Milk and Meat Merry Madness

Talking to a Dutch colleague of mine this week, he was getting finished helping with the CAP money decisions in The Hague and other stuff like that because he has a much more important job to do this weekend. He was off to help in his Father's butchers shop for the Christmas rush.

Working in a butchers shop in the days before Christmas is brilliant. It is second only to delivering milk on Christmas Eve. I did both for years and I loved every minute of it.

That's me on the left (from here by the way)

Delivering milk on Christmas Eve is a bit mad. You load up with a double lot of milk and a buckets of cream all noted down on order forms. I remember the land rover would move slowly, blinding every passing car because there was too much weight on the back end. It took ages, because nearly every conversation between my mate the milkman and us lads delivering milk before every customer went something like this:

"Down there, down the side of that terrace, put it under the bucket as normal. Now let's see, jesus where has that bloody form gone? She wrote it all down. It's like a bloody essay. Where's the damn form gone? IT WAS HERE A MINUTE AGO! Are you sat on it you big lump? Oh hang on, hang on, panic over, here it is. Right. Normal milk. That's 2 for today. 2 for tomorrow 'cos its a double day, that's 4. And 4 extra? 8 PINTS? There's only bloody two of 'em, and their Michael lives in Canada now with his new wife and they're off to her family this year, she told me last week. Anyway, bollocks, they're having it. I'm not taking this lot home. Milk, sorted. Sooooo, cream. 2 small doubles. Sorted. 1 big whippin' - grand, jesus we're short of them. 1 pint double. A PINT OF DOUBLE CREAM? She does this every bloody year, she'll be bollocking me next week for leaving too much."

 

And so it went on.

After delivering milk, I used to go into the local butchers then to help with the Christmas orders. People go mad at Christmas. They shop all year at a supermarket, then go all dewy-eyed at Christmas time and use the local butcher for everything. This isn't a problem of course, it is just a shame they don't do that all year round. 

My job was two fold. First, keep the queue happy. They would snake out of the door, past the garage joining the shop and sometimes be stretching round the corner to the Working Mens Club. You keep a Christmas butchers shop queue happy by bribing them with Christmas cake and mince pies. The butcher was always so cheerful and happy that people were in the shop and interested in them that he had long conversations with everyone. This didn't alter on Christmas Eve either, so it didn't matter whether people were spending 50 quid or a fiver, they all got the same attention. This meant there was a long queue, but of course, that is part of the charm.

 

Out of the door, in front of the garage, round the corner near the Working Mens Club (from here)

Second, you had to work through the logistical nightmare that was THE CHRISTMAS TURKEY ORDERS. Essentially, I realised that you never ever please everyone. There are only so many turkeys to go around, and you have to try and get it right. "Put all them big 'uns in one place. Good god, look at the size of this one, who is going to eat all that? Where's the little 'uns? Remember Barbara always wants a small one. If she moans she'll have to have a big chicken."

 

And the story that came out every year was the butcher, since retired, who had only one turkey left on Christmas Eve late on. It was completely and utterly the wrong size. The lady who came to collect it was particularly forthright, and when he went to collect it from the fridge she was horrified. "That really won't do, it really won't, you must have another one that's bigger" she said. The butcher went back to look in the empty fridge, shouted at a fictional person to 'BRING THAT BIGGER TURKEY FROM OVER THERE,' said a few words to the patron saint of happy customers and big turkeys and turned round back into the shop with exactly the same turkey he had presented before, this time with a beaming smile. 

"Lovely, that's better!" she said.  

 

And that is why delivering milk and working in a butchers at Christmas is brilliant. Even better, it hasn't changed either.

 

Animal health and human wealth

There is a lot of talking in Brussels. The city of compromise is also the capital of conferences, and when you work here it is important to pick and choose the ones to go to. I am a sucker for sandwiches, free pens and badges with my name on but there is also the day job to be getting on with.

I try to attend conferences concerned with animal health, and this week has been no exception with one yesterday focussed on antimicrobial resistance. A pretty dry but very important topic, it looked at what can be done to cut down on resistance in human and animal medicine. If you're interested, take a look here. I also re-discovered some notes from a conference last year on the 'Economics of Animal Health' which you can see here.

From my notes from the conference last year, I scribbled that:

- In the EU, livestock represents 40% of the farm sector that employs 12m people.

- In Asia and sub-Sarahan Africa, 900m people rely on livestock for their livelihood. 

- Globally, the livestock sector and related industries employs 1.3bn people.

- The livestock sector is a $1.4 trillion global asset. 

You can easily see that the health of livestock and livestock in general has an impact on a hell of a lot of people in the world directly, and everyone else indirectly as we interact with the food system and the environment around us. What often strikes me at these type of gigs though, is the different and sometimes conflicting mindsets that policymakers and NGOs have on this topic.

In the developing world, livestock pulls people out of poverty. Too often in the developed world, some people see livestock as a problem to be dealt with. Why is the role of livestock in the developing world illustrated like this on the left below, but too often like this on the right in the developed world?

Cows in Africa as a development tool (see here) 

A sheep with BTV (see here)

Yes, I am speaking very generally here. 

However, imagine how positive it could be if it wasn't like that. Imagine if we focussed on livestock as a driver for development in Europe as well. Think of the jobs that could be created through a thriving and profitable livestock sector; where farmers have the money to be able to reinvest and grow their businesses, spend money in the local economy, develop new products and export them. Just think how positive that could be.

In the developing world, a farmer wanting to double his cow numbers would be applauded for striving to build a better business and a better life for his family and quite right too. I am not sure a farmer in Europe wanting to do exactly the same is viewed in quite the same light.  

Eau dear

I met up with someone yesterday who works for a chemical company. We see each other periodically to put the world to rights and swap stories. This train of thought is entirely down to him but is worthy of attention. I haven't really thought about this before.

Here are a few things that are entirely normal about how we think about food:

- Consumers want to know where their food is coming from. 

- Consumers want to know where an animal was born, reared and slaughtered.

- Consumers want to know that the chemicals that are used in farming are safe.

- Consumers want to know when they buy beef lasagne it is beef lasagne.

- Consumers want to know that the animal they are eating was well looked after.

- Consumers want to know what farmers are doing with the taxpayers money they get.

- Consumers want to know about all of the above but they want it better and cheaper.  

- Consumers want to know they can have all this and a beautiful countryside. 

Here are a few things that in comparison are not normal about how I think about water:

- I live in Belgium, I have no idea where my water comes from. I didn't in England either.

- I don't know where my water started, what was done to it, or what it went through.

- I have no idea what chemicals are put into my water, and I don't think to ask.

- I presume that the water I drink is actually water, but it could be anything.

- I have no idea if the people giving me water look after it properly.

- I presume water companies sometimes get taxpayers money but I have never asked.

- I don't know if I want my water better and cheaper, I pay on direct debit and don't think.

- I don't link the countryside and water together when I am filling up a glass.

So I spend a lot of time getting hot and bothered about food and farming and environment and energy and politics and do you know I never ever think about water. I turn a tap on and presume that what comes out of it is what I think it is, that it is safe for me to drink, that getting it to me hasn't harmed the environment and that I can afford to buy it.

A strange thought isn't it? Is this because the water is always abundantly there and I don't have to go to a shop to get it? Do we need a shortage to make me appreciate it more? Why do I think about the coffee I drink, the vegetables I cook and the meat I eat but I don't think about the water to make the coffee, the water to cook the vegetables and the water the animal drank?

Reasons to be cheerful

Sometimes there are a few things that come our way all at once that make us unhappy. It is useful to remember though that somewhere hopefully there will be some nuggets of something positive. As this blog ACTUALLY deals with food and farming rather than general health and wellbeing here are some agricultural reasons to be cheerful:

1. General trend for pesticide use is down

See here 

2. Farmers are using less man made fertiliser 

 See here

3. Milk prices for hard pressed dairy farmers are looking rosier

See here 

4. Over time there has been increasing amounts of land in agri-environment schemes

See here

5. Also, Higher Level Stewardship shows a positive trend

See here

6. The trend for nasty stuff going in water is down down down

See here

7. Stupid people are tipping less crap in places they shouldn't be 

See here

Enjoy your day and remember that it is often helpful to think of the good things.