“That’s so cool”
It’s July and today it hailed. The sound of the battering against the windows had my kids rush to see what was going on – “that’s so cool” one of them shouted.
After 12 weeks (or more – I have stopped counting) without rain the rock hard soil has turned to mud in 24 hours of torrential rain. Last week I planted out my broccoli – any later and they wouldn’t grow enough before the light levels decline. Most of them are now dead and the rain won’t bring them back.
I have ten acres of organic land but this year I have only planted out 5 beds of outdoor veg – a tenth of one of the four fields I have. I used to grow on all the fields but around a decade ago it rained every day for seven weeks and I couldn’t plant out a quarter of a million seedlings. Every single plant in the fields rotted. I almost went bankrupt. The 25 people I employed lost their jobs. I now just have two people who help out part time. Since that summer a decade ago, we have had to the coldest winter on record (lost all my winter crops), the warmest April on record. The dullness August on record. This year we had the hottest May on record, then the warmest June on record after endless rain delayed any outdoor planting a month later than normal.
There used to be about 20 organic veg farmers in West Wales – when I started growing here 20 years ago. Now there are only four. As one guy who decided to pack it in told me “I might as well go and put my money down in Swansea casino”. No one knows what extremity will happen next – cold hot wet dry – only that year after year it’s getting worse.
I don’t grow outside my polytunnels anymore because I can’t risk it.
No one seems to care about poor farmers on the periphery going bust. After all when there is no salad in Europe the supermarkets can just fly it in from the states.
But complex systems are resilient until one day they totally collapse.
That why I am rebelling against this death cult system that is sending our young people to hell – this November. I’m done.
(I didn’t know what to say to my kid’s comment. As I planted my kale in the driving rain this afternoon my mind wondered if parents watching their children get excited by the bellowing smoke as they entered the concentration camps had the same reaction)
