I'll do a long post on Jean-Paul one day soon but I just loved this photo of him washing his just-picked fennel. He's our local producer of beautiful organic vegetables, largely unsupported by the government, and surrounded by industrial farming which benefits in all ways from being supported by said government.
He works tirelessly, never takes a holiday - difficult when he's the one overseeing his non-intensive, biodiverse, and lovingly cared-for vegetable enterprise. Often when I go to get our veg it's an interesting process of having to find him, and if he's not ready due to sorting his market supplies, he'll suggest I pull my own carrots, cut lettuce etc. And I do with pleasure; there's not many things more satisfying than arriving home two minutes later with a bunch of sandy carrots, huge cabbage, coriander, potatoes et all, and then constructing a supper around his wonderful produce.
Our non-environmentally aware 'governors' need to wake up and realise the value of small farm producers like Jean-Paul, rather than blindly supporting the massive firms like the one next to us who turn the soil into sand; and now, (thanks to the government relaxing the laws on glyphosate), sand laced with dying pesticide-coated crops that have been part abandoned after whichever supermarket's quota has been filled.
I will rant further soon on this subject but here's a photo of our hedge compared to the 'soil' on the other side of it.
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