How much control do we have of the food we eat?

In the first article of this series, Jack Smellie explored the smallholder relationship with meat: the pride, the sadness and all things in between. This month, she takes a more in-depth look at the ethics of smallholder grown food meat and veg/fruit) and the smallholder relationship with food in general.

Sheep keeping back on our first smallholding ( just two ewes) was a yearly cycle of autumn mating, spring lambing, winter meat in the freezer, and repeat! Every year almost everything went like clockwork – the ewes were healthy and loved, birthing unaided, and the family-run abattoir trip a mere half hour. Weaners were raised in grassy paddocks and male poultry enjoyed a long summer before finding their way to our freezers. At the time, our only niggle was a strong wish that everyone who ate meat had the opportunity to raise it as we did. This was, of course, naïve. Our way of raising meat was only possible because someone else had the responsibility of raising the rams we used and providing us with weaned piglets. The abattoir couldn’t possibly have survived with only small customers like us (and sadly didn’t survive anyway). And whilst we only had an acre, there isn’t enough (UK) land/ infrastructure/ willingness for everyone to ‘only have an acre’. Then there were the ewe/pig nuts we bought, and the hay, and the straw – all of which relied on bigger enterprises than ours.

KNOWING THE VALUES OF MEAT FROM THE SMALLHOLDING