The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #165570 Message #3998612
Posted By: Steve Shaw
30-Jun-19 - 07:46 PM
Thread Name: BS: Brexit #3: A futile gesture?
Subject: RE: BS: Brexit #3: A futile gesture?
"Bigger and more efficient farms produce more food per Ha."
Well now, let's see. My view on this was formed decades ago after I'd read an amazing little book by that self-sufficiency guru John Seymour. The title was Bring Me My Bow. John, Gawd bless 'im, was a devoted right-winger who didn't believe in old age pensions or other state benefits. But he told the truth about our food production. To update him, at least half of the barley and wheat production in this country, most of it produced on huge farms that receive astronomical EU subsidies, is unfit for human consumption and is used for animal feed. Poor animals. That production is possible only by dint of massive chemical input. Not only by artificial fertiliser, much of it won via the Haber process, one of the most polluting systems on earth, but also by the use of lethal neonicotinoid insecticides. On the other hand, "smaller and less efficient" farms, often organic, produce excellent quality food though in slightly less amounts than the chemical systems. But it's all useful as human food and it is not produced via highly-polluting inputs. I know which I prefer.