Young Farmer Sharp - Guest post by Michael Sharp

As the son of Farmer Sharp, I sometimes find myself in food related conversations before I know it. 

I was in a pub the other night, and when I should have been dancing and chatting up the girls, I ended up sat at the bar talking to a farmer for half an hour about sheep, farming and food. Food must just run in my blood. 

These conversations don’t just happen just with food industry people either. I often find myself in debates with people - like in one instance, there was a girl at college determined she was going to be a vegetarian, using the justification of ‘killing animals is wrong’, but all the while walking around in leather shoes. Knowing what I know, this got my hackles up and we battled it out about the production of leather for the entire lunch hour. Can’t blame the lass as she was totally uneducated about food, and probably thought a potato came from a tree. 

I’m assuming that she can’t be and most certainly isn’t the only person in this group (uneducated about food), and obviously this needs to change if people are to lead better, healthier lifestyles. If I can learn, so can everyone else. They just need a good teacher.

Radio Sharpie - Moo Man

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Rubbish

Read an article recently in the Guardian. It hinted that the fall in UK self-sufficiency doesn’t matter. If this was indeed the intention of the article, it is in my opinion, a rubbish statement to make.

Food production matters. What we aren’t growing, we aren’t adding to the global pot. The reporter’s argument was that since it's a global market and we do import food, the declining domestic numbers/percentages don't matter. But declining production absolutely does matter. The more high quality food we produce, the more high quality food we can contribute to the global pot for others (i.e. other countries and human beings). Rant over.

Seriously, though, we have to understand that a selfish view of food production and consumption is not acceptable. There is a bigger picture which we need to deal with together. By together, I mean globally as well as domestically. For example, the European Union was set up as a single market with a policy for this self same issue. It's called the Common Agricultural Policy (the clue is in the name).  I agree it isn’t working exactly how it should. 

Finally, please don't demean farmers and the important work they do by implying food is just like steel or glass, as it is way too important and precious to be treated like just another commodity.

Agriculture today

On the train to and from London I’ve been noticing in quite a few fields, the reeds and the rushes left over from recent months of imitation wetlands all over the country. Here we have a reminder of how finely balanced the farming systems around the world are, and, for those of us involved in agriculture, the continuing awe at how a high tech society like the UK can be so easily slowed to a crawl by weather. 

Yet more evidence of the importance of considering food farmers as the essential, respected parts of society that they are. 

Kids eat meat based pasta.

It has been reported that kids think among other peculiar things that pasta is made from meat, and tomatoes are grown underground like potatoes. 

This sounds unbelievable but in fact, this demonstrates how far we have become disconnected from the farmer and his products. 

It's admittedly a big job to start the reversal after decades of disassociating food and food products from the farm, and to begin countering the food industries relentless homogenisation and sterilisation of food. As we try to regain the respect and veneration for food and its producers, where do we start?

Back to the KIDS! I'm guessing it will take us one or two generations to gain momentum.......

I said to a music journalist when he said we'll never change it - "well its a bucket of water if we all put one or two drops in eventually it gets filled". 

A consolation with all this work we need to do in changing our food culture, is that it's great fun enthusing young people about food. Try it. ;-)