Dr Rowan Williams: 'Dig for victory over climate change and grow your own food'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/earth-environment/article6872027.ece

[Times Online] 14 October 2009--The Archbishop of Canterbury has called for “unsustainable” air-freighted food to be replaced gradually by homegrown produce from thousands of new allotments.

In an interview with The Times, Dr Rowan Williams said that families needed to respond to the threat of climate change by changing their shopping habits and adjusting their diets to the seasons, eating fruit and vegetables that could be grown in Britain.

He said that the carbon footprint of peas from Kenya and other airfreighted food was too high and families should not assume that all types of food would be available through the year. Dr Williams called for more land to be made available for allotments, saying that they would help people to reconnect with nature and wean them off a consumerist lifestyle.

The Archbishop was accused, however, of threatening the livelihoods of a million families in sub-Saharan Africa, who depended on exports of fresh produce to Europe.

And the profits of the food importers who mark up the cost of the fresh produce exported from outside of Europe. Among the benefits of vegetable gardening in an allotment is a reduction in food costs during a time of economic recession and a healthy form of exercise for otherwise sedentary Britains. When my family lived in the UK in the 1950s, vegetable gardening in allotments was commonplace. Folks not only raised vegetables but also chickens and rabbits in their allotments. They chatted with their neighbors in the adjoining allotments. They competed to see who could grow the largest vegetables.