I was a teenager when I began to ask my dad difficult questions about our small farm. Questions about whether we made a profit, and if so, what paid best. The sheep? The cattle? The barley or oats we grew?…
The peasants won’t go quietly
Farmers hurl eggs at the European Parliament. They dump manure wherever they go. In Spain, they burn tyres. In Occitania, office buildings. Their tractors have cursed the capital of Germany with terrible traffic. As in the Holy Roman Empire circa …
How Polish farmers ignited a European revolution
Donald Tusk probably thought the worst was behind him. Just last month, Polish truckers suspended the months-long blockade of the Polish-Ukrainian border they had staged with the help of Polish farmers since November. The chaos, it seemed, was over — …
Wolves are at war with France
The wolf is at the door. My local newspaper Sud-Ouest has informed me that I and the rest of the inhabitants of Charente Maritime “must prepare for the return of wolves”. I howled, in anguish. There are already wolves to …
How egg politics failed Britain
We’re still eating a glut of chocolate from the Easter egg-hunt. But we also have a glut of real eggs: over two dozen, from our six back-garden chickens. As my house struggles with an egg surfeit, though, Britain’s shops have …
The bourgeois war on French wine
Jean-François has two hectares of vines in our valley in South-West France: his family have been making wine here on this hard limestone soil for more than half a century. And yet, he would like nothing more than to grub …
The cruelty behind white gold
As crimes go, it took balls. Just before Christmas, thieves stole 60 containers of bull sperm from a farm in Olfen, a small town near Cologne, Germany. You might wonder what you do with litres of bovine ejaculate. Well, bull …
How to save Britain’s pig farms
Did you pig out on pigs in blankets this Christmas? Or perhaps you had a traditional roast pork joint with apple sauce for New Year’s Day lunch? The British pig farming industry will certainly hope so, after suffering two of …
How the Mormons bought Cambridgeshire
The leafy, residential streets of Cambridge are about as far as you can get from the arid valleys of Utah. But with its grey concrete spire and squat mid-century gabled exterior, the chapel in the suburb of Cherry Hinton could …
Big Veganism is coming for you
I’ve seen the Brave New World of food prophesied in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel — and it doesn’t work.
Set in the World State in AF 632 (AF standing for “After Ford”, he of the Model T), Huxley’s dystopia offers …
Why Scotland sacrificed its wilderness
When my aunt met my uncle, he was a pipe-smoking deerstalker, employed by a Highland estate to manage a herd of reds across some 20,000 acres. He had a team of terriers for fox control, he often rehabilitated injured birds …
Why Dutch farmers are revolting
“For many farmers it’s the end of their business and they will fight until the last. Sometimes these farms go back generations, they were built by hand, and people feel farmers heart and soul. This is all being taken away.”…
Wheat has corrupted humanity
“Beef & Liberty”. Such was the slogan of the 18th century London dining club, The Sublime Society of Beef Steaks. The carnivorous Regency gentlemen were sensible in associating the scoffing of sirloin with freedom and the rights of Britons. Food, …