Groundswell and the rhetorical ecology of farming and food
Thoughts on farming, food systems and rhetorical ecology prompted by a documentary film trailer I didn’t much like. #FoodStudies #agriculture #ecology #agroecology #systems
Ecology
All the small things
For want of a nail the shoe was lost;for want of a shoe the horse was lost;and for want of a horse the rider was lost,being overtaken and slain by the enemy,all for want of care about a horse-shoe nail. Traditional proverb Can you get repetitive strain injury from non-stop facepalming, or brain damage from …
Throwing away perfectly good milk
Some UK social media users have been pouring milk down their sinks and toilets in protest at the trial of a new feed additive that claims to significantly reduce the emission of methane gas in dairy cows, reports BBC News. Since Arla announced that it was trialling Bovaer on 30 dairy farms, “social media users” …
Permaculture and spiders
We have an entente with the cellar spiders in our house. We leave them to their own devices in the crevices and ceiling areas we don’t need, and they return the favour by policing all the other invertebrates. Pholcids eat flies and other spiders. They’ll eat each other if pushed. We’ve tried over time to …
Sharing data and methodology for a farm invertebrate survey
Deepdale Farm have recently shared the findings and methodology for a series of invertebrate surveys conducted in 2022. These surveys gathered valuable information on the variety of invertebrate species found on the farm including 36 species with a measure of conservation status. In 2020, Deepdale Farm entered organic conversion and took 60% of the farmed …
The horse chestnut leaf miner
It’s sad to see so many horse chestnut (conker) trees affected by the leaf miner moth caterpillar (Cameraria ohridella) – it’s what causes the brown discolouration of the leaves that makes it look like autumn when it’s still summer. These tiny caterpillars burrow within the leaves, damaging them. Most of the horse chestnuts I worked …