Love Food, Hate Waste? So does Farmer Doug...

One of the reasons we setup Food4London was because we were fed up with the fact that the food we worked hard to produce lost all identity when it left our farm gate. As farmers we take pride in what we produce and we want people to know it came from our farm and because we care we don’t like seeing it being wasted.

Each family in the UK throws away over £600 in value of food per year and whichever way you look at it , the loss of the money, the physical waste to the environmental impact (landfill and the resource use), if we changed a few habits we could help keep more money in our pockets and help reduce any damage to our finite planet. Simple planning can significantly reduce waste, buy only what you need and cook just enough for the family, if there are left over’s then eat them the following day or turn them into something else. Click here for some simple recipes which are great for using up those left over's.

The supermarket ‘Buy one get one free’ or BOGOF offers are perceived as good value but are partly to blame for extra waste as it encourages people to buy too much food that often gets thrown away. BOGOF deals are brought to you by the supermarkets but they are financed by the producer. At Food4London we believe in offering food at its correct value at all times.

At the farm we convert much of our fresh produce waste into pork by feeding it to our pigs. We only have a few but they have developed quite sophisticated palettes, who wouldn’t when your diet can include Kentish apples and pears and they love carrots!! As farmers we are allowed to feed pigs fresh produce, bakery and dairy products and they love 'em!! Watch this space as we offer you some of our specially reared pork over the next few months.

We feed anything to them that is blemished or past its best but to be honest I often rifle through the produce put aside for the pigs and take some home and either make soup or smoothies for the family. There is something very satisfying with creating a delicious meal from food that nearly went to the pigs!
 

Farmer Doug brings you news of Kentish Chickens

We have always had great beef, pork and lamb from Kentish farms but to date we have had to travel as far as Essex for our chicken, great news however we have now got a new chicken producer in Kent. More renowned for its famous lamb the Romney Marsh now has chickens roaming around its fields.

Clive and Deborah Ovenden have started producing chickens and Aylesbury ducks to the highest quality. Slow matured and reared outside on a natural diet these produce tasty and succulent table birds. Being raised in small batches the birds range in sizes so you can now choose from a medium or large bird with the larger ones easily feeding 6 people.

I was horrified to see that you can actually buy a chicken in the supermarkets for £3, this, in my opinion is unsustainable. Intensive chicken farmers make at best a few pence, and I do mean a FEW pence per bird profit and at worst a loss. The supermarkets have driven down the cost and thus the need to produce more meat for less and less money continues, causing a downward spiral in price and the relative welfare of the chickens. There is only so far this can go before farmers stop producing and then the infrastructure that supports the industry starts to breakdown, the supply of chicken slows and the price goes back up; we have seen this exact scenario in the pig industry

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall did a lot to help raise awareness of the plight of farmed chickens in the UK. Meat in this country is produced to some of the highest welfare standards in the world. That said you cannot beat that extra taste and reassurance of the highest welfare and standard of living that a free roaming animal or bird offers. All of our free range chickens and ducks are now available for you at www.food4london.co.uk.

Farmer Doug brings you a taste of game from his local shoot

Although the weather is slightly un-seasonal at the moment, the beginning of October heralds the start of the full game season. The seasons are different for all species of game bird and they are set around the breeding patterns of the birds themselves. Some may be anti the sport of shooting game but often do not realise the wider benefits of this country pursuit.

Shoot owners spend a lot of time controlling the numbers of natural predators of game birds which in turn not only helps the game bird numbers themselves, but also the smaller bird species and in particular the hedgerow birds. We have found all of these species have increased vastly in number since we have been managing the vermin on our farm. It is common practice to take out areas of farmland and plant crops especially for the game and wild birds to eat during the hard winter months; we also delay the cutting of our hedges as late as possible in order to leave the wild berries that are abundant at the moment until the birds have had chance to eat them.

Game has fallen out of favour with many but not that many years ago it partridge Risotto  was widely eaten - in particular rabbit and pigeon (which are available all year round) were a staple food in rural communities. Both are abundant, good value and very tasty indeed.

Be it partridge, wild duck, pheasant or pigeon, they all taste great and are incredibly healthy meats, low in fat and cholesterol. My favourite is wood pigeon breast sautéed in butter with some shallots served with a creamy pepper sauce and some local seasonal veggies.

Don't forget if you have any questions about this or anything else to do with food and farming you can email me at askdoug@food4london.co.uk and I will do my best to answer your questions.

The Return of Ratty

Harvest is now underway and it is an exciting time of year. As soon as the combines have left the field we move in with machines to cultivate the ground in readiness for the next crop. With the throng of activity it is sometimes easy to forget that farming is about a lot more than just food production. All around the farm we leave 6 metre wide margins around most fields, these serve a number of purposes. They prevent fertilizers from getting into hedgerow bottoms and waterways as well as act as wildlife corridors. We plant traditional grass mixtures and wild flower seeds which provide a haven for insects and thus small mammals, ground nesting birds and other species can thrive alongside our fields that produce food.

On our farm over the last few years we have seen increased numbers of birds including lapwings and sky larks as well as larger numbers of barn owls. Most exciting of all for me though has been the re-population of our stretch of the river Stour with water voles. Any readers of The Wind in the Willows will know of ratty, the rather rotund rodent, he was not as you might expect a rat but a water vole. I can sit down by the river in the evenings and watch these fascinating creatures for hours swimming amongst the reeds.

Gearing up for harvest

Harvest is literally days away now. First up will be the barley, the first crop is mainly grown for animal feed, the second crop is grown to produce malt for beer production. This is quite tricky to grow and we have to make sure that there is the minimum amount of nitrogen in the seed otherwise it will make our beer go cloudy!! Oil seed rape will be next this is used to produce oil, you can buy extra virgin rapeseed oil on the website, it is excellent in all things you would use olive oil for but it can also be used for frying. Rapeseed is also higher in Omega 3 oils than its Mediterranean counterpart.

This year is the first that we have grown Canadian red wheat. This is being grown on contract for Hovis, normally a high proportion of the wheat used in their loaves is imported as they require a higher quality flour than has been possible from home production but with new varieties of wheat bred to suit UK conditions this could be a real breakthrough, fingers crossed!!

Here's the first in our regular updates on life on our farm...Farewell To Local Asparagus (until next year!)

Things have been very busy on the farm of late, it is sad to see the end to the asparagus season, I won’t miss the early mornings but i will miss the asparagus itself. The highlight of the culinary year for me is dipping my own asparagus into my own free range eggs, you just can’t beat it!!

The English asparagus season traditionally ends on mid summers day, from that day on we stop cutting the crop. It always seems a bit of a waste leaving all of the delicious spears growing away but it is an essential part of the crops cycle. Asparagus grows from under the ground from rhizomes (bunches of roots) called crowns. The crowns work hard to keep pushing up the spears through the season and like me, they need a rest and an opportunity to re-build their reserves. When you leave the spears to grow (they grow so fast you can almost see them on a very hot day) they open up into a fern like plant which builds a huge green canopy. The fern then takes in as much sun light as possible to build up energy in the roots to ensure a great crop for next season. An asparagus plant will keep going forever but the yields do start to drop after about ten full production years.

At the end of the autumn the fern dies back, we then cut it down apply lots and lots of well rotted compost in readiness for the following spring when the new harvest begins. Asparagus typifies the English summer, some producers are trying to extend the season which I suppose is fine if it stops people buying imported asparagus but I say eat what’s great and what’s great is even better when it is in season!!!!!

If you have any questions regarding life on the farm please e-mail me at doug@bankfarm.co.uk