Blakeneham and Alice Garland, stained glass from Robina Jack and wooden furniture and carvings from Jim Parsons, Raymond Hopkins and Ronnie Watling. Suffolk County Council, as part of the Greenest County Initiative, is roviding a Request Bus Stop (Route 119) at the end of the farm drive, which is also on the National Cycle Route.
For more information: www.foodadventures.co.uk.
**Pledge to Go Green and Shop Local 2008 with Carbon Reduction Suffolk. www.tastysuffolk.org.uk.
Caroline Cranbrook has lived and farmed in Suffolk since 1970 and she campaigns on rural issues. She has studied the local food economy for ten years and her findings have been published as Food Webs and The Real Choice. They can both be read on the CPRE website www.cpre.org.uk under 'Publications'.
A REIKI UPDATE, Christine Johnston
Reiki is a wonderful, relaxing and healing therapy and once you have been attuned to this energy you have it for life.
At this time more and more complementary therapies, including Reiki, are being accepted within the allopathic environment; hospitals, hospices, post operative care, cancer wards and many more. However it is natural that doctors need to know that therapists are professional when treating their patients. For this reason the Prince of Wales Foundation for Integrated Healthcare set in motion a Council for different therapies to each have a national register, which would have their own National Occupational Standards, mainly as a form of protection for the public.
It has taken quite a few years and a lot of funding and finally a National Healthcare Council has been hurriedly set up. In the end it was not deemed acceptable by various therapies, including Reiki, Reflexology, Aromatherapy and Massage, mainly because they felt that regulation was
being imposed on them and with no actual therapists on the councils to state their point of view.
However, these therapies have set up their own Council, (GRCCT) General Regulatory Council for Complementary Therapists which
will shortly have a National Register with definite standards. It is of course voluntary to be included on the register and the cost will be £30 for a single therapy.
We look forward to a future where Reiki and other complementary
therapies will become part of general healthcare and even funded by the NHS. For more details www.GRCCT.org
Christine Johnston has been teaching and practising Reiki for many years, at her home near Saxmundham, in London and occasionally in Portugal! She has been on the management committee of the UK Reiki Federation for several years. She also treats with the Scenar machine.