Kitchen Garden Forum

I did at one time think about taking up farming as a career, but once it became apparent that it is primarily about engineering, it lost its appeal. I know that hill farming and working with stock is more directly involved with actual farming, but I don't get on particularly well with animals. It can be a very lonely profession, and capricious. No wonder the suicide rate is so high. It's just as well I didn't go into farming anyway, given that I'm in no fit state to do very much these days.

Hi Alan,
I am beginning to think that Colin Tudge is living on another planet.

the fact that governments choose to waste our money on GMOs instead of on good storage and roads to stop the crops spoiling after harvest, and to make it possible to deliver them.

What our government has actually done is waste our money paying many people to try and further the aims of "Organic sustainability" by giving grants to people to go organic. I do not know how many millions have been wasted but the organic landbase is shrinking year on year when the move should be the other way!
It is patently obvious to all, other than Colin Tudge and the Soil Association, that Organics is not sustainable.
Mathematics has never been the Soil Associations strong point and they are very happy that anybody other than them should waste their money just so long as they themselves have a very large income. In a way they are no different to all the conglomerate corporations they so abhor.
JB.

couldn't agree more jb, organics is dead in the water so let's not waste any more money in backing a dead horse. it was & unfortunately still is to some , a fashion craze. it was never likely to be a sustainable way forward for the farming industry.

I don't follow what the Soil Association is doing, but see that quite a few of you really abhor them.

I've grown my own fruit and veg since my children were small as I don't like the idea of ingesting unknown chemicals, and sometimes buy things from the shops, which may or may not be organically produced, but reading the article by Mr. Tudge I find that I agree with a lot of what he says. Not that small organic farms can feed the world, but that the rich countries are producing more than they need and wasting huge amounts of it, and because of poor storage and lack of transport infrastructure a lot more is wasted in the poor countries that produce their own crops. Also when the large rich producers have a surplus it is not in their interests to ship it to countries that need it as they won't be making any profit.

I also agree with him that it wouldn't do any harm for us to take a step back from the bigger is better idea to make more and more profit. What is wrong with being satisfied with making a small profit and having more smaller farms that are well run and generate a bit more employment?

Hi Plumpudding,
I too have been a grower on my own account since 1943 and was for forty of those years organic without really knowing it.
I use Peat sometimes and use herbicides and occasionally man made fertilizers but have only used 1.5L of made up solution to get rid of some White Fly in the last five years. I consider that my own produce is very wholesome.
I was organic and a contributor to what was to become the Henry Doubleday Research Association all those years ago and further contributed when funds were very low.
I have very closely followed the antics of the Soil Association since the very early 1950's and in those days they were a load of total charlatans and then they decided to adopt the American Organic factions 'scaremongering tactics.' These tactics were used and gathered credence because they never told the entire truth and they still pursue that policy right up until the present day. Having a big mouth gained them 'Air Time' and since that day things have steadily spiralled downwards.
Ask any person employed by the Soil Association a perfectly reasonable question and you will never get a straight answer. Plenty of bu--s--t which never makes horticultural sense.
In my opinion the government that gave the Soil Association 'carte blanche' to ruin organics should, to a man, be put to the gallows!
And yes I do abhor them the same way as I do anybody who, in order to gain financial reward, stands in the way of scientific progress.
JB.