Wet Harvest: - Meditation and prayer 2004 and still relevent

Harvest Reflections: - Written for 2002 and still relevent

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God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good,
And sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:45)

So this weather isn’t a punishment.
The spoiling of the crop,
the extra time it takes to harvest what we can,
the extra cost of drying it,
the poor quality,
the low price
It’s not a punishment;
it’s just the way things are from time to time.

In a way it ought to be a relief for farmers to come back to complaints about the weather.
It would be a relief if that was the only worry.
But other factors are still operating.
And decisions still have to be made.
Like, ‘What is the best land use under the single farm payment scheme?’
How do we weigh it up with so many unknowns?
Unknown costs, unknown prices, unknown weather, unknown harvests.

When God did use rain as a punishment -
Noah and all that -
there was a safe place for the few
and a rainbow at the end.

In this rain there is safety for the many of our land -
the world market means food for the supermarket shelves
even if it has been taken from the plates of the world’s poor.
It’s the small band of producers who are afraid of being wiped out.

What about a rainbow for them?
DEFRA likes to paint their reforms in rainbow colours:
Decoupled payments to produce a sustainable future for the farming industry.
It sounds good in principal
but how does it work out if other countries are travelling by different paths at different speeds?

Do I hear again the shouts of diversify?
Boat building?
A visitor attraction like a menagerie?
That made an impact for Noah ...
but it only lasted him for a year.

The rainbow for farmers will have to have variety to cover a wide spectrum,
it will have to be bright and beautiful,
…. and visible to many who have lost the will to look up.

Meanwhile. Rain.

Heavenly Father,
Thank you that you give us our daily bread.
Thank you for those whose work produces the harvest
and whose livelihood depends upon it.
Support them through their frustrations
and guide them in their decisions.
Bless them and their families;
in Jesus’ name. Amen.

©2004 Tony Ingleby

Please look at the Arthur Rank Centre and British Food fortnight websites for ideas to help you plan your Harvest Festival event.

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By the time we get back from summer holidays our plans for Harvest Festivals, and Parish Suppers to accompany them, will be well in hand. Here are some points to think over now, before the event.

Or does "my brother" farm in the next door parish (or deanery)? Or does he grow rice in India, or coffee in Kenya, or bananas in Latin America?

Foot & Mouth Disease - Thank God it's over! We were not sure of that this time last year. But it has left a devastating legacy. Some farmers are getting back into business, with hard work and high hopes. But the Chairman of Gloucestershire N.F.U. tells me that others are cracking up, because of the drudgery of their work load, incomes that cannot match their outlay, pressures on marriage and family.

• 1. The Strong Pound makes imported foods so much cheaper.

• 2. "Food Awakening" and Fair Trade. This leaflet was prepared during the F & M epidemic, but it is just as pertinent now. (Copies available from the Arthur Rank Centre, Stoneleigh, Warks CV8 2LZ. at 7p per copy.)
  An Argentinian beef farmer earns less than $1 a day. We may be getting cheap quality meat at a cheap price (from a land where, incidently, F & M is endemic), but neither he nor we gain from the deal. It is the exporters there and the importers here who rake in the profits.

• 3. The "Little Red Tractor". The logo and its meaning are in "Recipes for Spring and Summer" (free from N.F.U.).
  Tell people to look for the Red Tractor on products in supermarkets. It isn't a guarantee that the product was reared or grown in the U.K., but it is a sign that animals have been treated and crops grown to agreed U.K. and E.U. standards.

• 4. Food Miles - The Real Cost of Transport.
  According to a recent piece of research, to transport 1 kilogramme of goods for 1 mile consumes megajoules of energy at the following rates:-

  • by lorry:- 1 kilo per mile consumes 0.2 mj. (megajoules)
  • by ship:- 1 kilo per mile consumes 1.0 mj.
  • by air:- 1 kilo per mile consumes 26.0 mj.
Therefore - by lorry:
• 1 kilo of beans, sprouts, plums from Evesham to Cheltenham or Gloucester - a journey of 20 miles = 4 mj. per kilo.
• by lorry: 1 kilo of broccoli or strawberries from Spain - 700 miles = 140 mj. per kilo.
• by ship: 1 kilo of lamb or apples from New Zealand - 11,700 m. = 11,700 mj. per kilo.
• by air: 1 kilo of mangetout from Zambia - 5,000 miles = 130,000 mj. per kilo.
  [These figures have been questioned but have been verified as " Energy cost due to transport megajoules perkg/mile:- lorry 0.2; ship 1.0; plane 26.". Another way is to look at the number of energy units used per method of transport in relation to food energy .See Energy use. If anyone has any other confirmed figures we would be pleased to know.Ed.]

• 5. The Cost in Human Lives??
  Who can say? But look at the 'Country of Origin' on the cling-film wrapped packets on supermarket shelves.
  Today Zambia is one of the countries in Southern Africa stricken by drought and famine. How is it that we can buy irrigated crops of mangetout and French beans from Zambia, while there is no water for their own staple crops and they will soon face death by starvation?
  What are we doing to the people of Zambia?
  What are we doing to our own farmers by buying unnecessarily from abroad?
  What are we doing for our grandchildren, as we burn up the world's resources and destroy its atmosphere?

Plenty to be thinking and praying about.

Can you invite a farmer to be interviewed in the service, to say what sort of a year he has had, and his hopes and prayers for the next 12 months?

Many farmers are still struggling. Pray for the work of Gloucestershire Farming Friends.

Can your good caterers take up the challenge -

• (1) To create menus of locally produced food? It really is the freshest, tastiest, and most nutritious - (and traceable to its source if you do have a complaint). The leaflet "Where To Find ..." of Gloucestershire Farmers' Markets can help you and your caterers to source local food. (available from their Stroud Office.) Encourage the support of Farmers' Markets by all your people, and all year round.

• (2) To supplement menus with "fair-traded" products? (N.B. in a 'Which?' survey about 2 years ago, coffee produced by Cafe Direct was given a rating above all the major brands.)

©2002 David Green

David Green was Rural Adviser, Gloucester Diocese. He is now working in Tabora, Tanzania.