Why Should I ‘Go Organic’?

After the Second World War of 1939-1945, the British faced a serious dilemma. They had crushed the Nazi threat in Europe, with the help of their allies, but as a country they were almost bankrupt with crippling food shortages. The solution to the world of ration cards seemed deceptively simple- turn more of the country’s meadow into arable land for farming and produce more food. In the short term, Britain’s farming community enjoyed mechanisation and bumper harvests, though this was coupled with fewer jobs for farm workers and many of Britain’s indigenous insect species becoming extinct through loss of habitat.

The intervening 60 years since World War II has certainly given British society much food for thought on the subject of intensive farming. Whether it has been BSE (Mad Cow Disease) and Bird Flu or Veal crate and battery chickens, British legislation has done much to reverse the ‘increase yields at all costs’ mentality for a more humane method of farming. The emerging facts about global warming and more specifically ‘food miles’ has done much to change the way the British shop; rather than buy chillis from Israel and beans from Kenya, there has been a resulting movement to ‘buy British’ and ‘Grow your own’. Once the domain of eccentrics and pensioners, the allotment (a piece of land rented from the local council often for a few pounds a year on which to grow your fruit and vegetables if you don’t have a garden, or it is inadequate) is now very much the domain of ordinary people who want to see where their food comes from.

What Going Organic Truly Means

In its simplist terms, going organic is using nature as a model for the way you grow your food. It’s about eliminating the need for pesticides that can accumilate in our bodies, or across the food chain (such as DDT in the 1970s). It’s about not eradicating insects that are pests to the gardener, but lunch for many of our best loved species. And above all, it’s about eating better, more nutritious food that tastes absolutely delicious.

Saving the World One Garden at a Time

The organic movement is very much about individual responsibility. It encourages people to act locally for the benefit of our communities, and indeed the world at large. Many people discover that when they have changed from slug pellets, fly sprays or chemical plant feeds, to natural egg shells, washing up liquid in water and blood and bone, that their garden and the wildlife within it not only changes but thrives. It may take time for this mini-ecosystem to correct itself, but once it does, it becomes more robust and easy to work with.

Why ‘Grow Your Own’?

There is a magic in planting a tiny seed and nurturing it throughout the summer, reaping a bumper harvest of courgettes, chillis, tomatoes- in fact anything that will grow well in your climate. In Britain, it’s also been recognised as a way of keeping heritage plants alive. Across the last few decades, commercial farms have chosen varieties of plants that offered disease resistance, robust growth and high yields (and not necessarily for taste). The beauty of ‘Grow Your Own’ is not only the wonderful opportunity to produce something that the kings and queens of England may have enjoyed hundreds of years ago, keeping the variety of plant alive, but also the dramatically different colours, shapes and textures different varieties of the same species have. Producing fantastic tasting organic food at a fraction of shop prices is also, undoubtedly welcome in the current economic climate.

The Cost of Not Going Organic

The pollution and farming methods that have taken their toll on many of the UK’s native species are thankfully in decline and the UK’s eco-system shows signs of recovery with the reappearance of species who were in terminal decline. From being a rare sight, the Kingfisher has made a significant return to clean waterways, and the song of the corncrake, has returned to England’s green and pleasant land.

The collective consciousness raising of the UK has heralded a sea change in policy and individual responsibility, which is enabling everyone to reap the benefits. It is becoming more apparent that everything the individual does not only impacts personally, but on a local, national and ultimately global level. The consequences of not implementing a programme that addresses (and reverses) global warming, climate change, damaging farming methods and animal extinctions could mean that future generations will inherit a depleted, less rich earth, that will ultimately be uninhabitable to the human race.