The 40th LECTURE on EVERYTHING Thursday 29th November 2012, Marsh Barn, 8pm,
Back in the 60s most of our home-grown foods came from sustainable mixed farms. But following our entry to the EU – and thanks in part to the generous farm subsidies on offer – many farmers abandoned livestock and grazing and reinvented themselves as specialist arable growers. The consequences of this rural revolution are only now becoming apparent. Many of our everyday foods have lost the nutrients that once protected our health. The life of our soils is being destroyed by a battery of chemical inputs so its ability to feed us well and protect our planet is being steadily impaired. However this lecture isn’t going to be a grim litany of destruction. Graham Harvey will explain how to seek out the foods that will not only protect your health, but begin the job of healing and restoring our environment and wildlife. Oh yes, and it might just kick-start an economic revival too.
After graduating in agriculture at Bangor – followed by a spell of post-graduate research – Graham Harvey joined Farmers Weekly as a reporter and feature writer. He has since written on food and farming for a wide range of publications including The Sunday Times, Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, New Scientist, and Country Life. For three years he wrote ‘the Old Muckspreader’ column in Private Eye.
In the mid 1980s he joined the script-writing team of the long-running radio series The Archers, since when he has written more than 600 episodes. For 14 years he was the programme’s Agricultural Story Editor, responsible for developing the farming and rural storylines. For TV he has written episodes of The Bill and of the space series Jupiter Moon. He has also written a number of stage plays, mostly on rural themes. They include The Shearing Gang, the story of young people from a rural community in crisis, and The Darkness of the Sun, about the West Country writer Henry Williamson.
His books include: The Killing of the Countryside (1997), The Forgiveness of Nature (2000), We Want Real Food (2006). His most recent book – The Carbon Fields – was published in 2008.
In the past year Harvey has moved into film production. A founder of Pasture Promise TV, he has co-produced a series of short films about pasture farming and sustainable agriculture. He is also co-founder of the country’s leading conference on low-input, ecological agriculture – the Oxford Real Farming Conference.
‘what loneliness/ to be blind in broad daylight-/and deaf, what loneliness/ when the song’s in full swing’
Telephone:·· 078 33 79 56 29
(01308) 458 116
Email:· eendymion@yahoo.com
MARSH BARN
Burton Road,
Bridport, DT6 4PS
Thursday 29th November 2012, Marsh Barn, 8pm,
(adults £6, under 18s –free)
