I'm neither urban nor rural. I'm a canal boater come in off the sea.
I often wake at the crack of dawn to catch the shipping forecast because that's what I have always done. I understand weather as farmers do. I understand farming too in the way that farmers understand forecasts. Sometimes I record the shipping forecast at 5.25am. Sometimes I will record the farming too at 5.45 to hear it properly later when my brain has been gently caffienated.
British farmers are taking a right pasting in the 'New Normal'. Brexit has not been kind to them. They need urbanites to help positively not only in buying British Farm Produce but by paying for it. As a result of tuning in to 'Farming Today', I am tuned into the collective voice of those whose land I pass through. Wallowing in the ditches I commune closely with rural folk who are directly or indirectly intrinsic to rural life. Postmistresses, shopkeepers, teachers, Air-BNB-ers shall I stop listing?
Urbanites need to up the quality of food they eat. Witness the collective girth of the nation and the future diabetic disaster looming. Urbanites may be aware that when they buy 100g of potatoes for 95p the farmer may get 2p from the supermarket who in turn may get 22p profit. Or perhaps they do not know? Do they realise how they and the farmer are being shafted by the shareholders of retail supermarkets?
I got 'bargain' spring onions yellow-labelled down to 17p from 90p but only when I got home discovered they were grown in Egypt.
I am careful about what I eat but it is only as a result of persistent listening to Farming Today that I have begun to check supermarket food for origin information. I eat 'in-season' produce and try to buy local. Small local shops out in the sticks are likely to source their fresh food close by but sneaking through large urban areas I must be more circumspect.
400 words to here.+
I often wake at the crack of dawn to catch the shipping forecast because that's what I have always done. I understand weather as farmers do. I understand farming too in the way that farmers understand forecasts. Sometimes I record the shipping forecast at 5.25am. Sometimes I will record the farming too at 5.45 to hear it properly later when my brain has been gently caffienated.
British farmers are taking a right pasting in the 'New Normal'. Brexit has not been kind to them. They need urbanites to help positively not only in buying British Farm Produce but by paying for it. As a result of tuning in to 'Farming Today', I am tuned into the collective voice of those whose land I pass through. Wallowing in the ditches I commune closely with rural folk who are directly or indirectly intrinsic to rural life. Postmistresses, shopkeepers, teachers, Air-BNB-ers shall I stop listing?
Urbanites need to up the quality of food they eat. Witness the collective girth of the nation and the future diabetic disaster looming. Urbanites may be aware that when they buy 100g of potatoes for 95p the farmer may get 2p from the supermarket who in turn may get 22p profit. Or perhaps they do not know? Do they realise how they and the farmer are being shafted by the shareholders of retail supermarkets?
I got 'bargain' spring onions yellow-labelled down to 17p from 90p but only when I got home discovered they were grown in Egypt.
I am careful about what I eat but it is only as a result of persistent listening to Farming Today that I have begun to check supermarket food for origin information. I eat 'in-season' produce and try to buy local. Small local shops out in the sticks are likely to source their fresh food close by but sneaking through large urban areas I must be more circumspect.
400 words to here.+
©MMXXIV
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