Urban Food Chains

the links between diet and power

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insects

Wild bees pick and choose

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After eight years tracking the foraging preferences of eight species of wild bees, researchers in North America have identified patterns in their choice of pollens. Protein contents in pollens studied by a team drawn from Northwestern University and Chicago Botanic Garden ranged from 17% to 86%. Large species were found to prefer high protein pollens, while smaller bees in the study homed in on pollens with higher carbohydrate levels and fat contents. This range is wide enough to make co-existence possible and support seasonal variations within colonies through the summer.

Science News covered the story here, Northwestern published this, which stresses how little twenty first century scientists know about wild pollinators at a landscape level. Why we listen to pesticide manufacturers rather than wild bumblebees defies logic.

climate

Spot climate change early

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Click the picture to visit programme makers’ website.

Early indications of climate change include penguin poo and starving humming birds arriving in bare pastures, once filled with an early flowering species.  High altitude pilots struggled to understand why albatrosses were flying round around the planet within a month. Then the penny dropped: the birds were not consciously flying any faster, but the high altitude winds, the jet stream, had accelerated by about 20%. If you get a chance see the 2023 TV series Evolution Earth, seize the opportunity.

fish

The Test of time

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Faced with low water levels across its territory, Southern Water is preparing to apply to the British government for a drought order in a bid to keep up with user demand. The water tables at risk include those feeding the river Test. Rising near Basingstoke, the waterway flows 64 km into the sea near Southampton. It has been famous for some of the world’s highest quality freshwater fishing grounds  and accounts for 85% of the world’s cleanest habitat in its category. It is home to several endangered species of fish, otters and river mammals.

The British government is committed to protecting both habitats and diversity. It needs words not action to ensure that corporate expedience doesn’t kill off whatever remains of quality habitats like the river Test. Because extinction is forever.

asparagus bread flour ship UK

Distance and price

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The further food travels, the more it should cost. Logically, yes, but the full story may not be quite so simple. With ingredients travelling literally half way round the world, it is no simple matter to differentiate one proposition from another. Take the example of 1925 loaf of bread, in the  previous post. The starting point is 20-stone sack of flour that anyone could visualise for themselves, suppposedly costing 42 shillings and a halfpenny. There was, in those days, total silence from the millers concerning where their wheat came from, let alone what it might have cost. Since millers earn a living from making flour,  their reticence is understandable.

By creating a synthetic starting point for the journey that would put a loaf of bread on the table, millers were able to influence the British public’s notion of what bread ought to cost. The 42 shilling sack was not a hard sell, it was a working  price point for those years. However, the Linlithgow committee, to a man, refused to make any comment on the prices of wheat, wherever it might have come from. In one sense, wheat and bread pass through very different markets, yet the two are joined at the hip for some purposes, notably if supplies fail: no wheat, no flour, no bread. It is that simple.

All through the latter years of the nineteenth century, British ports were unloading grain from every corner of the known world. For most people, grain imports were a permanent fixture and, as part of the British Empire, this happy state of affairs would somehow be left continue. However, the U-boat attacks, which started in 1916, jolted Britain into protecting inbound shipments of any description. From being adventuresome and exciting, life on a long haul merchantman took on a more challenging aspect as the U-boats extended their range from the concrete bunkers at Rochefort, comfortably crossing the Bay of Biscay.

 

 

 

bread flour three quick questions

Four frameworks

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The Linlithgow committee provided four business snapshots based on live data (1923 figures..) to illustrate how the sector operated. There is no way of telling how much m, but the ones they published cast some light on the baking sector. Only theWar Office refused to share any data.  The most detailed is based on figures from the National Association of Master Bakers’ and a number of local associations. The Industrial Co-operative group gave a terse rendering of the Co-op’s pricing structure, which differs in smalll but significant ways from retail rivals. Third is a glimpse of the War Office bakery, in Aldershot. It went to extraordinary lengths to say nothing.  For the time being, I cannot locate where Butler Brothers traded, but the firm operated a number of branches from a central bakery.

Get ready to work in farthings for a while, since this small, fiddly coin was the lowest common denominator of the day.

The Master Bakers give a fairly thorough view of the additional inputs needed to make a batch of bread from a sack of flour, bearing in mind that it consolidates data supplied by 26 local firms and 63 local associations.

National Association of Master Bakers

All the figures that follow are the additional costs for a batch of bread. The dry ingredients added to the 20 stone sack of flour were valued at 161 farthings or 3s/4d and a farthing. Upstream expenses for converting the flour totalled 112d, that is 9s/4d, ignoring a stray halfpenny. Downstream expenses including distribution for the resultant bread was 11 shillings. Total cost to convert a sack of flour left change out of £2/4 shillings. Stables accounted for just over three shillings to the costs  of each batch, while depreciation on the capital for automotive vehicles was just a third of that.

Butler Bros.