Member Tristan Allsop recommends a book called Silent Earth* by Dave Goulson (who is speaking at BridLit on Friday Nov 12) about the catastrophic decline in insect populations across the globe. He spends a couple of pages writing about and singing the praises of allotments, and I wondered if members may be interested in what he has to say:
From Silent Earth* by Dave Goulson
I think there are better ways to grow food and I would argue that farming could learn something from allotments. Allotments typically have lots of different crops grown in small patches, and often look quite messy. You might think that an unpromising model for what food production could look like, but let me tell you a little more about them.
First, a recent study from Bristol University, based on data collected from around the UK, found that allotments had the highest insect diversity of any urban habitat – higher than gardens, cemeteries or city parks, higher even than city nature reserves. Allotments teem with life, probably a result of their higgledy-piggledy nature, with a huge diversity of crops and flowers being grown, some fallow and weedy plots, old decaying sheds, fruit trees and currant bushes, compost heaps, occasional ponds and more. This is also helped by the generally low use of pesticides: Beth Nicholls, who was previously involved in the studies of pesticides in bee food described in Chapter 7, has more recently been surveying pesticide use on allotments near Brighton, and found that most use few or no pesticides. When growing food for our personal consumption or to feed our kids, most of us are much more sparing in the use of pesticides than any conventional farm.
Secondly, Beth has also been working with allotmenters to collect information on the productivity of allotments, and the results are astonishing. Many produce the equivalent of 20 tons of food per hectare (a typical allotment is one-fortieth of a hectare), with a few producing the equivalent of 35 tons or more. This compares very favourably to the main arable farmland crops in the UK, wheat and oilseed rape, which produce about 8 and 3.5 tons per hectare respectively (much of this going to animal feed or to produce the heavily processed foods that help make us fat). Bear in mind also that the allotment produce is negligible food miles, zero packaging, healthy fruit and veg, often produced with minimal chemical inputs.
Thirdly, research has found that allotment soils tend to be healthier than farmland soils, with more worms and higher organic carbon content, helping to tackle climate change.
Fourthly, a study in the Netherlands found that allotmenters tend to be healthier than neighbours without allotments, particularly in old age. The researchers could not discern whether this was due to the consumption of fresh fruit and veg, the exercise gained from allotmenting, or perhaps the social benefits of having an allotment. Given the abundant evidence that being active, outdoors and in green space is good for us both in terms of mental and physical health, this result is not surprising.
To summarise, allotments seem able to produce lots of food, support high biodiversity, have healthy soil, and make people healthier. This seems like a win-win-win-win situation. Clearly there does not have to be a trade-off between food production and looking after nature.
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*Goulson, D., 2021. Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse. London, United Kingdom: Vintage Publishing.