The post I’m re-blogging below popped up yesterday on WP’s ‘throwback edition‘, which is one feature of theirs I’m rather fond of, though I wish it delved further back into my blogging history. Anyway. This post struck a cord with me, because I was still quietly fuming from a shopping expedition the day before. Here we are, in peak season for home-grown fruit and vegetables. And here I was, looking at shelves packed with French beans from … Kenya. The few British packs were squeezed onto an out-of-the-way bottom shelf. In-season-in-the UK vegetables had little place alongside ones from anywhere-but -here. Tomatoes from Morocco were a quarter of the price of those from the Isle of Wight or Lancashire. And let’s not even mention the place given over to vegetables no longer in season. Asparagus from Peru, anyone?
My featured photo of home-grown tomatoes was taken in a Spanish supermarket.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
Food security, as in home produced, isn’t on any government agenda – whatever its politics. Utterly bizarre. We knew how to do it during WW2. The Kenyan beans are interesting in this regard. While we were living there, there were certainly some big European owned producers, but, I’m pretty sure a lot of the beans were grown by smallholder highland farmers under contract. We’ve largely lost our market gardens – not commercially viable etc etc.
But then looking at those gorgeous Spanish tomatoes…with the best will in the world, our mass produced local ones do not look like this, nor probably taste as good. Possible exceptions this year with all the sunshine.
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Food security ought to be way higher on the government agenda for both political and climate-change reasons. And I’m aware they may be many small producers in Kenya dependent on exporting their produce. But there must be another way? And if they end up on our shelves cheaper than British ones, what IS going on? And I think this year’s British tomatoes ARE getting better. The sun probably does the hard yards in developing flavour.
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We’ve become lazy and convenience orientated, whether we like it or not, Margaret. Well, some of us have- obviously not you and Tish. I didn’t have that kind of childhood, though we had an allotment with gooseberries which I loved. I do my best to buy local. Bilberries from Peru? Anyway I’m off to Specsavers now then we have a free afternoon. There’s just a glimmer of sunshine before the storms hit. I’d better buy that brolly xx
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I’m no saint, Jo, but I can’t help but read where goods come from, and what they contain. Anywhere distant (except in some circumstances) or containing palm oil just stays on the shelf. And it can get quite hard these days. The world’s gone mad. xx
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Aaargh, totally agree with you that food security should be way higher on the government agenda…but for some reason we are sleepwalking Into a very Problematic future
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Indeed. Leaving the problem for the next generation. We’ll be nicely dead.
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Not good for those that follow us
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