Last week I read what was an eminently sensible suggestion from a green lobby group, namely that in Britain we should produce less meat and use the land freed from sheep and cattle to grow more trees.
The idea was rooted (hmm) in thinking on greenhouse gases, animal farts being a significant contributor of unwelcome emissions, as it were. Trees take in carbon dioxide, and produce oxygen, so it's win-win. And win again, if the trees planted on the land in question were to be food producing species.
I'm not suggesting a vegetarian future, indeed for culinary, nutritional and other reasons I want to see us continue to farm land that's most suited to meat to produce - meat. There are plenty of upland areas in the UK where trees struggle, but make great grazing for sheep. But we've moved on, or should have, from every meal being a big lump of meat and two veg. Growing very productive trees like chestnuts - good protein and carbs - apples and pears, all suited to our climate, makes sense - I don't have the figures to hand, but I've read several times that in broad terms such husbandry produces a multiple of what meat farming can.
Walking the Dear Leader's domain* recently I counted up what we, in a very small way, had done along those lines. We have 18 trees in the ground that provide us with nuts and fruit, and a further 10 smaller ones in pots likewise giving us some return now, with the promise of more to come. There's (continued) austerity sense in investing in these plants, though we are now reaching peak tree at Pilkington Palace. About 15 years ago we spent maybe £15 then on what was a small quince tree, and after a decade of generally small harvests it is these days well established, and 2018 has seen it yield a perfumed glut. The walnut tree planted soon after our arrival here has similarly started to produce greater numbers of nuts, more to the benefit of the squirrels than us, but we have some jet black nocino maturing that we'd not have enjoyed without our own crop of green nuts. We have more cooking apples than we and several friends can cope with. We've enjoyed lemons and apricots, pears and plums, our bay tree is a cook's joy, and we hope one day soon to see cherries, mulberries, figs - even olives, who knows? There's a cobnut offshoot taken from the soon-to-be-quit allotment already doing well at the bottom of the garden.
This is the sort of action that many of us can take independently in our gardens. There are community orchards springing up in more enlightened towns and villages. But it's also the sort of thing the government should be getting behind. The cynic in me says that the meat processors and feed makers have more financial clout than the plant nurseries, well able to top up political coffers mightily meatily, and to wine and dine ministers and officials royally, so such thinking won't get much further in that direction than having a parliamentary committee established to study the broad range of possibilities - with deputations sent on fact-finding missions to... I don't know, Portugal, California, Australia, and anywhere else nice and warm.
Meantime we continue to lurch towards ever more calamitous results of climate change - the extreme events now coming thick and fast, though across the pond the Donald is keeping his piggy eyes shut to them - and a time when it won't be only distant foreign lands but our own struggling to feed itself. Planting productive trees, and beyond that permaculture, at least where it works best, is a proven solution.
*and mine
No comments:
Post a Comment