It is a great summary of the challenge our food system faces as we try to improve our impact on nature and health. While I am a sustainability enthusiast, I don’t often watch these for fun. They worry me.
I do believe we all should change and probably would if we could work out the truth. But like many aspects of sustainability, most people don’t engage in understanding the issue enough to decide to make new choices in how and what they choose to eat.
The film explains how nature has been impacted by large scale farming in the last 70 years using lots of chemicals, pesticides and ripping up habitats. It then shows that farmers can do it differently if we, the consumers of food, make different choices.
In my mind, pubs have a huge role to play in proving this is possible and the education of their guests.
Stable environments
However we the enthusiasts and experts aren’t yet making it easy enough for publicans to do the best thing for nature, planet, people and profit.
When I ask a publican, who isn’t already expert, do they believe in getting to balance, most say yes. And they also say its just not my priority today, or make it really easy and yes I’d give it a go. The senior pub executives say the same.
Maybe we just have to make it easier. Mother Earth is already making her pain known as co2 rises and the world heats up. Our food system is similarly causing biodiversity and nature issues. The combination is really worrying.
Ultimately pubs need a stable planet to have a stable economic environment. If I have learned anything in the last five years, pubs can’t thrive in economic uncertainty.
There are great things happening , WildFarmed flour and farms is my favourite. This plan is allowing farmers to farm in a better way, improving biodiversity, soils and creating a healthier flour, better for our bodies.
There’s great videos and stories about the progress they have made and it’s now successful and big enough that everyone can try it.
Making progress
Make your Yorkshires and gravy with some genuinely great flour that creates balance for farmers, the land, the insects, nature as a whole, improve your diet and will be profitable for farmers wholesalers and publicans. Lets support what’s working and do more of this.
If I had a solution, it would be to create an open access set of simple solutions for publicans to access and grab, preferably, if self serve, for free.
This would be a bit like Zero Carbon Forum, which you should try out, that gives us the best set of industry answers to Reducing Carbon Impact and power and wastage costs.
So use that for now. Watch that video, make some progress on your own. Wait for the new nature and food improvement help centre, I’ll be trying to find a way.
