wicked leeks SUSTAINABLE FOOD AND ETHICAL BUSINESS
ISSUE 2 - SPRING 2020
INSIDE Why one man bought no food for a year
Plus Guy Singh-Watson on the ‘end of farming’
VOICES OF SUSTAINABILITY GEORGE MONBIOT • SATISH KUMAR • MELISSA HEMSLEY • HENRY DIMBLEBY
WICKEDLEEKS.COM Published by Riverford Organic Farmers
EDITOR’S LETTER
CONTRIBUTORS Editor of Idler magazine, Tom Hodgkinson, explains why, rather than doing more, simply doing less might save the world.
Sustainability pioneer and adventurer Rob Greenfield writes about how and why he spent a year without buying any food.
Founder of Riverford, Guy Singh-Watson, responds to the Apocalypse Cow documentary and a rumoured ‘end of farming’.
Welcome You may not agree with George Monbiot’s radical predictions of an end to farming as we know it, but there’s no denying things are changing. From the shake-up to farm subsidies sparked by Brexit, with farmers now to be paid based on their environmental stewardship rather than size of farm, to the increasing debates around rewilding, vertical farming and lab-grown food. This second print issue of Wicked Leeks aims to capture some of these conversations and changes, alongside four very different perspectives with our cover feature ‘Voices of Sustainability’ (see pages 8-11). The journalist, the restaurateur, the activist and the cook all have very different takes on what it means to be sustainable and how to navigate the impacts of food choices and beyond; together they offer a combined alternative vision for a better world. It may seem a confusing time to be engaging with food sustainability, but I believe the complexity is to be embraced. After all, like in food and farming, there are no answers to be found in monocultures - whether that’s crops or perspectives. We hope you enjoy reading this second issue, and don’t forget to sign up to our weekly newsletter at www.wickedleeks.com/#join, for the latest five stories in your inbox every Sunday.
Social media expert Emily Muddeman on the cultural barriers that mean veganism is a predominantly female lifestyle.
Wicked Leeks magazine is published by Riverford Organic Farmers. Mailing address: Wash Farm, Buckfastleigh, TQ11 0JU. E: wickedleeks@riverford.co.uk T: 01803 227416 Follow us #WickedLeeks @Riverford Editor: Design: Marketing:
Nina Pullman, Editor, Wicked Leeks
Nina Pullman Arianne Marlow Max Harrop
NEWS
Growers hit by devastating Storm Gloria wiping out months of work in one hour By Nina Pullman
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rowers in the south of Spain are counting the cost of a devastating hailstorm that collapsed over 1,000 hectares of tunnels and wiped out entire crops. Storm Gloria hit the Almería region of southern Spain in late January, where many vegetable, salad and other fresh produce growers are based. The storm was also responsible for the deaths of nine people, the Guardian reported, as high winds, snow, rainfall and huge waves hit buildings and other infrastructure.
Many outdoor field crops, such as cabbage, are not yet accessible due to the storm damage and suffered widespread flooding. The disaster struck only months after growers in the same area were hit by heavy flooding in September of last year, wiping out much of the leafy salad crops, such as spinach.
Around 1,000 hectares of glasshouses and polytunnels were decimated in Almería, with further damage in Valencia and Alicante said to have hit thousands more. The storm lasted only an hour but with hailstones up to 1cm in diameter it left a trail of destruction as tunnels collapsed and caused landslides onto crops. Courgettes, aubergines and bell peppers are among the worst hit, as well as cabbages, broccoli and onions in the outdoor fields. Spain is the main supplier of vegetables and salad to the UK during the winter months and shortages are expected to have knock-on effects on supply for staple vegetables over the next few months. Family-run organic vegetable grower Naturcharc, a supplier to veg box company Riverford, estimated around 16 hectares of damage to its glasshouses, while a thick layer of hail remained on the soil and froze to become ice, causing more issues. Total damage is yet to be fully calculated, the company said, but estimated that in one hour the storm had “wiped out months of work”. “While growers will have insurance for tunnel rebuilding, the crops themselves are not covered as no one expects damage on this scale to happen,” said Flemming Anderson, Riverford’s fresh produce manager in Spain and Italy. “We are here to help the growers and will source what they ask us to source, and not only what we want them to deliver.”
Veg shortages are expected.
Fresh produce buyer for Riverford, Steve Monk, said shortages are expected as a result of the storm, but it’s too early to predict exactly what. “Several of our long-standing grower partners in Spain have been affected by the storm and we are supporting them as much as possible,” he said. “There are likely to be some shortages coming up as the British autumn growing season was early, and it’s looking like an earlier than usual ‘Hungry Gap’.” The Hungry Gap is the name given to the annual period during April and May just ahead of the summer UK growing season, and after the winter crops have ended.
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NEWS
Farming versus rewilding debate reignited
NEWS IN BRIEF
By Nina Pullman
Actor calls for end to factory farming
T Globally, agriculture is estimated to contribute around 13 per cent of carbon emissions
he debate around the climate impact of farming has been reignited after the former chief scientist to Defra said half of the UK’s farmland should be rewilded to help tackle the climate crisis. Sir Ian Boyd told the Guardian that restoring 50 per cent of farmland into woodlands and natural habitat could mean the amount of cattle and sheep would fall by 90 per cent. He estimated this would result in 20 per cent less food being produced, which could be replaced by developing vertical farms, he said. The comments put him in direct opposition with the National Farmers Union, which has set out plans for agriculture to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040 without reducing livestock numbers. The NFU said precision techniques, greater efficiencies, production of energy crops, and feed additives for cattle, would help the sector reduce and offset its carbon. Globally, agriculture is estimated to contribute around 13 per cent of carbon emissions and a series of studies have
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recommended reducing intensively-produced meat and dairy as one of the best ways to reduce carbon footprints. The UK’s farming sector has fought to show that its largely grass-based livestock systems have a much lower footprint due to carbon storage potential and lower inputs. Responding to Boyd’s comments, NFU president Minette Batters said: “It took two world wars to realise the error of not being able to produce enough food for our island nation. I said [at the Oxford Farming Conference] last year you only turn the food production tap off once. We cannot make the same mistake again.” Another farmer, Joe Stanley, tweeted that: “Rewilding 50% of GB farmland will just offshore our food production to countries with [lower]️ environmental standards.” The debate escalated further with the release of Channel 4’s documentary, Apocalypse Cow, fronted by George Monbiot, a leading proponent of rewilding, and which set out how farming as we know it could end within decades. See p.7 and 15 for more.
A Game of Thrones actor has crouched in a metal cage in London’s busy Oxford Circus to highlight the “horrific” welfare standards of factory-farmed pork and urge food retailers to stop buying from factory farms. Jerome Flynn, who plays Bronn in the award-winning TV series, is part of the latest appeal by campaign group Farms not Factories, called ‘Pigs in Chains’.
Farmers paid to protect environment The biggest shake-up to farming subsidies for 40 years is on the horizon as part of the long-awaited Agriculture Bill. Farmers will now be paid subsidies based on their care of the environment, rather than the amount of land they own, announced as the UK leaves the EU and its agricultural policy, known as CAP.
For more news on the environment, farming and food sustainability, visit: wickedleeks.com/news
NEWS
Vertical farming expands across UK Vertical farming has been boosted in the UK by a series of significant investments and expansions of farms in Bristol and Lincolnshire. One site, LettUs Grow, a vertical farm start-up created by students at the University of Bristol, has just secured £2.35 million in funding that they said would “accelerate” development in 2020.
Overfishing set to continue E
uropean ministers have missed a legal deadline to end overfishing by ignoring scientific advice and setting unsustainable fish quotas. Lawyers from environmental charity ClientEarth have warned that the decision, taken at a meeting of fisheries ministries in December, breaches EU law and could result in legal action. The meeting resulted in setting unsustainable Total Allowable Catches (TACs) for several stocks in the Northeast Atlantic, ClientEarth said,
Apple grower funds sustainable housing Organic apple grower Paul Ward is donating land worth over a million pounds to a sustainable housing project to offer affordable homes to employees. The land will provide 15-20 zerocarbon houses for local people working and living in the area.
ClientEarth fisheries lawyer Nick Goetschalckx said: “It was the collective responsibility of EU fisheries ministers to make sure that this year’s fishing quotas are fully in line with the legal deadline to end overfishing by 2020, but they failed to deliver.” “This is not just a political failure. The deadline is a legal obligation and courts exist to enforce it.” The news comes as a recent ClientEarth report found that, over the last five years, countries like Ireland, France and Spain have repeatedly pushed for unsustainable fishing limits, while others, including Germany and the Netherlands, have failed to stop them.
Trees and diet change lead climate report Cutting beef and dairy consumption by a fifth and increasing tree cover are among recommendations by the government’s advisors on climate calling for a major transformation in land use. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said that, in 2017, land use – including agriculture, forestry and peatland – accounted for 12 per cent of UK emissions, and said it’s possible to reduce that by almost two thirds.
including vulnerable species like Irish Sea whiting and cod in the west of Scotland and in the Celtic Sea.
Due to the lack of transparency around the process, it has been notoriously difficult to hold anyone to account, ClientEarth said. Fish quotas are not taking account of dwindling stocks.
For more on this story, visit bit.ly/3aRiZX7.
Turn off the plastic tap, says leading professor S
ingle-use plastic and an obsession with convenience means plastic production is set to treble within a decade and account for an increasing percentage of the world’s oil production.
material itself. “I certainly feel like in a country like ours, why on earth do we need bottled water? Take a flask of water like you’d take a raincoat if it was raining,” he said.
That was the message from marine biologist and the so-called ‘godfather of micro plastics’ Professor Richard Thompson, speaking on marine pollution at Plymouth University. Thompson, whose work is largely credited with sparking global awareness of micro plastics, said the material already accounts for eight per cent of the world’s oil production. “It’s estimated that the percentage will be much higher by 2025. It’s not an environmental problem that’s on its way out, it’s getting worse. There will be a threefold increase in a decade,” he said. Thompson stressed that it’s plastic that is the problem, rather than the
Plastic production is a major use of oil.
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OPINION
How I bought no food for a year Rob Greenfield Adventurer, activist and humanitarian
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or the last year I grew and foraged 100 per cent of my food. No grocery stores, no restaurants, not even a drink at a bar. Nature was my garden, my pantry and my pharmacy. Most would imagine me living in the countryside on a farm, but I chose to make my base in the city of Orlando, Florida. When I arrived, I didn’t own any land so, to grow my food I met people in the neighbourhood and turned their lawns into gardens and shared the bounty of food with them. I’m a big believer in the philosophy ‘grow food, not lawns’. I needed a place to live so I built a 100 sq ft tiny house with friends to serve as my homestead.
Rob Greenfield grew 100 different foods over a year. Over the year, I grew over 100 different foods in my gardens. Dozens of different greens packed with nutrients, sweet potatoes for my caloric needs, delicious fruits like papayas and bananas, veggies like pumpkins, carrots, beans and beets and herbs and peppers to flavour all of my meals. I raised bees to have my own candy shop right at home. Around half of my food came from my garden and the other half was from foraging. I foraged over 200 foods from nature. I harvested my own sea salt from the ocean, picked coconuts for a good source of fat, foraged my fruit from hundreds of trees, caught fish from lakes, rivers and the ocean, harvested
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mushrooms in the woods, and picked nutritious weeds from people’s yards. I grew my own medicine and vitamins too, including turmeric and ginger, elderberries to make elderberry syrup to prevent colds and flu and reishi mushrooms. I cooked up dozens of different healthy meals, fermented veggies to make sauerkraut and made delicious beverages like honey wine and ginger beer. I think it’s safe to say I ate the healthiest diet of my life. I finished the year weighing the same as when I started, and I didn’t get sick once. I trusted nature and it paid off. This project wasn’t just about growing and foraging all my food, though. It was about empowering others to grow their own food and take back their health. During this year I built gardens for 15 other people through my Gardens for the People programme, planted over 200 community fruit trees, sent out over 5,000 seed packs to help people grow their own organic, healthy food and I taught free gardening classes to the people in my community. I’ve been exploring food for nearly a decade and I believe the globalised, industrialised food system is broken. This was my personal quest to see whether I could step away from Big Ag and grow and forage every bite of my own food. I saw that it is indeed possible. But my message isn’t for you to produce all of your own food. I simply want you to question: where does it come from? How does it get to you? How did it impact the earth, other species and the people that grew it? And if you don’t like the answers you find, I want to empower you to change it. The good news is that you don’t need to go for 100 per cent. You can start where you are. You can grow a little bit of your own food. You can learn and harvest the edible plants and weeds in your region. You can source your food locally and purchase from local farmers and gardeners. You can buy whole foods and cook more, rather than packaged processed foods. This needn’t be a lonely journey. We can do this together in our communities. The solutions are here and they are delicious and nutritious and part of a happier, healthier and more sustainable life.
OPINION
Apocalypse Cow and the end of farming Guy Singh-Watson
Is veganism a female lifestyle?
Founder of organic veg box company Riverford
Emily Muddeman Riverford co-owner and social media manager
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f George Monbiot’s research is to be trusted, it is all over for farmers. Your food will be grown in labs using bacteria which live on air and electricity, generated by solar panels occupying 1/10,000th of the land currently used for agriculture. This has been proven possible in a lab in Finland. Farmland can be rewilded, creating a carbon sink that could reverse climate breakdown and restore biodiversity. If, as Monbiot’s documentary Apocalypse Cow asserts, global catastrophe can be averted by sacrificing farmers and eating uberprocessed protein, logically that must be a price worth paying.
George says we and our veg will be alright for now, until vertical, indoor, soil-free farming does for us too. Speaking at the Oxford Real Farming Conference, he delivered his meticulously researched message eloquently and persuasively, inspiring irritation in many and admiration in a few.
If George Monbiot’s research is to be trusted, it is all over for farmers
I find it hard to question the benefits, as depressing as I may find the prospect on an emotional level. But I do have rational concerns, too. What will the health impacts be? How will our culture be impoverished if we abandon the centuries of knowledge embedded in farming? What will become of the quarter of the world’s population whose livelihoods depend on farming? And will we end up with a global food supply controlled by a small number of patent-owning corporations?
I will always be glad of the disruptive fresh air he brings – and I find my own beliefs lie closer to his than to the carnivores who argue that all is fine so long as meat is grass fed. Both sides frustrate me by cherry-picking data to support their views.
For now, I will continue to sit on the fence: advocating much less meat, rewilding the least productive 20-30 per cent of land, more perennial food crops, a lot more dahl, and as much lab-grown meat as you can stomach. Perhaps my biggest divergence with Monbiot is over his confidence that the future of our food and farming will be shaped by logic. Since Eve picked the apple, there seems to be precious little logic in what we put in our mouths. We already know how to grow food with a lower impact – but appear incapable of organising ourselves to do so. Let’s hope Monbiot is right, and one way or another, logic prevails.
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he vast majority (84 per cent) of people who signed up to Veganuary in 2019 were female. That’s acccording to Toni Vernelli, head of communication and marketing at the Veganuary campaign, who was speaking at the Food Matters Live conference last November. She said that just 14 per cent of the 186,000 participants were male, a four per cent increase on the previous year. So where are all the meat-free men? Is veganism and vegetarianism a female lifestyle? Vernelli went on to explain that she believes this dramatic skew is down to the fact that eating meat is still associated with masculinity. Perhaps it’s to do with strength and the ever prevalent ‘P’ word – protein, which the world only seems to be getting more obsessed with. But protein isn’t just in meat and animal products, and the new Game Changers documentary on Netflix has done its best to challenge the idea that humans need meat to be strong, by showcasing world-class athletes who follow a plant-based diet. I would take any Netflix health and lifestyle documentary with a pinch of salt and acknowledgment of the production company having a particular bias or agenda, but regardless of the potentially questionable science, perhaps showing these incredibly strong men and women who are ahead of the competition in their chosen sport is exactly what we need to influence more men to reduce their meat intake. Although it’s true that sustainably produced livestock has a lower impact, eating less, albeit better quality meat, is still a valid part of the debate.
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THE BIG INTERVIEW
FIGHTING FOR NATURE
The journalist and campaigner
Photo Dave Stelfox
By Nina Pullman
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eorge Monbiot is a man who feels his moment has come. We’re speaking the day before the first of two Global Climate Strikes and the long-time environmental journalist and campaigner is jubilant about what it could achieve. “I’ve been involved in loads of protest movements over the years, but none of them have really been big enough to counter the huge scale of our problems. Maybe one day we’ll look back and say this was the day the world woke up,” he says. He’s talking of the mass awakening in environmental and climate consciousness, galvanized and spearheaded by teenager Greta Thunberg’s youth movement, and the powerful uprising of Extinction Rebellion.
These days, he is most well-known for his regular columns for the Guardian newspaper, some of which turn into books, and which can be tied together only through the sheer breadth of topics he tackles – from wealth, to land reform, to ecological and economic justice. His most recent column at the time of our interview outlines an idea to cap an individual’s wealth, citing a whistle-blower at a private airport where jets regularly take off with only one passenger. Is he, after 34 years in reporting on the area, resigned to such acts of environmental madness? “I am still shocked by the extraordinarily careless way in which we treat the only planet known to harbour life,” he says. “It’s almost a necrophiliac obsession, as if we want to accelerate towards a dead planet.”
To rewild, you need land, something Monbiot believes should come from getting rid of livestock, period.
“I’ve been an environmental journalist and campaigner now for 34 years, and it’s been a pretty depressing 34 years, on the whole, where I’ve seen most things spiral downwards very rapidly,” he laughs, sadly. “But I also feel that this is the moment I’ve been waiting for, throughout that entire time. “We’re seeing a level of engagement in terms of the number of people, but also the commitment, that is beginning to look commensurate with the scale of the problem we face.” Monbiot’s career began as an investigative environmental documentary maker for the BBC, before travelling to Indonesia, and subsequently Brazil, where he became involved in social justice, indigenous rights movements, and uncovered an illegal mahogany trade. His influence in environmental debate is well-established – food writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall wrote in a book review that Monbiot has “reshaped the surface of the planet several
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times over, [and] has the intellectual temerity to suggest how we might do it better from here on in.”
As with any question put to him, the answer doesn’t end there – from wealth, we move to consumerism, capitalism, ecological collapse and the need for a new economic system.
“One of the things we need to recognise is there is no such thing as green consumerism, just less consumerism,” he says. “The one thing that is completely correlated with environmental impact, is wealth. The richer you are, the more harm you’ll do to the planet. It really is that simple. “What we need is a system that I call private sufficiency, public luxury,” he says, explaining how that includes public spaces like parks, galleries, allotments and other amenities that are owned under a ‘Commons’ system. As vocal as he is on consumerism and wealth, it’s on food and farming where Monbiot is perhaps most radical. His thinking is underpinned by the concept of rewilding – letting nature restore itself as a natural climate solution and using forests and other ecosystems as carbon sinks – something he explains in a mesmerising TedTalk that has now been seen by almost 170,000 people. But to rewild, you need land, something Monbiot believes should come from nothing less than getting rid of livestock, period. Read the rest of the interview at bit.ly/2GD2oIF.
VOICES OF SUSTAINABILITY
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ince World War II, there hasn’t been an official full-scale evaluation of the UK’s national food system, even despite its failings. That is, until now. In June 2019, then environment secretary Michael Gove asked Henry Dimbleby to lead the National Food Strategy and an independent review of Britain’s food system from head to toe, set to publish in the coming Spring. Its aims? To inform the government on how to create a sustainable, environmentally friendly, resilient, affordable, and healthy system for the future. Dimbleby seems like a good choice to lead such an inquiry. As co-founder of healthy fast food chain Leon, he has a solid grasp on distribution networks, what food is benign but also accessible, and why the food economy’s shortcomings – or as he tells me “things that are obviously stupid” – occur. He also previously advised parliament on improving food in schools, is a director of street food market London Union, a former chef, and home cook.
Dimbleby’s advisory panel, a group of food industry leaders from both ends of the spectrum – from the general manager of Unilever to the chief executive of the Soil Association – and as much as possible in-between. While some of these names may seem responsible for some of the issues Dimbleby is trying to correct, he doesn’t want to demonise supermarket chains or food processors. “Is there a problem with the economics incentivising companies to do things that make us sick? Yes there is,” says Dimbleby. “Are there people whose intention it is to make that happen? No. So our task is: how do we resolve that? You have to involve everyone who’s in the food system if you want to change it.”
It’s no surprise there are 28 versions of KitKat, because they’re easier to sell than runner beans.
Better still, he has the brain of a sponge – during our conversation it’s evident he’s collected a range of information from hard research, meetings with business owners, farm visits, and ordinary citizens whom the current food policy has failed. Dimbleby thinks it all started to go wrong with the Green Revolution, the 1950s-60s movement of industrialising agriculture to meet soaring demand.
“We were not going to have enough food to eat,” he says. “And through the Green Revolution we managed to avoid global starvation. As a consequence of creating more calories per hectare, we drove out biodiversity. And as the food supply increased, we became fatter and became sick. “That second problem was made worse because we evolved not in a world of calorie denseness, but it’s those foods that make cheap carbs, refined vegetable fats, and sugar. And those things are easy to market. So it’s no surprise there are 28 versions of KitKat, because they’re easier to sell than runner beans.”
Dimbleby’s all-encompassing approach has yielded some surprising findings. “What’s really striking,” he says, “is that wherever you go, whether it’s a tiny organic dairy in Lincolnshire, or a large arable farm in Hampshire, everyone is thinking about an agro-ecological approach. Farmers who use pesticides, even organic farmers, are thinking how they can reduce inputs and increase the fertility of the soil.”
At the moment, smaller farmers and businesses may be more willing to adopt ethical and sustainable practices, but the marketplace doesn’t reward them in the same way it does those relying on economies of scale. Will smaller local food producers get the helping hand they need? “It’s more than a case of local good not local bad,” Dimbleby says. “There are obvious examples like small abattoirs, where it is clear there’s a market failure harmful to the system more broadly. It has become increasingly hard for small local abattoirs to operate, and they’ve been going out of business at a fast rate.” Read the full interview at bit.ly/2v87qua.
Those who’ve been blamed for helping propagate a culture of high-sugar, high-calorie diets form part of
COOKING UP A FOOD STRATEGY The restaurateur By Hugh Thomas 9
THE BIG INTERVIEW
A SIMPLE LIFE The activist By Nina Pullman
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ith a cream blanket around his shoulders and sandals on his feet, Satish Kumar is making a cup of tea.
The former monk and lifelong environmentalist is bustling around the kitchen of Schumacher College in south Devon, the school of ecology and sustainability he founded, offering me a homemade ginger biscuit before we head up to the library. We are here to talk about his new book, Elegant Simplicity, which is a culmination of Kumar’s thinking over the years, published at a time of mounting environmental, social and personal crises. “The reason we have a climate crisis is because we are all over consuming,” he explains. “We are churning natural resources into gadgets, houses, roads, aeroplanes, airports, clothes and shoes: the huge amount of things we are producing.
“I got through eight pairs of shoes, lots of blisters, knee pain, going up to 10-11,000 feet of high mountains, then down, then up: lots of pain. And hunger,” he says, eyes smiling as he recalls the walk of over five decades ago that is still “as fresh as yesterday”. Two encounters stand out in his memory from that formative journey: one, a Georgian woman working in a tea factory, who gave him packets of ‘peace tea’ to be given to the world leaders if he managed to meet them. “She said, ‘tell them, if you ever have a bad thought about pressing the nuclear button, please stop for a moment and have a fresh cup of tea, it’s a cup of peace and of love’. That was the most inspiring and enduring memory of my entire journey.”
“In the name of economy and consumerism, we are polluting, wasting, and creating greenhouse gases. And so, the answer to climate change is elegant simplicity: living frugally, simply, and having things that you really use and not just accumulate and waste.
The other meeting was perhaps more prestigious, though no less memorable. “One of the most wonderful people I’ve met, who has left a strong and lasting impression, was Martin Luther King,” says Kumar. “That was a most memorable meeting. He was a kind of dynamo of energy. And he had a kind of aura, a presence around him.
“For me, elegant simplicity is a prerequisite for sustainability. And sustainability is a prerequisite to mitigating climate change.”
“I wrote to him and I said ‘I’ve heard your great speech. You have a great dream, and I have a small dream, and my dream is
The premise of the book – essentially how to live a happy and low-impact life, and encourage others to do the same – may sound like it fits neatly within the booming self-help genre. The crucial difference being that this isn’t your usual life coach. Born in India, at the age of nine Kumar left his home to join the Jain monks, an austere monastic group that requires complete renouncement of material possessions, money, shoes, and transport other than walking. He spent almost a decade with the Jains, before leaving
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them to follow Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings and a life of spiritual activism, and embarking on the journey that would change his life: walking 8,000 miles across the world to try and meet the leaders of each nuclear nation and ask them to disarm.
to meet you. I was with him for half an hour, but it went like five minutes. Every word he was speaking was full of meaning, and sincere, and authentic. “He said: ‘for me, non-violence is not only a technique of protest and demonstration to change the law, it is also a way of life. You have to be peaceful and non-violent in every moment, it’s a way of life.’ And that was very impressive.” To read the rest of the interview, visit bit.ly/37G8F2k.
VOICES OF SUSTAINABILITY
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fter two weeks of train food on tour to promote her latest book, Melissa Hemsley is understandably in raptures at the sight of fresh vegetables. “I’m so pleased because I saw ‘light lunch’ on the itinerary and I had breakfast at 6.30 – I’m like I don’t want a light lunch,” she says, tucking into colourful platters of heaped vegetables at Riverford’s Field Kitchen restaurant. Eat Green is Hemsley’s fourth book, and her second solo venture (she became known as one half of sister cooking duo Hemsley and Hemsley), combining seasonal, mainly plant-based recipes, alongside tips to use up leftovers and cut out plastic, like using a plate instead of cling film to seal leftovers in the fridge. More food arrives, this time venison, swede and lentil bake, and the topic turns to meat. It’s one of the more contentious topics in the food sphere at the moment, but Hemsley is ambivalent. “I don’t really know how much I eat meat,” she muses. “I would say my main form of animal products comes from eggs, butter, cheese, and then I have a lot of broth. We grew up with most of our meals being broth-based, loads of chicken broth, beef broth, fish broth.” What bothers her more is the issue of food waste, which she sees as an issue that “can unite us all”. “I remember a couple of years ago, people would be like ‘oh she’s so funny taking a doggy bag to a restaurant’,” she recalls. “Even if I was going out after, you’re in London – there’s always going to be someone to give it to within two seconds.”
Hemsley credits her parents with inspiring her attention to waste, including her mother, who, she jokes, should really be receiving a cut of the book’s profits as she gave so many of her tips without realising. “My mum didn’t ever sit with me and cook, but I knew from watching her that you didn’t throw away cauliflower leaves or broccoli stems,” she says. “But also I think I absorbed it from my dad and the army side, where everything has its place: they wouldn’t even call it saving waste, they’d just say you can eat that, so eat it.” She is critical of the food media industry for partly encouraging food waste, noting that: “They might not do it in their own kitchen, because they’re throwing away money and chefs know that, but on TV, chefs will only chop to that part and then sweep the rest into the bin.” An advocate for organic food, Hemsley is aware about the accessibility issues, and says: “Obviously having better quality meat is going to cost more”. “But I’m going to help you with that, because I’m going to help you eat a little bit less if you want to, or if you don’t want to, I’m going to show you how you’re going to stretch your meat further,” she says. As awareness of sustainability issues grows, like carbon emissions of food, it becomes increasingly difficult to navigate how to reduce your impact, and Hemsley is refreshingly open about how conflicting it can be. “I’m a bit like you, I’m confused, I’m trying to make sure I spend enough time every single week understanding what new information and evidence is coming to light,” she says. To read the full interview, go to wickedleeks.com/features.
THE POWER OF PERSONALITY The cook By Nina Pullman
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FEATURES
RUMINATING ON SEAWEED Could feeding cows and sheep with additives like seaweed cut the livestock industry’s greenhouse gas emissions? David Jesudason investigates.
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here are numerous reasons why greenhouse gases are increasing and accelerating global warming. Deforestation in Brazil and Indonesia produces more emissions than the world’s cars, while the burning of fossil fuels by giant oil and gas firms accounts for one third of global emissions. Around 14 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, with roughly 40 per cent of those emissions coming from methane released by cattle (although estimates vary). So recent news saying scientists have discovered that methane emissions can be reduced by feeding cows seaweed, which reduces the methane emitted by their farts and burps, offers a ray of hope. Initial studies found that adding a small amount of seaweed, which contains a compound called bromoform, to the livestock’s overall feed disrupted the enzymes that produce methane in the cow’s gut. However, one study revealed a more conflicting picture. Not only would producing enough seaweed for the world’s 1.5 billion cattle be impossible, research found, but the cows’ guts (microbiomes) seemed to adapt and
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reduce the effectiveness of a seaweed additive. Dr Gordon McDougall, senior research scientist at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee, is not yet at the stage to feed any seaweed to cattle but has conducted tests on a “staggering” amount of varieties on the Scottish coast. He says that seaweed may have other ecological advantages if fed to sheep or cows. “[Reducing methane] is definitely something we are interested in, but at the moment it’s not our prime consideration,” he says. “One of the first things we are interested in is protein content. It’s relatively well known that various seaweeds have a relatively high content of protein. Therefore, one of the ideas we were toying with was that you could include up to a certain level in animal feed and then reduce the amount of things like soya bean.” This means instead of shipping in soya from places like Brazil, where the crop contributes to deforestation, food additives like seaweed could be grown locally, reducing the carbon footprint and reinvigorating local industry. “Also, there’s a supply issue,” McDougall adds. “[If farmers] are dependent on obtaining the soya from somewhere like Brazil and if that supply was turned off then they’re in trouble finding something with that protein level.” Replacing an imported feed with a local ingredient would impress Orcadian cattle farmer Steven Sanderson,
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who gives a little soya annually to his cows when they are pregnant, which makes their colostrum richer and improves their calves’ health. “It gives the calves a better start in life.” he says. “I’m surrounded by seaweed and if the product was there, I’ll be happy to pay for it.” Seaweed might not be the only additive with greenhouse gas-cutting abilities. There is a new trial looking at how charcoal (or biochar) can reduce methane emissions, while another additive that is already on the market has yielded results for a UK farmer: Mootral. Joe Towers, of Brades Farm, runs a dairy farm in the Lune Valley in Lancashire, which milks 380 cows a day on 400 acres. After seeing the first headlines about seaweed research in 2017, he applied for a Nuffield scholarship and began working with the biotech firm behind Mootral, an additive made from garlic and citrus. “Science has been pursuing a food additive to reduce methane for decades now,” says Towers. “The perennial issue is that the microbiome of the cow adapts and responds and, therefore, the impact tails off. Mootral seems to have overcome that problem.”
One of the ideas we were toying with was that you could include a certain level of seaweed in animal feed, and reduce the amount of soya.
It’s the start of the journey, but research into feeding seaweed, charcoal or garlic could help farmers cut emissions, improve animal health and have far-reaching consequences for the global livestock industry.
Choose food as it should be.
CHOOSE RIVERFORD. Ethical organic veg. Delivered. riverford.co.uk 01803 227227
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LIFESTYLE
GETTING INTO A PICKLE Fermenting and pickling are the perfect ways to preserve the end of the year’s harvest – read our chef’s top tips to make green tomato chutney, fermented tomatoes & pickled chillies. Chilli pickling
Green tomato chutney
One of our favourite ways to use leftover chillies is to pickle them and use them in salads. Once pickled, you can also put them on the grill and serve as a bar snack with a cooling dip. ⠀
Has anyone else found themselves with a glut of green tomatoes that haven’t managed to ripen before the sunshine disappears? Green tomatoes are essentially perfect in every other way – their only challenge is that their sweetness hasn’t had a chance to develop. If you give them a helping hand by adding some apples, sugar and onions, you create a chutney that makes a fantastic addition to a cheese board, a zingy flavour layer when stirred into stews, or a happy accompaniment to cold meats.
Ingredients⠀⠀ A bunch of fresh chillies 100ml water⠀⠀ 100ml white wine vinegar⠀⠀ ½ tsp sugar⠀⠀ ½ tsp salt⠀⠀ 1 tsp coriander⠀⠀ 1 tsp pepper corns ⠀ Method⠀⠀ Clean and dry the chillies and then prick each one with a needle. Place all the other ingredients into a pan and warm until the sugar and salt dissolve. Leave to cool down. Once cooled, place the chillies in a mason jar until they are all fully submerged. Leave for a week to pickle. Store in the fridge once opened.
Pickled ginger Ginger is one of those vegetables that often gets forgotten at the bottom of the veg drawer, only to be discovered at a later stage in a limp and abandoned state. No longer! The Japanese use pickled ginger as a palate cleanser in between courses of sushi, and it’s also great to add a feisty bite to salads and roasted veg.
Fermented green tomatoes Fermented green tomatoes add a sharp and sour note to salads and plates of roasted veg, much like a dill pickle. Quarter your tomatoes and place in a sterilised jar. Add some spices, (try whole garlic cloves, dried dill heads and peppercorns) and then cover with a two per cent brine and leave in a cool, dry place out of direct sunlight. Make sure your tomatoes are fully submerged under the brine. Your pickles should be ready to eat in seven days. Leave for longer to allow their flavour develop. Best eaten within six months.
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Ingredients⠀⠀ 500g fresh root ginger⠀⠀ 1 tablespoon sea salt⠀⠀ 250ml rice vinegar⠀⠀ 125g granulated sugar⠀⠀
FOR MORE SEASONAL RECIPES AND TIPS, VISIT WICKEDLEEKS.COM/ LIFESTYLE
Method⠀⠀ Peel the ginger with a spoon and slice wafer thin. Toss the slices in a bowl with salt and leave for an hour, then rinse and pat dry with a towel. Pack into a warm sterilised jar, quickly heat the vinegar and sugar until sugar has dissolved then pour over the ginger. Once cool store in the fridge for six months.
LIFESTYLE
Why we should do less to save the planet Guest columnist and editor of Idler magazine, Tom Hodgkinson
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n 1993, I had an idea, or what may be more grandly called an epiphany. It was that doing nothing – far from signalling inertia or laziness – was actually a very good thing. There are many benefits to sitting around with no particular place to go. I started a magazine based on this concept and called it the Idler. For one thing, idling is creatively fertile. It is when we are half asleep in bed or rambling around the woods or chatting in the pub that we get ideas. It is when the idler looks most inactive that he or she may in fact be most deeply immersed in thinking. Idling is also good for the soul. Socrates and the ancient Greek philosophical schools that followed him taught that we should all make time for what they called schole, or leisure. We could also call idling meditation, prayer, contemplation, study. Further, idling is also good for the health. When you spend too much time
worrying about work and money-earning, you neglect your own wellbeing. In the US, work caused people so much physical
Don’t feel guilty for not doing enough to heal the planet. You may in fact be doing too much. pain that they went to the doctor and were prescribed opioids, which kept them working but destroyed their health. Ensuring that you maintain a 30-ish hour working week has a fantastic effect
not only on your own happiness but on the happiness of those around you. People tell me that they feel guilty for not working. But they should feel guilty for overworking because that leads to neglect of the soul and neglect of the people close to you. But perhaps even more importantly, idling is good for the planet. It is activity and interference that exhaust our energy supplies. Overwork drains ourselves and it drains oil. Commuting, maintaining offices, computer use, phone use, social media all use vast amounts of electricity and fossil fuels, as do going on holiday, travelling to climate change conferences and not having the good sense to stay at home, and lie on your back on the grass. So don’t feel guilty if you feel you are not doing enough to heal the planet. You may in fact be doing too much. So start now. Switch everything off and go and have a lie down. This could be the most revolutionary act of all.
#WickedLeeks @Riverford
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Sod the supermarkets. Form a cooperative. Dare to hope, to trust your neighbour, to choose our children’s futures. Tell yourself: “Three times a day, I get to vote with my fork.” Together we can achieve what felt impossible alone.
CHOOSE RIVERFORD.
Ethical organic veg. Delivered.
riverford.co.uk