open Democracy News Analysis - Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis, - Comments

Ray Bell on "Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis"

Ray Bell — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:24:00 +0000

As someone who comes from a farming area, I can tell you this isn't really true. Sheep especially were grazed on lands which you couldn't even grow oats on.

Anax on "Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis"

Anax — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:43:20 +0000

You can raise livestock on uplands, but I'll bet that most Scottish meat production is based in lower areas. Viable upland pastoralism probably needs winter feed as well.

Ray Bell on "Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis"

Ray Bell — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:24:29 +0000

A common vegetarian myth is that you can grow far more fruit and veg on land than the equivalent amount/nutrional value in meat. In fact, most of Scotland is unsuitable for growing crops, but you can raise livestock on it. I've never seen wheat or tomatoes grown high up on moorland.

Hamish on "Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis"

Hamish — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 17:39:33 +0000

"1 billion who are overweight is the inevitable result of a system in which a handful of corporations have been allowed to capture and control the food chain.”

Or the inevitable result of eating too much?

Anax on "Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis"

Anax — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:19:10 +0000

"What’s your energy cost of storing apples? Zero."

Refrigeration costs energy. It's simple physics.

"We are talking about eating seasonally. We have to get away from the notion that you can eat any food you want at any time. That is ecologically unsustainable."

Like vegetarianism, eating seasonally is a matter for individual conscience. Being a vegetarian is at least as ecologically sustainable as being a seasonal eater (probably more so), though I can't imagine a nationalist advocating it for the general population.

Ray Bell on "Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis"

Ray Bell — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:10:40 +0000

"We have to get away from the notion that you can eat any food you want at any time."

I tend to agree with you, but would also point out that some of the out of season foods are being grown in the likes of Chile (blueberries) or Saudi Arabia (strawberries), instead of nearer locations such as Spain, Morocco or Italy, where they possibly could grow these in winter (I don't know enough about this!!!)

Mike Small on "Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis"

Mike Small — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 05:47:08 +0000

This is a triumph of industry pr over common sense.

What's your energy cost of storing apples? Zero.

If you grow crops and plants that arent suited to these climes (bananas, pieneapples etc) then there could be an argument that this could use of more co2 than importing. That's not what we are talking about.

We are talking about eating seasonally. We have to get away from the notion that you can eat any food you want at any time. That is ecologically unsustainable.

Anax on "Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis"

Anax — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:34:59 +0000

I thought the doctrine of food miles had been discredited already? For example, shipping apples in from the Southern Hemisphere is more energy efficient than cold storing homegrown apples for months.

Ray Bell on "Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis"

Ray Bell — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:35:30 +0000

I have to say I wonder about the Scottish Green Party sometimes, it was considering slapping an extra bit of council tax for people with gardens. Surely, if people have gardens they can grow some of their own veg, whereas doing so in a flat is somewhat harder?

ukliberty on "Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis"

ukliberty — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:07:15 +0000

"His simple idea is that the simultaneous existence of nearly 1 billion who are malnourished and nearly 1 billion who are overweight is the inevitable result of a system in which a handful of corporations have been allowed to capture and control the food chain."

Nothing to do with the CAP and other subsidies and tariffs then?

Local Matters IV: Scotland's local solution to a global crisis,

OurKingdom — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:09:50 +0000

OurKingdom is running a short series of posts looking at various aspects of local government - you can read the series in full here.

Mike Small (Fife, Bella Caledonia): We are obsessed by food. We should be - because we have a serious problem. As Raj Patel points out in his new book "Stuffed and Starved" unless you are a corporate food executive, the food system isn't working for you.

If you are one of the world's rural poor, dependent on agriculture for your livelihood and suffering from massive price rises (and roughly half the global population of 6 billion fall into this category), you are likely to be one of the starved. If you are an urban consumer - from rich metropolitan to slum-dwelling labourer - you are likely to be one of the stuffed, suffering from obesity or other diet-related ills.

Patel's book examines this paradox. His simple idea is that the simultaneous existence of nearly 1 billion who are malnourished and nearly 1 billion who are overweight is the inevitable result of a system in which a handful of corporations have been allowed to capture and control the food chain.

Unsurprisingly, the stuffed have had more solutions at their disposal than the starved. We've had whole foods and slow food, fast food and organics. We've had road food, and freeganism, Masterchef and Naked Chefs. The F Word and the Atkins.

Now - the Fife Diet. But this diet is slightly different: it's not actually about YOU any more.

"What I stand on is what I stand for" said the American writer Wendell Berry as he searched for meaning and value in rural America. It's this sort of thinking that inspired our local diet, in which we only eat food from our region for a year.

The project has created a swarm of media interest. The question that each and every journalist dumbly asks is: "Why are you doing this?"

As the global food crisis begins to unfold, the response becomes more obvious: "why aren't we all doing this?"

The Fife Diet isn't practically difficult. All we are doing is what everyone was doing for centuries, what was up until a few years ago the absolute norm.

But it is politically difficult. There is a catastrophic failure of political leadership at a UK level - a failure which creates the need to do things from the bottom up. Starting small, we plan to expand into a food buying collective that can buy crops and other produce in bulk - and hopefully lower costs. This collective will become a grower, expanding its membership and sharing produce. Change can spread in a way that will never be achieved by UK wide politics.

However - now the relationship between energy and food is becoming ever clearer - change must come from politics as well. And here devolution has created new opportunities for other areas of leadership.

The head of the National Grid, Steve Holliday, met Alex Salmond last week, who has been a vocal critic of the existing charging regime - which makes it more expensive to put power into the grid in the very northern climes where renewables (such as a wave and offshore wind) will be generated. He came with a firm commitment to two major undersea power cables off the west and east coasts as a way of linking future renewables to a European sub-sea grid.

As the Climate Change Bill goes through the Scottish Parliament, "Scotland's Oil" is being replaced with "Scotland's Wind" as the mantra for thinking nationalists. I will leave it to the WWF to sum up:

this may be the most important piece of legislation in our lifetime. It could establish our nation as an international leader in tackling climate change, helping secure the future for millions of people and giving hope for species threatened with extinction.