people increasingly divorced from the land.

[bigpaul]

you mean there is a world outside Devon? nah, don't believe it! Devon is heaven or more correctly Nirvana as far as I am concerned, never want to be anywhere else I can only say as I see and its predominately tractors around here, some Mules-that's the motorised kind, and the odd Manitou which is somewhere between a tractor and a Jcb, but mostly tractors I see every day several times a day on my travels. as usual we have gone completely off topic and nothing to do with my OP which was about people and their attitudes to the countryside, or as my friends sister said to me "Meat comes from MacDonalds", I think that about sums it up.

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I'm only 1 generation away from the land as my mother was a farmers daughter, my half sister worked with her grand parents on farms right up until she left school, wife is 0 generation away from the land as she was a Stockwoman and was an indentured agricultural apprentice.

[Steve]

(12 November 2014, 11:46)SecretPrepper Wrote: People should be suspicious of farming. Modern agriculture is terrible for the land.

True. Some farmland is nothing more than a way to hold crops whilst they feed on fertilizer. Worse still, much of the fertilizer is made from oil or gas so is dependent on other countries.

The problem is that specialised crops growing on specialised fertilizers are very productive, possibly the only way that we can produce enough food for ourselves now that most of the population doesn't know one end of a spade from the other.

The continued under-investment in UK farms is bad because it makes us vulnerable if our foreign suppliers crash, but the only alternative is to subsidise our farms which is the antithesis of the free-market economy and also against EU rules.

[Devonian]

Totally agree with the comments about people not understanding and becoming detached from the countryside, and even those who feel they understand it, often really don't or only have surface level of understanding.

(12 November 2014, 14:14)bigpaul Wrote: you mean there is a world outside Devon? nah, don't believe it! Devon is heaven or more correctly Nirvana as far as I am concerned, never want to be anywhere else

And yes the more I read about what is going on in other parts of the country, the more I want to stay put where I am and the more I realise how lucky we are down here.

[Straight Shooter]

Totally agree BP ......when i was a lad you were taught life skills, Gardening , woodwork, pottery.....this really sets up a young lad, you never forget those skills, the thing is none of these things are taught no more, times have changed, people no longer need such skills, they buy all they need from the super markets in boxes with nice photographs on them , on the TV back about a year ago ....a reporter had a box of veg, in swansea town centre he asked kids to name the veg....they got carrot okay....but potato was a no go.....i,ll give you a clue he said ...they make chips from these.....the kid said mummy gets ours from the freezer they are in a bag .....they are not like that ! no one could recognize the beetroot. If i ruled the world all would have to learn gardening , cooking , needle work , woodwork , without exception ! Graphic Designers would be shot on site !
Al-right its hard work but the payoff is worth all the effort and taste nothing to compare.....even if you have some containers have a bloody go, finally when i was a lad all had to put time in on the allotment and garden, i was taught SURVIVAL even then by pretty much all the gardeners , dad and grandad, nothing to pull.... nothing for pot...... nothing to eat , most people are to bone idle to get out of their own way and to dull to have a headache or even better chasing money to buy a Mac and a gallon of coke....i have news......the money is no longer about.

[Jace]

This is one of the reasons I figure China may be better off after SHTF - practically everyone I work with is within one generation from the land, with many (even those in their 20s) having grown up with at least some of the veg homegrown. (Another reason as I've mentioned before is that the older generation basically went though a SHTF situation in the 60s and 70s, so have the survival mindset and the make-do attitude that will be needed)

[NorthernRaider]

Recently I went to meet a former colleague for a cuppa at a WF sub station (the lectronics gubbins bit at each wf). Whilst we was there the farmer ploughed the land just outside the sub station turning over the stubble left from the wheat crop. We went to look at the soil after he went by, we saw NO worms or bug and almost no composted or rotted greenery in the soil, as someone mentioned above the soil was nigh on sterile and is nothing more than a medium to hold the chemicals and plants in place. I suggest we are in serious shit and only one step away from an ecological disaster.. WHY because I remember seeing on shows like Blue Peter and How and OUT OF TOWN that each square meter of soil SHOULD contain up to 1000 mini beasties or bugs as part n parcel of the natural cycle.

[bigpaul]

a lot of farms these days practise what is called "mono cropping" they grow the same crop year after year after year in the same field, the only way this can be done is by the use of artificial fertilisers and chemicals as the ground is sterile, when I was younger farmers practised crop rotation, it was common practise. farms around here are stock farms the only crop they grow is grass.