Devon's 'answer' to feeding ourselves and the world

A Devon Food Conference heard a call today for a move to sustainable agriculture if we are to feed the world over the next decades.

 

Colin Tudge, world renowned author of 'Feeding the World is Easy' and the mover behind the Campaign for Real Farming (http://www.campaignforrealfarming.org/) was speaking at a meeting organised by the Anglican Diocese of Exeter. He claimed that agriculture was the most important activity people undertake and holds the key to tackling many of our current problems, from obesity to diabetes to famines. Critical to this is for agriculture to be sustainable, which ensures healthy soil, and resilient enough to be able to adapt to issues such as climate change.    Most of the food in the world is actually produced in small to medium-sized farms, so the focus on large-scale farms as a solution to feeding the world is misplaced, according to Tudge. He also claims that genetic modification (GM) technologies have not produced anything of benefit that could not have been done without this high tech approach. He gave the example of a blight free potato variety, which is non-GM, and does not require chemical spraying. Unlike GM varieties this development is not getting funding support.   Farming in traditional ways, which means mixed farms that were common until industrial scale farms came in, has produced the foods that support the world's great cuisines. Re-learning how to cook can re-start the demand for foods produced in this sustainable way.   The conference ended by looking at how Devon can feed itself over the next few decades and a group will be taking this work forward over the next few weeks. If you are interested you can contact Martyn Goss at the Diocese of Exeter via  martyn.goss@exeter.anglican.org