Jo, I take your point regarding the city entrepreneur and the farmers and the inner city children. I suppose there has been an exchange of ideas between people that fit those descriptions. (However some inner city children have a better appreciation of food than some country children. Class and education track quality food appreciation much more accurately than geographical location.) What is useful is access to the countryside for all.

The learning I meant was more subtle than that. I meant that we could learn no one of us has more right to be here or there than any other. I have some friends that visit me every summer and each summer I brace myself for the reception they get on the streets. Their visits cause me (and them) huge stress and no amount of greenery, traditional country fayres or casseroles containing dead, previously happy free-range chickens will make up for it. But we persevere with our ritual because if we don’t nothing will change.

It’s great to be passionate and care - keep on.

I hope you feel better after a bottle of ‘fire in the belly’!

I’m naturally just passionate about, what I’m passionate about - I felt Felix’s initial post was strong & justified a suitable response. I had no intention to offend him, merely to debate the points he raised as they were salient & poignant; I wasn’t for one moment, attempting to shout him down.

I agree with you about the country vs town issue however as we’ve seen from other posts Paula & poeple in other Blogs have kindly shared, alas it isn’t just a case of suspicious farmers aggressively shouting “Gerroff moi laaaand” but also of some ‘city slicker’ urbanites attacking the countryside as ‘boring’, ’smelly’, ‘dirty’ & doubtless filled with simple yokels who wouldn’t know a work of art if it slapped them round the face with a wet kipper.

In my previous career I lived & worked in cities throught the UK & indeed across the world; from those colourful experiences, I have learned I prefer the tranquility of the countryside & am just not cut out for city life. That said I believe strongly in education & feel any ‘them’ & ‘us’ situation, is inevitably unhelpful & unhealthy - we each have our comfort zones which we all need to learn to accept & respect if we are to live together in a more harmonious manner. And you’re absolutely right about learning from each other: the countryside has benfited tremendously from ‘big city’ entrepreneurs turning flagging rural businesses around to the extent that many rare breed animals have been given a new lease of life as a result - whilst inner city schools have likewise encouraged healthier diets & lifestyles in their pupils when farmers have assisted in projects to help children learn about where their food comes from & even take responsibility for it, with allotment or city farm projects.

Anyway as it appears I’ve inadvertently been abrasive & offensive I must apologise & am afraid that I too, must therefore bid you farewell - I’m off to join Mopsa in that ‘bottle of summat fairly strong!’

May we all live happily ever after, to post another day.

I’ll say again something I said before just in case someone would like to respond. Does it have to be country vs town all the time? Why do we have to be separate? There is no barrier between the town and the country and in fact we can learn useful things from one another. I wish more people with alternative views would come and live in the country (or at least come and visit this blog) to redress this awful imbalance.

Paula - I believe it will be unacceptable to kill animals for food one day in a very distant future. And I agree with his (Felix’s) point that it just doesn’t make sense to love the animals and care for them to extent an organic farmer needs to, only to put the fear of God into them and slit their throats in the prime of their lives. I am aware that well cared for animals are killed by someone who does it in the best way possible - which under the circumstances is the best that can be done, but gently killing a trusting animal gently is surely the ultimate in contradictory terms.

I acknowledge that a roast lamb dinner is delicious but it comes at an enormous price. And one that I (for one) am not sure is really worth it. Should animals be processed in any way just so we can have a ‘traditional’ lunch. Tradition I feel is generally over-rated.

Interestingly I have thought about the points that Felix raised in his comments; if you look at posts in the category Climate Change you will see that many of the topics are discussed and questioned there. I also feel that in future decades it could well be unacceptable to grow/kill stock for food.

These dilemmas and conundrums will continue to challenge us and I guess the more we question, the more we think, the more we listen the more capable we’ll be in understanding the actions and directions we need to take.

I’m somewhat perplexed by your response!

If you feel rural living is such an environmental catastrophe, why do YOU apparently do it? Don’t you care?? Or am I just being presumptuous again, owing to the fact that you say you produce everything you eat ergo are unlikely to live in a town? Apologies; I probably am - & I stress this is by no means a personal attack - I am purely replying to the issues you raised in the above comment.

However, by the fact that you say you produce ALL your own food, in order to do so you must therefore be a farmer, crofter or smallholder owing to the amount of land required to produce self-sufficient food for one person per annum - ergo a “farm” does indeed, produce the food that you eat, too - so I don’t think I was being entirely presumptuous on that score.

It is genuinely heartening that you produce all your own food - I’m sure more people wish they could, too; & I applaud you for it. We do the best we can, but still need an occasional trip to the shops regardless. But at least you know you are keeping your OWN carbon footprint to a minimum by doing so - which in fact makes you a classic locavore.

My apologies if you have misconstrued my comment as ‘personal’ regarding your meat-eating; my riposte was purely in defence of what appeared to be your attack against farmers who raise animals for meat (of which Paula is of course one). As you state you are a meat eater & produce ALL your own food, I gather (unless the only meat you eat, is indeed only roadkill) you also “cut otherwise happy lives very short”. I’m curious to know why you do so, if you feel it’s wrong? And although you may have meant “we” you did use the word “you” which I took to be a direct attack on what Paula does - sorry if I misread your phrasing.

No, the “popular womens’ magazine”, wasn’t particularly informative & was indeed packed with cosy, cuddly articles to a point - it’s certainly not my normal reading material (as I mentioned, I was perusing it for market research purposes only).

Regardless, I do believe we SHOULD all give a *proverbial* about rare breeds; the reason many of them became rare in the first place, is of course because of intensified farming methods demanding bigger, faster, more. Rare breeds are thankfully enjoying a revival as the meat they supply is generally of superior texture & taste; or the other products they provide, of higher quality. The longwool breeds of sheep, for example, were under threat purely because mechanisation rendered their type of fibre more difficult to process en masse. Thankfully the superior quality of their wool is widely recognised & its use is enjoying a well-deserved revival. Look at the quality these rare breeds offer; & I think you’ll find the answer to your (I assume, as you claim at no point you are expressing your personal opinion) hypothetical & rather direct question.

As for the “shared walls, roofs & ceilings” of the town dweller, unless these are adequately insulated, they still leach out valuable energy. And then there’s the street lighting, the office blocks, the daily journey to said office, etc etc….I must do some more research on this scientific evidence as perhaps I am unclear regarding the precise definition of ‘urban’ & ‘rural’ dwelling. It’s such a shame that the people who built this cottage four centuries ago, where we now live, weren’t told how much environmental damage they were causing by doing so!

As you say, SOME imported foods have a smaller carbon footprint than those which are locally produced (I hesitate to use the word ’significantly’ however); but that’s only a very small minority. Indeed, some locally but intensively-farmed foods - & even some organic ones - are regularly treated with fertilizers & pesticides which have travelled miles to reach the farms on which they’re used, having a negative impact on the environment - this debate has been raging only recently in fact.

But whilst the current number of locavores may presently make a relatively insignificant contribution to the economy as you suggest, the numbers are - thankfully- growing: in a recent survey 22 per cent of shoppers claimed to buy regional foods at least once a week with another 17 per cent once a month. Three-quarters of those surveyed said that regional foods are important to them, two out of three because they want to support small producers. Hopefully this growing awareness will help to rejuvenate local economies once more - which can only be considered a positive thing, surely?

Felix, I am sorry if it appeared I was being presumptuous & making a personal attack: I most certainly wasn’t - just as you say you were not directly criticizing those who live in the countryside, either. Sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword; & if my words appeared cutting, I apologise - they were not meant that way; nor are they, ever (I have a soft heart & a head to match!). But as I said in my previous post, it’s great to debate - & that’s all I was intending to do.

Yours aye, J @ LittleFfarm Dairy.

“Bottom line is that farms produce the food he - & we - eat”. Wrong to be presumptuous about me. I produce everything I eat.
I am afraid that you are entirely wrong about the relative carbon contributions re; the urban/rural dweller. Think shared walls, roofs and ceilings in the majority of cases, to give one more example. The scientific evidence estimates rural living to have a six-times per capita higher carbon footprint.
The number of “locavores” may well be on the increase, but that contribution is utterly insignificant. In some cases, imported foods have a significantly smaller footprint than locally produced.
Then you get personal as well as very presumptuous and refer to me as “hypocritical” with regards to eating meat. Wrong again. At no point did I mention eating reared animals. You see, perhaps I only eat road kill. Then again, my few words of yesterday where never about the “I”, rather general observations.
I am sure that your “popular womens’ magazine” is highly informative and is packed with very cosy and cuddly articles, however, the rare breeds are rare breeds for a reason. So who should give a shit if they die out?
This may sound like I am criticising your lifestyles and endeavours, I am not. I need to point this out otherwise you may come over all prespumtious on me, which would be unjust given that at no point have I expressed a personal opinion on anything.
Felix