Here is George Monbiot at his insightful and impassioned best, speaking about agricultural subsidies at the Oxford Farming Conference in January.
This is really worth a half hour of your time to understand how things could begin to be different if we are concerned to integrate: biodiversity, social justice, food security, soil protection, sound energy policy, flood and drought management, and more.
He is calling the National Farmers Union to task for what he sees as profound hypocrisy, and suggesting ways that working together, “forming alliances” across assumed loyalties, might benefit most of us.
Of everything that this talk opened in my mind, I was especially shocked to learn about the growing dominance of biofuel maize on prime agricultural land, to be burned in schemes meant for methane capture of crop waste and slurry.
Please share this talk widely, or “reblog.”You might not agree with everything, but Monbiot weaves together many issues crucial to agricultural, ecology, social equality and the future of food justice in the broadest sense. Wow.
Kitchen Counter Culture 
Wheat, is an important crop for both human and animal consumption in the UK and a key biofuel. Wheat is the second most produced cereal worldwide and the UK’s largest crop with 15 million tonnes harvested per year. The UK is a wheat exporting country and 25% of its harvest is exported to other countries around the world. UK produced wheat is used in thousands of products, for example, it is responsible for 10 million loaves of bread a day. 40% of the crop is used for animal consumption such as chicken, cows and pigs1.
There is also a more controversial use of UK wheat. Many people feel that biofuel, which by 2010 had consumed 2.2 million tonnes of wheat, is a questionable use of the crops when there are food security concerns across the world. However, there are two sides to this argument. Whilst biofuels uses wheat which would otherwise be used for human consumption, wheat also provides an equivalent amount of high protein feed for livestock, which reduces the UK’s reliance on imported soya. Some also argue that biofuels create another market for cereals and that if wheat production increased, this would not lead to food scarcity in the product. In the long-term, some believe that it will be possible to produce biofuels from inedible parts of the plant, in a way that will become commercially viable2.
Source Reading University ‘ Our Hungry Planet – Agriculture, People and Food Security’ 2015.
Susu I would point out that we eat and waste far too much meat which is a part of the problem because it’s such an inefficient use of crops. Have a look at Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s views on this in River Cottage: Veg Everyday. He eats meat, but less and higher quality.
I was amazed to learn the amount of wheat that goes to biofuel! along with the corn that Annie wrote about above ! Will check out what Hugh has to say 🙂
Thank you for posting. George Monbiot is a very good speaker, intelligent and funny, and it cheers me that he does seem to wholeheartedly believe—despite knowing how things really are, how the system is rigged by the haves—that things will change for the better. Common sense will prevail (even though Brussels does seem sometime quite devoid of the substance).
One hundred harvests left ? We need to care for our soil, love our worms and all, it needs to be kept alive and that concept seem to thankfully seep out to more and more people who only yesterday believed in a chemical solution to all problems.
Some people argue that there should be a maximum wage cap, how about maximum land ownership cap ? Or an ownership based on the willingness to work the land with care… Things can be reinvented not merely copied on the most unfair systems of the past. In the meanwhile knit as much compost as you can !
Really enjoyed this, thanks for sharing 🙂