On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 07:39:05 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote:

I am no fan of over intensive farming. And the UK has a rather bad
public attitude to food as crude "fuel" which has put emphasis on
quantity over quality. In mainland Europe good food is seen as an
essential part of life - a viewpoint I subscribe to. You are after all
what you eat.

I don't think the Dutch have that attitude, after all most of the
pretty and tasteless vegetables on sale in UK supermarkets are grown
in Dutch green houses, using vast quantities of natural gas. The
quality of the vegetables in Zuid Holland was what initially made my
wife decide to grow her own vegetables. Particularly disgusting were
Dutch carrots that were grown in fields sprayed or injected with raw
pig manure. The carrots stunk of pig muck when cooked. Ear and throat
infections caused by pig muck dust blowing in the wind was endemic.
The quantity of vegetables that can be produced from a 10x10metre
plot, without using any chemicals at all is really amazing and the
superb taste is even more amazing


Minimum inputs is a far more reasonable approach but much much harder to
sell to the consumer than the Organic(TM) "no chemicals" slogan.

The slogan is not true is it?
--
Martin