The Green Village News for the ‘Food and Farming’ Category
Monday, August 17th, 2009
The Chicken Out! team are going out and about on a tour of a number of UK cities over the 39 days spanning between 10th August and 17th September. The tour will last the same amount of days as a broiler house chicken lives, from the day of hatching to the day they are shipped to the supermarket shelves.
The tour coincides with a daily blog which tells the story of a factory farmed chick’s lifetime from the day it hatches until the end of its short life 39 days later. Chickens that are raised for meat in broiler houses live an unnatural and short life. Intensive farming of chickens means that large numbers of birds are crammed into vast broiler houses with no natural light, no stimulation to promote natural behaviour such as scratching and perching, and large numbers of the birds die before they even reach the age required to be sent off for food.
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Tags: broiler house, chicken out, factory farming, free range, free range chicken, free range eggs, hugh fearnley whittingstall, intensive farming
Posted in Ethical shopping, Food and Farming, Green Family, Green Living, Green Planet | No Comments
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
Waiting lists of up to 9 years across different areas of Wales have led to calls for more to be done to increase growing spaces across the country. Growing your own vegetables is becoming ever more popular, with allotments still being the prime location for most if they can get their hands on a vacant plot.
The summit, which took place at the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff, aims to address the problem of waiting lists and how more allotment sites can be made available to the communities who want them, but is also looking to provide those with private allotments with more rights. Although legally councils should provide more growing spaces if people within the community are demanding them, this law is not being upheld in a lot of cases.
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Tags: allotment, fruit, Grow Your Own, landshare, the good life, vegetables, wales
Posted in Environmental Politics, Food and Farming, Green Living, Green Planet, Grow Your Own | No Comments
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
Research undertaken by Natural England, CEH (the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) and Bournemouth University has revealed that Britain’s woodlands are losing their biodiversity in findings published online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
A number of factors have been identified as contributing factors to the reduction in diversity of species. The researchers compared the results of surveys that were undertaken in the 1930s across 7000 sites in Dorset to their findings after revisiting 86 of the sites originally surveyed and found that the diversity of species of plants found within those woodlands were significantly less so than in the original data set. The overall number of species has remained the same, however the individuality of different areas of woodland has been particularly affected.
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Tags: biodiversity, britain, fertilisers, native species, natural england, research, trees, uk, woodlands
Posted in Conservation and Wildlife, Food and Farming, Green Planet | No Comments
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
Supermarket chain Asda have announced the launch of a new range of low carbon beef as part of their latest efforts to reduce their store’s environmental impact and increase their green credentials. The addition of the new product range comes as part of a programme the company has introduced in order to calculate the carbon footprint of the meat on its shelves.
The range of beef is sourced from bull calves born into dairy herds that would usually either be exported or shot at birth due to their low value to dairy farmers. Asda source the meat from British dairy farmers who raise the calves to 9-11 months old. Compared to standard beef that is usually slaughtered at 24 months old, Asda claim their low carbon beef has a carbon footprint that is up to a third less than other beef.
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Tags: asda, beef, calf, dairy cows, imported meat, supermarket
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Ethical shopping, Food and Farming, Green Family, Green Living, Green Planet | 2 Comments
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
At a time when allotment waiting lists are as long as your arm and people are looking for different ways to get their own bit of ‘The Good Life’ by growing their own veg, National Trust has come up with the perfect solution. Window boxes.
With 600 acres of window box space across the UK, National Trust have launched a new campaign that aims to spread the word about using this potentially valuable space to provide fresh vegetables and herbs for the kitchen. There are many options available for growing in small spaces, with some varieties of lettuce being particularly good for growing in pots, especially varieties you can cut to come again; tumbling tomatoes that grow well in hanging baskets or window boxes providing fresh cherry tomatoes through the summer, and even beetroot. If you don’t fancy growing vegetables, there are plenty of varieties of herbs that you could try your hand at.
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Tags: container gardening, Grow Your Own, herbs, national trust, vegetables, window boxes
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Food and Farming, Green Family, Green Living, Green Planet, Grow Your Own, Self-Sufficiency | No Comments
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
Animal welfare organisation Compassion in World Farming have organised the Bake With Compassion week to promote baking with free range eggs and help campaign against caged and battery production. The weeklong campaign will take place between 6th and 12th July and aims to raise money through fundraising events to help promote the chickens’ cause.
The fundraising campaign will coincide with CIWF’s Good Egg Awards, which celebrate companies and organisations that switch to using free range eggs in their businesses and products and calls on budding cooks and home bakers to put on their pinnies and make some homemade goodies to promote the importance of using free range eggs.
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Tags: bake with compassion, baking, battery hens, caged hens, ciwf, compassion in world farming, free range, free range eggs, good egg awards, homemade cakes
Posted in Companies and Organisations, Ethical shopping, Events and Courses, Food and Farming, Green Family, Green Living, Green Planet | 2 Comments
Sunday, June 14th, 2009
Nearly 12 months ago a proposal to allow Greenland to increase their permitted whaling rights to include 10 humpback whales per year was rejected. Now humpback whales are back on the radar as the proposal is being resubmitted to the IWC (International Whaling Commission) for further consideration of the proposal for 10 of these beautiful mammals to be caught each year.
The request, which will be submitted by Denmark, is being proposed under the category of Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling, which is meant to enable countries to continue to hunt an agreed number of whales in order to maintain the culture and subsistence requirements of indigenous people who depend on whale products. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) is calling on people to lobby representatives on the IWC to decline the request as they do not believe the additional 10 whales are necessary for Aboriginal Subsistence
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Tags: dolphins, humpback whales, IWC, unsustainable fishing, WDSC, whaling
Posted in Conservation and Wildlife, Environmental Politics, Food and Farming, Green Planet | No Comments
Sunday, June 7th, 2009
Applications submitted to ERMA (New Zealand’s Environmental Risk Management Authority) from AgResearch, New Zealand’s largest Crown Research Institute, have been declared invalid by the High Court following an appeal from GE Free NZ.
Four applications from Agresearch were seeking approval to carry out genetic modification on food animals, as part of their ‘Transgenic Livestock Programme’, research the AgResearch believes will make a significant contribution to generating sustainable wealth within the biotechnology and pastoral sectors in New Zealand. GE Free NZ, however, are relieved at the High Court verdict from Justice Clifford, which will prevent the research from taking place.
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Tags: agresearch, erma, ge free nz, genetic engineering, genetic modification, genetically modified food, GM, new zealand
Posted in Food and Farming, Green Planet, Science and Technology | No Comments
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
The popularity of free range eggs is on the increase, and likely thanks to the work of campaign groups and TV programmes promoting better welfare for, and increasing awareness of the conditions chickens live in used in producing both standard meat and caged eggs. Free range egg sales increased by 8.4% last year with sales set to hit £2bn this year, and with sales of eggs from caged hens falling by 3.3%, this can only be a step in the right direction for UK chickens and British egg production.
A London award ceremony held by Compassion in World Farming on Thursday evening (14th May) saw a number of UK companies presented with ‘Good Egg’ awards for their contribution to ending the use of eggs from caged birds. Over the past year, Fox’s biscuits, Little Chef, Walkers Shortbread and Virgin Trains. Penelope Keith, who presented some of the awards to the winners commented,
“I congratulate all the companies that are going cage-free on their eggs and hope consumers will, too. A cage-free egg costs just a couple of pennies more and it saves hens a life of misery.”
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Tags: caged eggs, compassion in world farming, eggs, free range, free range eggs, good egg awards
Posted in Ethical shopping, Food and Farming, Green Living, Green Planet | 1 Comment
Saturday, May 16th, 2009
A recent study by the US Geological Survey has pointed the finger at Asia’s coal fired power stations. Original theories believed that mercury levels in the ocean were caused by pollution from US and Canadian coal plants being passed into clouds from the atmosphere, where the mercury would then return to earth in rain and other precipitation. The findings of the study no longer think this is the main cause.
Although the authors of the study do not target Asia as the only party responsible for increased levels of mercury in the world’s oceans, they believe that the continent is responsible for a particularly significant contribution to the problem. William Landing, a lead scientist on the study, commented,
“We believe the majority of Asian mercury emission comes from coal burning.”
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Tags: asia, bioaccumulation, coal fired power stations, mercury, methylmercury, ocean, sea, sea pollution
Posted in Conservation and Wildlife, Environmental Impact, Food and Farming, Green Planet | No Comments
