Urban Food Chains

the links between diet and power

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dairy Ireland raw UK

Hard cheese

peter 0

Irish dairy farmers are seeing huge falls in demand and output in the wake of Brexit. The Irish Creameries’ Suppliers Association ICMS this week revealed that this was an ongoing situation and not a passing phase. Not surprisingly, the ICMS has some very substantial members who between them exported more than 80,000 tonnes of block Cheddar a year to the UK. Allow 13 tonnes of milk to make a tonne of Cheddar and store it for a year or two at a creamery, and it adds up to a significant business commitment.

Those with long memories will remember former farm minister Liz Truss regaling the 2014 Tory party conference with a hatchet job on British cheese imports. Surprisingly little change from today’s outbursts, really. Shows how little she learnt at DEFRA.

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Sealed fates

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Identifying food is instinctive, most of the time. Getting it wrong can be worse than catastrophic, as this shocking CNN video makes clear. Seabirds in the middle of the Pacific are fishing plastic waste out of the ocean and, in some cases, feeding it to their chicks. Needless to say, both adult and chick alike die as a result.

Pics by Chris Jordan, https://albatrossthefilm.com/com

The data is frightening and the phenomenon has been recorded since 2009. According to the Plastic Soup Foundation, millions of tonnes of plastic waste are finding their way into the planetary food chains and animal tissue in the form of microplastics. Ever smaller particles are turning up — notably in human tissue.

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Westminster faces customs stalemate

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The Scottish parliament is accusing Westminster of intransigence over the halted building work at the Scottish car ferryport of Cairnryan. Work to build a Border Controls Post (BCP) started after getting a government green light last year. Since then, construction has ground to a halt, as Westminster has refused to give a binding commitment to fund the BCP in full.

Sailings from Stranraer were transferred to the nearby Dumfries and Galloway port of Craigryan back in 2012, for operational reasons. Wholly-owned by Larne Harbour Ltd, Craigryan is a part of the P&O landside portfolio. It can operate up to 16 sailings a day, serving destinations in Northern Ireland.

While Brexit negotiations were in progress, Westminster was committed to funding border infrastructure in full. The Scottish parliament is concerned that it may end up footing part of the bill for port infrastructure on a privately-owned facility. There are also political sensitivities about a requirement for customs facilities on what is currently an internal border.

The implementation of Sanitary and PhytoSanitary (SPS) checks that are the reason for building a BCP in the first place has not happened. Successive start dates in 2021 and 2022 were announced and cancelled: Westminster is currently planning to start SPS checks on livestock and animal products in July, although the BCP site at Cairnryan might not be operational by then.

From a commercial point of view, ferry traffic patterns have changed since Brexit, making the business case and the requirement for a BCP a moot point. The introduction of inbound SPS checks for the UK cannot be evaded forever.

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Investigating hydrogen

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For the past eighty years scientists have been rolling up their sleeves at the Glensaugh research farm and finding robust answers to the problems facing the agricultural sector. Perched on the east coast of Scotland not far from Aberdeen, the site is set to become a carbon neutral farming environment once its building programme comes on stream, pencilled in for 2025.

BBC journalist Nancy Nicolson visited Glensaugh for an edition of On Your Farm, which aired on April 30 and is still available on BBC Sounds. Water is the key to the project, using an industrial scale electrolyser to generate hydrogen that will power tractors and heavy machinery. This will in turn be powered by an array of green energy sources, such as turbines and solar panels.

A headline figure for the project is four million pounds: this is explained in part by the additional cost of being early adopters of technology that is still in development. This project will cast a light on the current operational energy needs of a one thousand hectare estate. Investment on this scale in one agricultural location is based on the assumption that the rest of the national economy will still be functioning in the future, in a recognisable form. We are still a long way from converting urban centres into sustainable economic entities.

Listen to Nancy Nicolson here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001lhz1?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

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Glass of water

peter 0

Thank you for your input. Clearly there is a little bit more to this scenario than meets the eye. Since you are (hypothetically) working in a bar, drinks are your core business and source of income. You can opt to overlook the cost to the business, which is, let’s face it, not a huge sum.

You could risk being taken for a hard-nosed bar steward and make up a price for the service of filling a glass from the tap. Your guest might have medication to take and need a swig of water to help it on its way. In that case, it could be seen as unfriendly.

Point blank refusal could lead to a scene, but might be necessary. In France, a law passed in 1967 backs bar owners who do not want to compromise their core business. A bar earns its keep from selling drinks in whatever form they come.

Had the fictitious customer gone to a restaurant in France and ordered a meal, the establishment would be expected to provide a place setting, which would include a carafe of water and bread. This is because the meal forms the core business and the place setting is part of the service.

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