community – Page 2

Standing up for Positive Stories and the Benefits of Growing from the Grass Roots

Last Friday I was interviewed by Joe Webster and Ollie Baines of ‘Local Presence’, a community podcast based in north east Essex which looks to share ‘good news stories’ in the Tendring area. This kind of voluntary initiative is just the sort of thing that communities everywhere would benefit from and it really is aContinueContinue reading “Standing up for Positive Stories and the Benefits of Growing from the Grass Roots”

Is the farmer’s job to produce more and more food?

The idea for writing this particular blog post sprouted from an article on Farmers Weekly by Matthew Naylor available here. The article encourages debate on what the role of the farmer actually is. Naylor writes: ”Decades of discussion about grain mountains, subsidies, biodiversity, diffuse pollution and food flavour have obscured the main function of aContinueContinue reading “Is the farmer’s job to produce more and more food?”

The Need for Food Education – not a new issue

A few days ago I had a conversation with a local historian about a subject matter relevant to some research that I have been doing for a few years now regarding my local area. One of the themes that we discovered as a result of this conversation is that ideas tend to repeat themselves inContinueContinue reading “The Need for Food Education – not a new issue”

The ‘not so idyllic’ countryside

The English countryside is often painted as a Constable or a Turner; ‘an idyll to retreat to’; ‘an urban playground’. However, not only is it also a place where many make their living, it is a place that creates a great number of difficulties for those who live there, particularly the elderly. In fact, aContinueContinue reading “The ‘not so idyllic’ countryside”

Agroecology – a third way?

In farming, as in every other way of life, we have made a critical mistake. It is a mistake of language, assigning linguistic labels to denote ‘methods’ of agriculture and thus discouraging innovation and radical thinking. We can point to and fairly accurately describe ‘conventional’, ‘organic’, ‘biodynamic’, ‘integrated’, ‘intensive’ or ‘extensive’ ‘types’ of farming alongContinueContinue reading “Agroecology – a third way?”