One sure way to worsen world hunger is to destroy people’s capacity to feed themselves, which is what industrial agriculture has largely done.

Small-scale farmers produce most of the world’s food but are squeezed into less than one quarter of the world’s farmland – or less than one fifth if you omit China and India.

There is good news though – some very enterprising people in the UK and abroad are doing things differently and it’s working.

They are returning to more traditional ways of farming, supporting the land rather than destroying it.

We need to reconnect with this complex food web and continue or start to grow our own food. It can be done even in the smallest of gardens.

Building a system (somehow) that relies heavily on locally grown foods would go a long way towards solving many of our global health problems.

I quote: “Your most powerful tool for change is your fork – you vote with your fork at least three times a day. But you can also vote with your shovel and start growing some of your own food.”

KATE TRAVERS

High St

Sutton

Via e-mail