Climate change is a curious thing. There are still those that deny that it exists. There is the hangover of the confusion between concepts of global warming and climate change. There are still arguments over the impact of human activity.
We all like to make decisions based on factual evidence, but as with many things in life, there are so many variables. Variables that are themselves subject to systems that we are only starting to understand.
One of the attractions that I have found about sea buckthorn is the network of those for whom sea buckthorn is either a fascination or part of their life.
So this week I heard from two both reporting on issues that I would attribute to a change of climate.
As a farmer climate stability would give one economic stability. Seasons are important. Winter particularly provides a potential kill of pests and diseases.
Now though seasons blend from one to another. Weather is a series of record events whether heat or wet. For Devereux farm winter though has become an extension of autumn through into spring.
I heard this week from Finland where temperatures are oscillating from one week to the next, one mild and just above freezing, the next dipping down into temperatures that in the UK we would call artic.
Then from Mongolia, reports of temperatures that are below minus ten degrees C. At least half the normal chill factor that will confuse their ecology in the same way as my Siberian sea buckthorn finds my mild temperate winter.
Where will all this go – for all the computer models there is uncertainty which will impact on predicting how a crop will turn out at harvest. But that is life.
Another interesting issue this week has been the WHO report on where the world is heading. As with climate change, making long term predictions requires a level of belief that is sometime difficult to accept. But we know that the western world particularly suffers from obesity, diabetes and cardio vascular disease issues. Unfortunately as the global economic grows so it seems does the health problem. Is it credible therefore to predict that by 2030 one third of the world population will be in a state called “pre-diabetic”.
The message behind this is that food producers and the food supply chain needs to step up to the challenge. Regulators say that food is not a medicine, but diet is one of the best forms of preventative medicine that we have. it is continuous and relentless. It is an essential that everyone partakes in every day, in fact several times a day. It is time that we started to accept that food is more than calories, fat, sugar, salt – a package of negative factors. We must turn this around and look for the positives. Limit the negatives maybe, but that is just good management. There needs to be an understanding and belief brought back that the balanced diet is a way to a long, healthy and productive life. Yes, we are living longer now – but that life is under the shadow of a rising National Health Service budget that neither the government nor food consumers can afford.