Defra may allow chickens to eat pig remains

The latest bombshell to anger healthy food movements - whether organic, slow or otherwise - is the proposal to ‘relax’ rules about feeding farm animals to other farm animals. Guardian article here.

This type of animal-eats-animal feeding chain was halted following the BSE crisis, as a way to avoid the spread of diseases like transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Officials in Brussels cheerfully point out that feeding pigs to chickens will save farmers a fortune in cereal - the price of which we’ve seen rise strongly. But pigs can’t be replacing cereal, can they? We all know that chickens get most proteins from non-cereal food. Our free-range organic birds are able to find wild invertebrates as they forage through habitats specially-designed for chickens.

Expect a backlash against this idea by health groups and those wishing to keep food production as natural as possible. Look out for links to articles and petitions here on the Sheepdrove blog!

Listening live to HRH

We’re listening live - are you? HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, is speaking now… thanking those who have submitted case studies, etc…

Go to:

http://www.visualwebcaster.com/BTVideoconferencing/46543/event.html

 

Organic on a Budget

Despite soaring costs in our economy it really is still possible to eat organic meat on a budget!

At Sheepdrove all the meat we sell through our home delivery box scheme, shops or wholesale is from our own farm. Unfortunately our feed costs are rising, but you can still enjoy our top quality meat by buying our budget cuts. These alternative cuts enjoyed by our grandparents such as brisket and shin beef are no longer enjoyed in our fast moving modern world as they take longer to cook, but they offer twice the goodness and have much better flavour and taste than the “quickies”.

As a fourth generation family butcher, along with our skilled butchery team we have brought these traditional meat cuts back on the menu and we would be pleased to discuss their benefits and the savings you can make with old and new customers alike. Sheepdrove quality is the finest organic meat available on the market with a true provenance and produced by people who have an obsessive passion to care for our animals.

A few of Michael’s suggestions

BEEF                                      ALTERNATIVE                                SAVE

Sirloin of Beef (B&R)        Brisket of Beef                       £36 (1.5Kg joint)

Fillet Steak                     Rump Steak                          £14( 2X225g steak)

Minute Steak                  Shin Beef                              £12 (1Kg pack)

LAMB                                     ALTERNATIVE                                SAVE

Leg of Lamb (BI)            Shoulder of Lamb (BI)             £15 (1.5Kg joint)

Loin Fillet                       Shoulder Steak                      £30 (1Kg pack)

PORK                                     ALTERNATIVE                                SAVE

Tenderloin                     Boneless Shoulder                 £7 (1Kg pack

Boneless Loin of Pork      Boneless Shoulder of Pork      £14 (1.5Kg joint)

 Please contact the sales team on 01488 674747 for more great ideas to save on your organic meat, and enable the full family to share in our top quality meat. All our organic meat cuts are available at our online shop.
Michael Benson (Sales and Marketing Manager)

 

May Day! May Day!

 

 

 

Sheepdrove Organic Farm are 1 of only 200 UK companies able to use this logo. Find out why…

JOIN IN
Go to the website for the Prince of Wales May Day Summit 1st May 2008, where you can watch the webcast LIVE. We attended last year’s event, which was outstanding.

Lost food the world could be eating!

Did you know that every day, UK households throw away 5.1 million potatoes and 4.4 million apples? Imagine, we could be feeding millions of people on the wasted food we casually chuck out on a regular basis.

The Waste and Resources Action Programme - WRAP  - are to launch their research report about this phenomenal waste of food, on 8th May in Westminster. This is your opportunity to hear about this research first hand, discuss some of the implications and have your questions answered, and pick up your copy of the report. You can book a place at the event.

The launch will include presentations from:

• Dr Liz Goodwin, Chief Executive, WRAP - Opening speech.
• Joan Ruddock MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Climate Change, Biodiversity and Waste), will give the keynote address which will highlight the implications of the 6.7 million tonnes of food that UK consumers throw away each year, most of which could have been avoided.
• Ray Georgeson, WRAP’s Director of Policy, will discuss the results. He will talk not only about the 4.4 million whole apples and 5.1 million whole potatoes that UK consumers throw away every day, but also about the huge quantities of other food products including meat, fish, yoghurt and bread waste that could have been avoided. Ray will also outline the considerable amounts of food that are thrown away completely untouched and still in their packaging.

Meanwhile what can we do about it? Can we avoid waste by changing our shopping habits, our eating habits, or even farming? And what we do with waste we can’t avoid?

WRAP’s report launch happens in the middle of Compost Awareness Week, 8th - 10th May 2008. Composting is a brilliant way to deal with your fruit and veg peelings of course, and to reduce your landfill impact, but here’s how it can help you to lessen your waste: GROW FOOD AT HOME.

When you’re able to pluck winter greens from window boxes and take tomatoes from the patio, you’re in touch with which food’s ready and when. You are likely to pick the food as you need it, and plan your meals seasonally around the available produce. (Like we do at the conference centre)

Your compost will help you to get excellent growth in your home crops. Try it! Oh, and be sure it’s organically grown, for even more benefits to you.

Here’s some encouragement from people who have had a go.
In much of the rest of our lives, we work our butts off without discovering whether it makes any difference. But in this case you can see and taste what you’ve done. George Monbiot.

Growing your own food … instils such a sense of pride that digging up your potatoes becomes something akin to attending the birth of your first child (only less messy). Paul Kingsnorth on allotments.

If it is impossible to site a composter where you live, then find out if there is a community composting scheme in your neighbourhood. The Ecologist - Urban Composting.

In good company

It’s not just us at Sheepdrove Organic Farm who reckon that Organic is the way forward. Ecological agriculture was praised in a special report released yesterday.

A four year study involving 400 scientists from around the world as well as 30 governments and 30 NGOs recognised that Organic agriculture can contribute to delivering global food security, help tackle climate change, protect soils and conserve wildlife.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report criticises industrial agriculture for being “too narrowly focused” and calls instead for a more holistic systems-orientated approach to food production and farming. It also raised doubts as to the GM industries current claims to be the solution for either poverty, world hunger or climate change.

55 world governments agreed on the IAASTD final report Friday, April 11, overcoming difficult negotiations and a withdrawal by agrichemical industry representatives. Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States requested additional time to consider whether or not to approve the final report. In Johannesburg, the US claimed the assessment was unbalanced, an allegation identical to one made some months earlier by the agrichemical and biotechnology industry.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP, opened the conference’s plenary with these comments on April 7, 2008: “Agriculture is not just about putting things in the ground and then harvesting them. It is increasingly about the social and environmental variables that will in large part determine the future capacity of agriculture to provide for eight or nine billion people in a manner that is sustainable.”

Also speaking from Johannesburg, Erika Rosenthal from Pesticide Action Network concluded, “The IAASTD set out to be a precedent-setting experiment in multi-stakeholder participation in intergovernmental processes. Its success proved that civil society participation as full partners in intergovernmental processes is critical to face the challenges of the 21st century.”

Soil Association campaigns director, Robin Maynard said, “This is exactly what organic farming at its best achieves – producing the same amount of food for 26% less energy than chemical based farming; delivering a greater variety and number of wildlife species; and because it doesn’t depend on vast quantities of expensive agrichemicals is more accessible and adaptable to smaller scale poorer farms in developing countries.”

And… GM is not the magic solution, says IAASTD

Commenting on the IAASTD’s findings, Pete Riley of GM Freeze said:
“We are delighted that the hyped claims about the current development in GM crops feeding the world are rejected. We call upon the Government, industry and science to respond positively to the challenge the report lays down and change their approach to scientific research so it is led by and reflects the needs of those who it should benefit - not the needs of corporations.”

Owl symposium in North Wessex Downs

Networked groups of the The Pang, Kennet and Lambourn Valley Countryside Project FWAG recently held a Local Barn Owl Synergy Symposium hosted at Sheepdrove Eco Conference Centre. The event bought together country enthusiasts who might not have previously thought of working together, yet all have the chance to help Barn Owl populations in the region.

Countryside and community groups included The Ramblers, the Wychwood Barn Owl project from Oxfordshire, Butterfly Conservation volunteers, landowners, farmers and farm wildlife advisers from Wiltshire and Berkshire – all operating in North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and beyond.

”It was all about coming together to discuss local conservation opportunities, join up our efforts and fill the gaps on the map,” said Karen Davies from the Pang, Kennet and Lambourn Valleys Countryside Project FWAG.
“The volunteers have made a big difference in partnership with land managers but there is plenty of potential to bring even more Barn Owls back to our countryside. We are always learning from the success of those volunteers and landowners who have been helping Barn Owls for a very long time in this area – and sharing that knowledge,” said Karen.

Presentations from Karen Davies and John Dellow, volunteer coordinator for the Pang Valley, summarised how the local groups have been able to establish many new Barn Owl nest sites, by fitting with their habitat needs, and working with farmers who have adopted stewardship options to suit the birds, such as grass buffer strips, hedges and wet meadow management. The talks highlighted the value of site monitoring in building a long-term record of what conservation work was achieving for the Barn Owl.

Jason Ball, who is Sheepdrove’s resident naturalist and coordinator of the Lambourn Valley Barn Owl Group, said, “One of the highlights was the photography in John Dellow’s excellent talk, showing us the hidden life of Barn Owls and the other species which are boosted by these habitat improvements and nest boxes.”

“What’s exciting now is how delegates will take this forward by combining their conservation work with ours – for instance, conserving rough grass for Marbled White butterflies or Water Vole also helps Barn Owls by providing small mammal prey!”

The local events were awarded financial support from the Sustainable Development Fund of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, funds from Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre and the Friends of the Pang Kennet and Lambourn Valleys. The symposium was also subsidised by Sheepdrove Organic Farm.

Buy online from Sheepdrove Organic Farm

Take a look at our fresh, redesigned online shop, launched today! The web shop is quicker and simpler to use. Try it for yourself - it’s easy!  www.sheepdroveshop.com

New features include:
~ An easy-to-follow layout
~ New pictures of our produce
~ An automatic shopping basket
~ Sheepdrove’s own Guide To Meat is available to download free. 

Sheepdrove Organic Farm’s web shop was one of the first ever launched by a British organic farm, and we were one of the first companies to offer a home delivery service for organic meat, fresh from the farm. Our website has always offered secure online ordering, and customers love being able to get meat directly from us.

Bats meet strange apes face-to-face

          

Three heroic bats came face to face with fascinating animals called ‘humans’ yesterday in a project to raise awareness about these odd creatures. The daring trio were a Noctule named Belinda, a Brown Long-eared bat called Leo and a Soprano Pipistrelle who wishes to remain anonymous. They teamed up with David Endacott of the Oxfordshire Bat Group and Jason Ball at Sheepdrove Organic Farm, and went to visit children at Lambourn Primary School.

Our brave bats enjoyed the day, and learned a lot.

Belinda said, “These people were very friendly, not like what you see on TV. Mr Endacott told them lots about us, how we find food and where we like to live. Most of them were pupils at Lambourn Primary School. They actually put up some new bat houses in the school grounds, which I thought was very kind. I expect the local Pipistrelles would love to move in to one of those boxes. I might think about it, if the moths and beetles living there are big enough!”

        

Often misunderstood, sometimes feared, humans are most active during the day while most bats are asleep. At first echo, human beings might appear rather pathetic, after all they have such tiny ears, and indeed their hearing is poor. “They can’t echo-locate for toffee,” says Leo, and he should know. They also cannot fly without special machines such as helicopters, and are not capable of hanging onto a wall upside-down for more than a matter of minutes. Read more…

They have a varied diet, consuming hardly any insects at all (how puzzling!) and never eat half their bodyweight in food in a single day. Not even when they are very hungry. Unlike bats, who can tolerate body temperatures from near freezing to well over 40 degrees Celsius in the summer, humans have a very low range of body temperature, usually around 37 Celsius, give or take one or two degrees. Humans cannot hibernate either!

Despite appearances, human beings are actually quite clever creatures, and social animals like bats, living in gatherings of various sizes all over the world. Some bats even argue that humans are an important part of biodiversity and we should try to get along with people. After all, many of us share a home with humans and they play a big part in the state of our local countryside.

Read more…

          

Batbox project begins

We are pleased to announce that we have begun a partnership with Lambourn C of E Primary to help bats in and around the village. We’re calling on local bat man David Endacott to teach the children and the grown ups more about these fascinating furry farmers’ friends. Read more at http://www.sheepdrove.com/375.htm