This week has seen Compassion in World Farming present its Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards to a variety of recipients. The awards include a new category, the Good Dairy Award, and among the recipients was supermarket giant Asda.
It can seem counter-intuitive to those of us working to promote local, small-scale and natural food production to recognise supermarkets in this way. But because of their influence and buying power, it’s important for them to become leaders in humane agriculture. You can read more here.
At Arigna Gardener both humans and goats are enjoying the blackcurrant harvest, but the humans at least are extremely angry and worried about the Irish Government having given permission for gas exploration in the Lough Allen Carboniferous Basin, an outstandingly beautiful and wild area. The only way to extract gas there is by the destructive and poisonous method of fracking. Find out more here, and sign the petition at What The Frack?
When you read about heartless farming methods and natural destruction, it’s easy to become disheartened and feel isolated. I just read this uplifting article at Upcycled Love. It describes exactly those feelings and how to get past them and continue making our own vital contribution, how to cultivate resilience:
Despite the ugliness we read about in the mainstream news everyday, there is incredible beauty to be found. It’s important to see both the bad and the good. Learn and understand the wrongful things that happen, but don’t dwell in it so much it prevents you from moving forward. Instead, seek beauty and inspiration. Read success stories, so that you know people like you have created real change.
And finally, if you weren’t already convinced that bureaucrats are idiots, consider this crazy tale of a Michigan woman who planted a vegetable garden in her front yard and now faces a possible jail sentence because what she’s done is in violation of a city ordnance about “suitable” planting. Sigh.