Stop this pointless cull

On 14^th December last year the Environment Secretary, Caroline Spelman, announced to the House of Commons that the government would run two pilot schemes to cull badgers in England.  The pilots will assess the viability of addressing the problem of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in beef and dairy cattle by shooting wild badgers, which are known to be carriers of the disease.

Two areas have been chosen, one in West Gloucestershire and one in West Somerset, both hot spots for bTB.  The pilots are expected to last six weeks beginning in August or September this year.

The cull is naturally controversial. It’s opposed by the RSPCA, The Wildlife Trust, The Badger Trust and by roughly 60,000 members of the public who responded to the government’s own consultation exercise.  A poll conducted by GfK NOP for the BBC last summer indicated that 63% of the public opposed it too.

Caroline Spelman
Minister for Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs

But in the words of Ms Spelman, ‘Doing nothing is not an option’.

bTB is rife throughout South West England and Wales and is spreading steadily to other parts of the country.  Badgers are known to spread the disease through saliva and urine.  The government’s response is to enforce compulsory skin tests for all cattle every 60 days and to slaughter infected beasts.  In 2010, 25,000 cattle were slaughtered in England alone, costing the taxpayer £91m in compensation for farmers.  Farms under TB restrictions are not allowed to export live animals.

These policies hit dairy farms particularly.  Although the government pays a market rate for slaughtered cattle, the farmer receives nothing for lost milk production and they have no option but to shoot male calves which might otherwise be sold for rearing elsewhere.

Although badgers are protected in the UK, many farmers have already taken the law in to their own hands and many badgers have been gassed in their sets, yet still the disease spreads.

The trouble is that culling does not work.

DEFRA says that the culls will be ‘science led’, but as Natural England, the government’s own wildlife advisors, have pointed out, it has been tried before, in the 70s and the 90s, and it proved ineffective at holding back the spread of the disease.

Moreover, an official £50m, ten-year study conducted for the government by a specially formed Independent Scientific Group (ISG), found that culling was ineffective at controlling the disease, and in fact caused it to spread more rapidly as surviving badgers scattered throughout the countryside, an effect known as ‘perturbation’.

Prof Lord John Krebs of Oxford University, who instigated the study, concluded in July 2011 that a four-year intensive cull which eradicated around 70% of the badger population might reduce incidence of the disease in cattle by 12 to 16%.

This is the reason that the previous Labour government rejected the proposals for a cull and also why similar plans were shelved last year by the Welsh government.

So what is the answer?

Well in the first instance let’s get this problem back in perspective.  The reasons that the government insists on slaughtering animals are:

·         To protect public health

·         Animal welfare

·         To protect Britain’s export market

But let’s take a closer look at these arguments.

Work by two senior zoologists, Prof David Torgerson of York University and Prof Paul Torgerson of Zurich University, has shown that there is little or no danger to public health posed by bTB provided milk is pasteurized.  In fact meat from infected cattle slaughtered under the government policy is currently sold for human consumption, so obviously the government agrees.

They also point out that most cattle exposed to the bacterium will not fully develop the disease within the time of their normal commercial life, and many won’t develop it at all.  In other words, the government’s policy which has been in place for 60 years is probably excessive and largely unnecessary.

The claims on animal welfare are clearly absurd.  Slaughtering animals because they might develop a disease to which a vaccine is available cannot be represented as concern for their welfare.

Trade with EU countries is often cited as a factor.  Well EU laws in this area only concern live animals.  In the last 20 years Britain’s exports of live cattle have never exceeded £3.3 million in annual value which hardly justifies annual control costs of almost £100m.

So should we do nothing and simply accept a level of TB in our cattle herd?

Well no.  What is rarely mentioned is that there is a viable vaccine for bTB.

Vaccinating cattle is currently seen as a non-starter because it is outlawed by EU law.  The current skin tests do not differentiate between an immunised cow and an infected one.  Further, DEFRA argues that “Not all vaccinated animals would be protected from TB and therefore vaccination alone will not be sufficient to demonstrate disease free status… and allow trade in those animals”. This is a disingenuous argument, as use of the skin test is also imperfect.  Currently it is estimated that one in five animals slaughtered under government guidelines is actually a false positive.  Similarly the test misses around 20% of infected cattle which may then be transported quite legally.

Would we reject vaccination of children against polio on the grounds that it’s not 100% effective?  Of course not.

Vaccinating badgers is also ruled out because of assumptions about cost and difficulty.  But another of DEFRA’s own agencies, The Food and Environment Research Agency, FERA, recently completed a badger vaccination project over a 100km² area near Stroud in Gloucestershire.  In a report published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society they concluded,

“In a clinical field study, BCG vaccination of free-living badgers reduced the incidence of positive serological test results by 73.8 per cent. …BCG vaccination of badgers could comprise an important component of a comprehensive programme of measures to control bovine TB in cattle.”

In fact, the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, which has conducted its own trials, estimates that badger vaccination is a viable alternative to culling without the drawbacks, and could be carried out for only £51 per hectare.

Only two diseases have ever been eradicated in the world; smallpox and rinderpest, the latter being a cattle disease. Both were eradicated using vaccination.

What DEFRA should do is as follows:

• stop slaughtering infected cattle immediately
• allow farmers to vaccinate their cattle at their own discretion
• initiate a programme of vaccinating wild badgers

It will still take years but this is the only approach that will ever eradicate bTB from our shores.

Government ministers of all hues often feel obliged to be seen to do something, even when it makes no sense.  The Conservative party moreover has always been the traditional party of the countryside and the farming lobby, so the pressure to do something dramatic is commensurately greater.  But killing badgers will do nothing to eliminate bovine TB, it may even exacerbate the problem and it will do immense damage to our wildlife.  Far from being science led, the decision to cull badgers looks like a purely political one.

Under these circumstances the proposed cull is pointless, barbaric and just plain wrong. Our wildlife should not be treated as a political prop.

I will leave the last word to the Badger Trust which has raised a legal challenge to the cull and which summed up the situation concisely.

“Badger culling, if it comes to pass, will represent a triumph of prejudice over science, a triumph of the feel-good factor over commonsense and a triumph of political expediency at the expense of a gullible industry.”

Crying fowl.

As the bells chimed midnight on December 31^st the law changed right across the EU.  With the adoption of European Union Council Directive 1999/74/EC conventional battery cages for chickens are now banned from the EU and it is illegal to sell battery eggs.

It is still legal to keep hens in cages, but from now on they have to be the new so called Enriched or Colony Cages.  These allow the birds more space and head room and also provide features such as a nesting area, a scratching area and perches for roosting to enrich their lives.

Replacing every battery cage in Europe has been a big project.  Farmers have had 12 years notice in order to comply and in the UK alone the industry calculates that egg producers have spent £400m on converting cages. Nevertheless as the deadline drew near it became clear that many countries would miss the target.  In fact only 13 out of 27 countries were fully compliant by January 1^st.  Across the whole of Europe it seems about 14% of producers have failed to comply with the regulations accounting for some 46 million chickens. In the worst lagging countries, Belgium and Italy, fully one third of hens are still in battery cages.

Understandably the British producers, led by the British Egg Industry Council were increasingly concerned about the apparent unfairness of this situation.  Even though the UK is about 85% self sufficient in eggs, BEIC has called for a ban on imports and in fact began legal proceedings against the British government to force it to take action against other countries in the European institutions.  Compliant producers, they argue, have absorbed huge costs already and there is an increased cost of production associated with the enriched cages.  Foreign farmers who have broken the law, they argue, should not be able to benefit by undercutting British producers.

Their righteous indignation took something of a knock when it emerged last week that the UK was among the delinquents.   According to DEFRA, 30 British farms have failed to meet the deadline.  BEIC estimate 150,000 birds may be affected, DEFRA say 1% of the UK flock, which would be more like 350,000.  Either way, the government says they must either comply or cease production by the end of January and the European Commission says 1% or 30% it’s all the same, the UK will be among the fourteen countries receiving letters outlining likely remedial procedures later this month.

I think British indignation is misplaced.  Now I accept that animal welfare is generally better in the UK than many other parts of Europe and British farmers are as good as anyone at implementing EU regulations.  I also accept that the Enriched cages are an improvement on the traditional battery cage.

The old cages had a minimum statutory height of 40cm.  Birds typically stood on a wire floor about 5 to 10 in a cage, each with a minimum 500 cm² space, about the size of a sheet of A4 paper.  They didn’t have enough room to turn around or to stretch their wings properly.  They lived their whole life indoors in artificially regulated light to maximise laying, in sheds which reeked of ammonia from piled up excrement.  The cages were associated with increased incidence of ‘feather pecking’ where birds literally peck each other to death, and the farmers’ response ‘beak trimming’ where young birds actually have their beaks cut off to prevent pecking.  Cages cause stress, disease, high mortality rates and cannibalism.  Surely anything has to be better than that.

The Enriched cages, great name by the way, increase the headroom to 50 cm.  Each cage can now accommodate 60 to 80 chickens, that’s where the word Colony comes from, with each bird allotted an extra 250 cm², one and a half A4 sheets!  The birds usually stand on Astroturf, not wire, and by having specified laying, perching and scratching places the guano problem is dealt with more effectively.  It’s still not exactly the Hilton is it?

Does any of this matter? I mean these are the creatures who famously continue to run around even if you cut their heads off.  How great exactly is their capacity for suffering?

Well yes it does matter, I am not a vegetarian but I respect the animals that feed me.  I believe any amount of needless suffering is too much.  I also do not want my food to be associated with stinking, torture chambers.  I believe that healthy food comes from healthy animals.  Remember this is the system that has given us eggs containing listeria and salmonella.

Thankfully I am not alone.  About 50% of the shell eggs sold in the UK nowadays are ‘free-range’, where chickens actually get the chance to wander outdoors and walk around in the fresh air.  If you consider that commercial purchasers, hotels, schools, hospitals etc. are more likely to buy on price and therefore to buy cage eggs, I would argue that the majority of eggs bought directly by the public are free-range.

Free-range eggs do cost more.  Producers estimate it costs about 22p to make a free-range egg compared with 11p for a battery egg.  The classic argument is choice; let the consumer decide how much animal welfare they want to pay for.  Well I think that the public has chosen.  It is notoriously hard to influence indirect purchases.  Who knows what kind of eggs go in to a Sarah Lee cake or a Tesco quiche?  But when people buy eggs they buy free-range.  Also, why should the public have the right to choose inhumane living conditions for animals in order to shave a few pennies from the family’s grocery bill? What gives us the right to make chickens pay the price so that we can buy an extra packet of fags or half a pint of beer?

Spot the difference - Free-range chickens

Germany got rid of its battery cages five years ago. This year, as the rest of the EU was switching to enriched cages, Germany moved further ahead to be totally cage- free.  It can be done, it’s what the public prefers and it is the future.  I don’t blame British farmers; they operate in a commercial environment and have to be cost conscious.  It’s up to the regulators to set minimum standards and these should be humane, in line with public attitudes and fit for the current era not the 1950s.  We don’t have to wait for the whole EU to agree on this. As Germany has proved you can chose to unilaterally exceed the minimum standards.

Perhaps when all our chickens are free-range, or as the RSPCA put it in their Freedom Food certification, when “every animal reared for food has a happy, healthy life…with an environment that meets their needs…providing a stimulating environment that enables the animals to exhibit their natural behaviour”, then we might have room to be sanctimonious.

My Favourite Shop

Orford General Store - Nominated for National Village Shop of the Year

The beating heart of any village is the village shop.  In Orford we are privileged to have one of the best.  That’s not just my opinion; The Orford General Store has been shortlisted for the Countryside Alliance’s Village Shop of the Year award.  This week I caught up with the owner, Penny Teale to find out what her formula was.

DSFH: “You took over the Orford village shop a year ago.  But 600 rural shops close in England every year, so my first question has to be, are you mad?”

PT: “I don’t think so.  I gave up a lucrative career in corporate retailing to take on this business.  This isn’t a hobby, it’s a livelihood. You don’t make that kind of decision without doing a huge amount of research and being pretty sure that you can make a go of it.  Many of those failing shops may not have been run very well or with a keen eye on costs and the customer offer, but I realized that it was possible to take the things that supermarkets do well and apply them to a small business.  I used my retail experience to put in solid processes and apply up to date technology.  I try to keep on top of my stock control and my market as Tesco or Sainsburys would, but I am able to combine that with a business that has great local product and personality.”

As if to back this up she starts to spout a range of facts and figures.

“My catchment area is 5 or 6 miles.  People come from 5 villages and those villages contain 2000 people”

DSFH: “But what about that market?  You’ve actually got a number of very different constituencies within a village like this?”

PT: “Three. (She nods her head) There are the local people who rely on the village shop for everyday provisions.  They buy little and often.  They are very price conscious and quite conservative.  They are really important because they are here all year round.  I actually keep a close watch on supermarket prices.  We can’t afford to be too far out of sync.  Even though a trip to Woodbridge or Saxmundham is likely to cost £5 or £6 when you add up the fuel and total cost of running a car, people don’t look at it that way.  Also supermarkets aren’t as cheap as you think.  They use a variety of tricks such as hi-lo pricing.  They put things on the shelf at a high price so they can then discount them later.”

“Then there’s the ‘second homers’ and visitors  or what I call the ‘four and threes’, people who call Orford home but in reality they spend half the week in London.  They are almost the exact opposite.  Price is less important to them but they demand quality and they want to be delighted by the range, local product and high quality veggies.  The third group are die-hard Tesco or Waitrose shoppers, who dip in and out around their weekly shop.

DSFH: “So is there a conflict in serving such different needs?  After all you have to decide what you give shelf space to?”

PT: “Not really.  I use the ‘good, better, best’ rule to all of the ranges.  For instance I re-jigged the wine section.  Now you can buy a bottle of wine for as little as £3, £5, or up to £15 depending on your budget.  Take canned produce like beans; we’ve got Happy Shopper in the ‘good’ range, Heinz in the ‘better’ range and Epicure in the ‘best’, for people who want something different.  So everyone can find something suitable.”

DSFH: “So what are your best sellers?”

PT: “We do sell an awful lot of pies!  Locally made homemade pies just seem to fly off the shelves.  But the Deli section generally does ever so well”

DSFH:  “You touched on it briefly but a village shop in a place like Orford can almost be regarded as a social service as much as a business.  Is that a double edged sword?”

PT: “Not at all.  You are right, we are often the first to notice if an elderly customer doesn’t pop in, and you get some people who just come in for a chat, but that makes us a sort of communications hub.  From a business perspective it’s a privileged position.  Customers do expect you to remember their names though.  Everyone knows who I am, so it can be a real challenge remembering theirs!”

DSFH:  “You carry a lot of local produce. How important is that?”

PT: “Absolutely crucial! As a retailer I want to know the provenance of the food I sell.  If a bag of potatoes were harvested from the field in Leiston yesterday afternoon I can be pretty sure that they will be fresh and the customer will be happy.  But it’s more than that.  I’ve now got over 20 suppliers within a fifteen mile radius (and growing).  30% of my shelf space is allocated to local products.  Being local is part of the brand that differentiates us from the supermarket chains.  But Suffolk is a great food-producing county with some wonderful local products.  As a retailer of course I want to tap in to that.”

DSFH: “So did you find local suppliers were ready and prepared to supply a local, small business?”

PT: “Most of them were very enthusiastic but with some we have had to work together on things like packaging or branding.”

DSFH: “You actually run a portfolio of businesses in the village don’t you?  Is that part of a strategy?”

PT: “Absolutely.  There’s The General Store, The Suffolk Butcher and Penny’s Café.  They are all distinct brands that will allow us to do different things with them.  But it’s also about making Orford into a ‘destination food village’.  After all, we don’t get any passing trade out here.  But the other businesses in Orford: the smokehouses, the bakery, pubs, hotel and the craft shop all contribute to make it somewhere people will consciously come to.  We get customers now who regularly come from a wider catchment area to visit us."

Penny's Cafe - Helping to make Orford into a Destination Food Village

DSFH: “But how much can you really expand the market? Ultimately you are restricted by demographics aren’t you?”

PT: “A lot of people do come in to the area: second homers, day trippers and so on. Trade in a place like Orford is very seasonal, but the thing is to extend the season.  We are working with the Orford Business Association to do just that.  I’ve held ‘tasting events’ for wine and local products and we have a Carol singing planned for the 22^nd of December.  There’s a lot more events planned for next year.”

DSFH:  “So the future of the village shop is bright is it?”

PT: “Well I am ahead of schedule according to my business plan.  Year one was all about getting the basics sorted out, but this year will be about growth: more tastings, expanding the range, building a website.”

DSFH:  “And is Orford a unique location or would your treatment work in other village shops?”

PT:  “The model will work in other locations, if the timing and opportunities come up.  But that’s in the future, Christmas is the immediate focus.”

Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Mr. Osborne?

Is there anybody who doesn’t know that we are in the middle of the worst economic recession since the war?  This week UK unemployment reached its highest point in 15 years, inflation is running at 5%, real wages are falling and business confidence is being held down by the crisis in the Eurozone.  Even if all that has somehow passed you by, you could tell something big was happening just by listening to the language of our politicians.  David Cameron in his first leader’s speech as Prime Minister resurrected Lord Kitchener’s call to arms telling his party “Your country needs you”.  George Osborne, The Chancellor of the Exchequer, caught the prevailing mood and revived his own wartime slogan to tell voters “We are all in it together”, conveniently ignoring the fact that some of us are more ‘in it’ than others in the way that only a multi millionaire could.  Even the Green Party has recently called for a ‘new home front’ against climate change, Caroline Lucas, the party’s only MP comparing climate deniers to appeasers of the Nazis in the 1930s.

Maybe it really is time to look to the 1940s for parallels in our present circumstances.  After all, the whole of Europe is occupied with the plight of the Euro and in thrall to the Germans. Britain alone, it seems, stands on the outside ready to fight the contagion of Eurozone uncertainty on the beaches.  For the most part, the British public has adopted austerity with the usual blend of sangfroid and chirpy resignation.  There is something in the British character that appears to make the hair shirt almost as comfortable as the ubiquitous shell suit, or in the case of George Osborne, the Barbour jacket and green wellies.

I wonder if all this wartime retrospection is having an impact on the nation’s eating habits yet.  After all the extraordinary fact is that the Second World War was the only time in modern history when the entire population of Britain has enjoyed a healthy balanced diet.  In both WWI and WWII when the UK introduced conscription they found many working class men unfit for military service because of malnourishment.  Almost immediately, as affluence returned in the 1960s, a new disease of obesity began to manifest itself, and is now running at epidemic proportions.  But for a few years in the middle of the twentieth century, government rationing ensured that everyone got a fair share and everyone had the basics for healthy living.

In 1939, (for American readers that’s when WWII started for the rest of us) Britain was completely locked in to the Empire System,  which meant we imported 75% of our food: wheat from Canada; butter, cheese and sheep meat from Australia and New Zealand; sugar from the Caribbean and so on.  Next time you hear someone talking about ‘food security’ think about that.  More than 50% of meat was imported, 70% of cheese and sugar, nearly 80% of fruits and about 70% of cereals and fats.

The Germans knew that the quickest way to force Britain to surrender was literally to starve her into submission.  That is what led to the Battle of the Atlantic where convoys of merchant ships ran the gauntlet of U Boats in order to bring basic food stuffs into the British Isles.

As the blockade began to bite, the government had no choice but to take a firm grip on food distribution and introduce rationing for all.  The minimum weekly allowance of butter per person was only 2oz (57g), cheese was even tighter at 1oz (28g) and sugar was only 8oz (57g).  Eggs were rationed at 1 per week, but only if available.  They usually weren’t.  Meat was rationed by price, but again availability governed consumption more often than the official measure.

The only things that were not rationed at any stage during the war were bread and fresh vegetables.  Ironically bread and potatoes only went on ration after the end of the war, as Britain assumed the additional responsibility for feeding liberated Europe.  In fact as members of the public were urged to ‘Dig for Victory’ the supply of home grown vegetables grew steadily.  The whole country it seems  willingly dug up their lawns and flower beds to grow spuds and leeks.  That hair shirt mentality again!  By 1943 over 1 million tons of vegetables were being produced from gardens and allotments.

The Ministry of Food then set about providing information and recipes to help people make the most of their rations.  Marguerite Patten, who later became a famous food writer, was employed to come up with nourishing recipes which she broadcast on the BBC.  Most famous of all was the vegetable pie which came to be named after the Minister of Food, Lord Woolton, but which was in fact created at the Savoy Hotel in London by the head Chef, Francis Latry.

Frederick Marquis,
1st Earl of Woolton

This diet, rich in vegetables, low in meat and fats, was sufficient to “Keep Britain Fighting Fit,” in the words of yet another wartime slogan, and by the end of the war Britain produced almost 80% of its own food.  The figure today by the way, stands at around 60%.

When rich politicians decide to preach to the public, or when they urge people to tighten their belts while standing in front of their chauffeur driven Jaguars, it naturally falls on deaf ears.  The public simply does not believe that they are all in it together while they see bankers receiving huge and unjustifiable bonuses, or MPs fiddling their expenses.  But anyone who is nervously watching inflation erode their savings, or struggling to survive on Job Seekers Allowance could do a lot worse than taking up gardening.  Digging is therapeutic and fresh vegetables are delicious.  You will also find that growing and eating your own vegetables is good for your health, good for your wallet and good for the planet.

Recipe – Lord Woolton’s Pie

Ingredients:

1lb diced potatoes
1lb cauliflower
1lb diced carrots
1lb diced swede
3 spring onions
1 teaspoon vegetable extract
1 tablespoon oatmeal

Salt and pepper to taste
A little chopped parsley

Method:

 Cook everything together with just enough water to cover, stirring often to prevent it sticking to the pan. Let the mixture cool. Spoon into a pie dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Cover with a crust of potatoes or whole meal pastry. Bake in a moderate oven until golden brown. Serve hot with gravy.

Wooltons Pie with potato crust

Notes:  I’m not sure what was meant by ‘vegetable extract’ in the 1940s, but I used Marmite.  Also the original recipe suggests varying the selection of vegetables according to season and availability.  Although I have a long standing love affair with swede we are currently not on talking terms, so I substituted some butternut squash.   I didn’t have spring onions so in the interest of austerity I substituted a small red onion.  I’ve also read comments that the pie could be a bit bland, so I added a chopped leek and used a cheese mash for the crust.  I probably blew my ration for the month!

Verdict:  Using a mashed potato topping made this into a kind of vegetarian shepherd’s pie and it had the same comforting, homely feel.  The taste was evocative of my childhood somehow and I thoroughly enjoyed it, which is just as well because even though I halved the quantities there’s enough for two more main meals.  Quite acceptable as a filling, midweek dinner and economical too.

Moules Marinière

Autumn is well and truly here now.  It’s probably my favourite season of the whole year.  I love the way that it assails all your senses at once.  There’s nothing I like more than walking in the Autumn countryside.  Those dank, dark days where your breath hangs in front of your face and smoke rises vertically from cottage chimneys in the still air.  The only sounds are the doleful cawing of crows in the nearby beeches.   The air heavy with rotting leaves and over ripe fruit still clinging to bare trees.  The whole day seems to be only a precursor to night, with lights burning brightly in distant windows in mid afternoon.

The long period of summer fruitfulness is over, and now is the time to turn from salads and abundant fresh produce to warm nourishing and hearty fare.  Personally I love thick homemade soups and rich slow-cooked casseroles.  How good is it to come home cold and damp from a long walk to the kitchen, warmed by the oven, and the smell of cooking permeating the whole house?

Among the greatest pleasures of the Autumn is the return of new season mussels to the fishmonger.  Mussels are relatively cheap.  I pay £3 for a kilo (£5 for 2kg) which serves two people as a starter, or one person,( me), as a main course.

Thankfully they are also completely green.  Most commercially available mussels are farmed, so they are renewable, and they are reared organically.  Unlike other forms of aquaculture they do not rely on fish meal as food. Mussels are filter feeders; they clean the sea water rather than polluting it.  They are not treated with any artificial chemicals.

If you live anywhere near the sea there’s a good chance that they might be reasonably local too.  Mine come from just up the coast from Blakeney in Norfolk.

Many years ago the first recipe I ever tried with mussels was the French classic Moules Marinière and I loved it so much I have never looked much beyond it.  It makes a quick and delicious lunch or light supper and it could hardly be easier to cook.

Choose small mussels and make sure they are fresh.  Use them on the day of purchase.

Moules Mariniere

Moules Marinière - Recipe

Ingredients

·         1 or 2 kilos of mussels

·         1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

·         2 shallots, finely chopped

·         1 knob of butter

·         a bouquet garni of fresh parsley, thyme and bay leaves

·         1 glass dry white wine

·         120ml/4fl oz double cream

·         coarsely chopped parsley for garnishing,

·         crusty bread, to serve

Method

Begin by cleaning the mussels in the sink under lots of clean fresh water.  Live mussels should close firmly when jostled in the sink.  Discard any that don’t.   Also discard any with broken shells.

Remove any dirt, seaweed or barnacles attached to the shell, and make sure to pull off the beard.  That’s the rough, fibrous appendage that they use to attach themselves to rocks.  Also throw away any that feel particularly heavy.  They are probably just full of mud which will ruin your meal.  Drain them in a colander.

Soften the garlic and shallots in a large pan with the butter and toss the bouquet garni in.

Put the mussels and wine in the pan, turn up the heat and put a lid on the pan.  Steam them in the wine for 3 or 4 minutes only, giving the pan two or three good shakes.

Remove from the heat and take out the bouquet.  Add the wine and chopped parsley.

Ladle into bowls, giving each person plenty of creamy sauce.  Discard any that haven’t opened properly.

Eat immediately with the crusty bread and the rest of the wine

Plenty More Fish in the Sea?

Every Wednesday a mobile chip shop comes to my village.  The distinctive smell of frying spreads throughout the streets and people from miles around queue up to enjoy a weekly treat.  I’ve bought my supper there a few times and they really are excellent fish and chips.  Each fish is cooked to order in delicious crispy batter and the fish are plump, flaky and fresh.  More than any other fast food, there is a whole tradition around fish and chips.  Somehow they taste so much better wrapped in paper and eaten with a wooden fork.  Deep fried in oil, smothered in salt and vinegar, with tartar sauce, mushy peas and bread and butter on the side, it is hardly a healthy meal, but once in a while it’s OK to splurge.

I don’t buy them anymore.  It’s not that I’m health conscious.  It’s not the price, which is actually very reasonable, and the couple who own the van are friendly and polite.  It’s the fish!

They carry a fairly wide range of fish for an English fish and chip shop. In addition to the staples of cod and haddock you can also buy plaice, skate and rock.  The owners are happy to tell you that this fish is freshly caught locally. No doubt that’s a selling point in a seaside community where a few fishing boats do still offload their catch daily at the pier.

Suffolk was once home to a booming fishery.  Herring boats from Lowestoft followed the shoals right up the East coast to Aberdeen while inshore boats trawled for cod and plaice.  Those days are past, but today there are still 95 to 100 registered fishing boats in Suffolk although many of them are involved solely in potting for crab or lobster.  The remaining white fish boats are nearly all small and fish with the baited hook and line method.  This is the most environmentally friendly form of commercial fishing.  It is selective and tends to catch larger, stronger fish.  Spawning fish don’t eat and so they simply ignore the bait.  In some cases any unwanted fish which are brought up can be de-hooked and returned to the water while still alive. Line fishing uses much less fuel than trawling or seining, and does less damage to the sea bed, where 98% of marine species live.  For all these reasons Suffolk fisherman often describe their industry as sustainable.  Unfortunately there’s more to it than that.

Fishing boats on the beach at Aldeburgh

Waitrose is Britain’s sixth biggest food retailer.  As part of the John Lewis Partnership it has an unusual ownership structure and is actually owned by its employees.  While it would be wrong to say that it is not commercially oriented, the absence of shareholders does allow the company to promote ethical or social objectives alongside the pursuit of profit and this has given them a well deserved reputation for being a responsible and caring player in the global food industry.  Although small, their market share in the UK groceries trade is only 4.2%, their influence is much larger, and in the supply of wet fish their market share is roughly double their overall market position.

At a recent conference which I attended, Jeremy Ryland-Langley, the principal fish buyer at Waitrose and the individual most responsible for setting their purchasing policy in the sector, outlined the ‘four pillars’ of the company’s fish sourcing policy.

For a fish to be termed 'sustainable' in Waitrose it must meet the following criteria:

·         Be a species that is not regarded as threatened or endangered

·         Be caught from a well managed fishery with scientifically based quotas

·         Be caught using responsible fishing methods

·         Be fully traceable from catch to consumer

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the way the Suffolk fishermen are catching their fish, but the trouble is that the North Sea itself is in trouble and it’s because of the first two bullets in the list.

According to the EU Fisheries Commissioner herself, 75% of EU fisheries are currently being over-fished.  EU quotas are produced as a result of negotiation with the fishermen themselves and bear no relation to scientifically recommended levels.  In fact, Ryland-Langley states that for the 12 most popular species of fish, EU quotas are at least 33% higher than maximum sustainable levels and that includes North Sea cod, haddock, skate, rock and plaice.  In other words these fish are endangered.  And the North Sea fishery cannot be regarded as ‘well managed’ while it allows over fishing, while it tolerates almost unfettered, destructive bottom trawling, and while only 0.3% is designated as ‘no take zone’ to allow fish a chance to breed.

The North Sea is not the worst affected region.  But it is scant consolation to know that the Mediterranean is in an even worse state.  Mediterranean fisheries are 90% over exploited. Nor does it help to know that this is not just a European problem.  The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that globally 32% of the world’s sea fisheries are currently being over exploited, and a further 50% are at or about safe maximum levels. By some calculations, at current rates of exploitation, fish stocks around the world will be completely exhausted by 2050.

The thing I struggle to understand is why this issue does not resonate more clearly with the public.  Surely nobody can claim to be unaware that there are serious problems with fishing, and yet public behaviour does not appear to change.  If you went in to a restaurant and found the menu full of endangered species: rhinoceros steaks, tiger stew, osprey burgers and so on, you would be rightly outraged.  Yet every day we are happy to chew our way through thousands of endangered species of fish.  But the good news is that there is a lot that we can all do, and it does not mean giving up eating fish.

What can you do to help conserve fish stocks?

1. Learn which fish are endangered and which ones are OK to eat.

The Marine Conservation Society's Good Fish Guide provides detailed advice on its excellent web site about which fish are safe to eat, and when they are threatened it provides a list of alternatives that might be available.  What I particularly like is that it recognizes that fish may be viewed differently in different fisheries.  For example Icelandic cod is currently regarded as sustainable even though North Sea cod is not.  They also provide a handy pocket guide that can be printed from the web site and taken with you on shopping trips.

2. Buy different fish.

For some months now Sainsbury’s, the UK’s second biggest supermarket chain, has been urging customers to Switch the Fish away from the so-called Big 5 species which collectively account for 80% of British fish sales: Cod, Haddock, Tuna, Salmon and Prawns.  This campaign is supported by Sainsbury’s house chef, Jamie Oliver.  Elsewhere many supermarkets often run promotions on less well known varieties which are in any case cheaper than the usual suspects.  Pouting fillet for example is a good alternative to cod fillet and costs about half as much.

3. Choose Environmentally Certified fish

Look out for the Marine Stewardship Council’s ecolabel certificate.  This global organisation is completely independent and objective.  They work with fisheries, seafood companies, scientists, conservation groups and the public to promote the best environmental choice in seafood.  This is equally true of frozen or processed fish and the ecolabel is issued to restaurants and shops as well as individual products.

4. Ask restaurants about their sourcing policy and let them know your concerns

The website associated with the award winning documentary film by Charles Clover, The End of the Line, has a printable feedback form which people are encouraged to take with them and leave together with the payment when you eat out.

I still eat fish twice a week, although I have to deny myself the pleasure of shop-bought fish and chips.  In this way I hope that when I am watching Finding Nemo with my grand-children I may be able to avoid awkward questions like “what were fish Grandpa?” and “didn’t you realize that you were destroying the oceans?”