Un-NATURAL WORLD

Last night we watched the Natural World programme A Farm for the Future.

It drew attention to the fact that farming in this country is highly reliant on fossil fuels and that, as the supply of fossil fuel was being depleted, in order to sustain food production, farming methods would have to change. It deduced that in the future more people would have to become involved in the production of food and mentioned that in this was a role for allotments and gardeners growing their own. It was only a short mention at the end of the programme but was an acknowledgement of what people who grow their own food have known for a long time. The problem is that modern housing has little space to enable the creation of vegetable patches and many houses that did have larger gardens have lost part of the land as building plots. As for more allotments in many areas there already are not enough plots to meet the demand. We know that the National Trust is trying to release some of its land for allotments but there will be a need for a lot more.

The programme also drew attention to the need for biodiversity in order to keep the land healthy without having to resort to synthetic fertilisers and pesticides many of which are by-products of fossil fuel processes or oil based. It isn’t just that more people need to grow more food but the need to do this in partnership with nature rather than fighting against it. Again many of us already knew this didn’t we?

If you missed the programme and are interested it is available to view from the Internet click here