Caroline Stocks on the obvious combination of journalism, media and farming
If I read one more headline about cloned cows being in the food chain, I think I’m going to scream. Let’s get this straight, people. You haven’t eaten a clone. You haven’t drunk the milk produced by a cloned cow. Even if you had, it wouldn’t kill you, cause you to grow an extra arm [...]
I thought I’d use my unexpected rest stop at Champaign train station to catch up on a few blog posts. I’m swinging wildly from finding this escapade hilariously funny to getting really narked about my travel-related incompetency, so I don’t know which tone these might take to reflect my mood. Apologies in advance if they [...]
I’ve had the day off today and been up to Gob of the Wash’s pad in Lincolnshire. I’d pretended the trip was in aid of taking a flower-growing chum there to see Matthew’s farm, but in reality it was because I wanted to meet Wooster, the latest addition to the NayLo household. Like his master, [...]
I wrote a few articles last year about agricultural research in the UK. I was looking at funding sources, the decline in spend on R&D and the kinds of things research institutes in Britain are looking at. As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, I’m a bit of a geek, so I got very interested in [...]
I had several failed attempts at starting a blog before I really got my teeth into writing this one (and I probably only stuck with this because I paid for the domain name and, being northern, I hate seeing money go to waste). It’s not that I lost perseverance in writing posts, it’s because I [...]
I booked tickets to fly to Chicago and Toronto today for the first leg of my Nuffield study tour. To say I’m excited is an understatement. I’m now having to confirm the meetings I’ve been tentatively organising over the past few weeks and I’m already thinking I could’ve done with spending another week travelling around [...]
Since I started working in agricultural media, I’ve never been particularly impressed with the Soil Association’s often simplistic arguments that organic farming is superior to conventional food production. I had wondered whether the organisation had grown up a bit when, at its annual conference in February, policy director Peter Melchett finally admitted that both systems [...]
For those of you waiting with baited breath for the Lib Dem green manifesto word cloud (sorry Rob, you have my permission to have a nap rather than read this), here it is: Bit different to the others, innit? Agriculture-friendly words ‘fair’, ‘support’, ‘help’ and ‘future’ all dominate, while ‘farmers’ is the second most-featured word. [...]
My inner geek has been having a field day. I warn you in advance of reading this post that any ideas you might’ve had about me having a shred of coolness are woefully off the mark. Today most of the parties have published their manifestos ahead of the general election on May 6. Everyone at [...]
If there’s something I didn’t expect to come back from Ireland with, it was a farmer’s tan and an appreciation of Guinness. In just three days on our mini Nuffield reunion we managed to fit in…. A tour of Dublin (complete with obligatory trip to the city’s famous brewery) A monster-filled loch Trips to see [...]
