Has made it into the Financial Times Westminster blog. They are not impressed.
“The new food review by Defra promises much but offers little*. As far as I can make out, there is a lot of widescreen chin-stroking (sorry, moral leadership) about future food shortages and the need to get green but nothing remotely concrete – unless you count a new website “Food 2030″ for the public to write in with suggestions.
Instead we are left with loads of vague platitudes and some worthy suggestions.”
The article links to DEFRA’s document, which I’ll have a glance at. Allotments and gardening made it onto Radio 5 Live’s Richard Bacon programme on Monday night (from 10 PM) which you can listen to on BBC iplayer. Presenter Matthew Bannister got rather tiresome on the subject of sheds. We allotmenting blokes only do it to hide into sheds to escape our womenfolk you see. A line which may have been funny the first time it was used, but not the way Bannister flogged it.
UPDATE: I have read DEFRA’s document ‘One Year On’. Possibly I missed it, but it appears that Britons who grow their own appear to have no role to play in future food security. Possibly a cross-cutting stakeholdergroup is being considered, but nowhere did I see a line enouraging garden veg-growing and stating that allotment may have a modest role to play in providing food.
UPDATE2: the document has vanished. Your tax £s at work.
for sure this DEFRA on the future of food. is incredibly first rate to see