Info, news & debate

Smallholding




Modern food production: bad news for chickens?

Progress? Is modern food production efficient (using poultry as an example)?

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We often hear it said that modern farming is efficient and results in low cost food on our table but how true is that? I would contend that there is an awful lot wrong with our food production and distribution systems in the west and the much vaunted efficiency is far from being the true

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Volunteer at a crofting / educational centre in the Highlands and learn about the ‘shieling’

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This is a farm-based education organisation.  Our story is the ‘shieling’ – a tradition where folk went up to the hills with the livestock. The shieling is a traditional practice of moving up to the high ground or moorland with livestock, to live there for the summer.

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Are you interested in becoming a smallholder and building your own home? Help the Ecological Land Co-op make it happen

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If you would like to build your own home on a smallholding, and produce food, fuel and other products for your family and your local community, but can’t see any way that it could happen, then the Ecological Land Co-op want to hear from you. 

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Why do organic farmers have to pay for certification rather than farmers who use toxic chemicals?

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It’s always more expensive to do the right thing isn’t it? Like taking the train instead of driving or flying, or buying recycled products, organic food or natural building materials. If you want to do the environmentally-friendly or socially-just thing, it’s going to cost you more money. That can’t be right, can it?

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rural-manifesto

Live from the Real Farming Conference: why genetically-engineered food is about politics not science

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I’m at the Real Farming Conference in Oxford, and I’m writing this as a session on GM food is taking place. I’m sorry to have missed it, but I fell into a conversation until it was too late to join the session. However, I know someone who attended that session, and she’ll hopefully write a

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rural-manifesto

Live from the Real Farming Conference: Equality in the Countryside – a rural manifesto

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I’m blogging from the Real Farming Conference in Oxford, in Oxford Town Hall. This is the seventh annual conference, set up as a counter to the corporate farming conference running at the university in Oxford. I wasn’t expecting such a huge affair – 850 attendees, with some fantastic sessions.

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