And the distance is .......

Welsh Lamb - 76 miles
Scottish Potatoes - 367 miles
Welsh Leeks - 148 miles
English Parsnips - 36 miles
English Broccoli - 163 miles
English Carrots - 107 miles

Giving a grand total travelled of - 897 miles

So how did you do?

Open Day Competition

Welcome to our Open Day and especially to the Geography Department competition.
Once again food miles is the topic, but this year we have gone for an entirely British fair.

So, to the nearest mile, how far has this Sunday dinner travelled?
Welsh Lamb
Scottish Maris Piper Potatoes
Welsh Leeks
English Parsnips
English Broccoli and
English Carrots

The answer will be revealed here on Saturday afternoon.

An effect of the cold!

Demand for gas in the UK is set to hit a new record on Thursday as people attempt to keep their homes warm through the severely cold weather.
The National Grid estimates usage will reach 455.3 million cubic metres. The current record is 449 million cubic metres, set on 7 January 2003.

Read more at the BBC.

So for those of you staying in by the fire tonight you could always watch Jimmy's Global Harvest on BBC 2 at 8pm - Jimmy Doherty embarks on a four programme mission to see how new farming techniques and technologies will help to feed us in the years to come.

One billion are undernourished

Targets to cut the number of hungry people in the world will not be met without greater international effort, UN food agencies have warned.
The UN's annual report on global food security confirms that more than one billion people - a sixth of the world's population - are undernourished.

Read more at the BBC.

Or read the actual report by clicking this link.

Africa's Green Revolution

From the begging bowl to the bread basket: in just two years, Malawi has gone from famine to food surplus - according to national statistics.

Smallholder farmers are being given access to new crop breeds; fertilisers; irrigation systems; and new techniques in crop rotation and soil management.

Agro-science is helping families to cope with climate change and helping Malawi to buck the trend in neighbouring African countries.

A bugs life?

Exotic species of spiders are making their homes in the UK, scientists say.
Researchers believe arachnids arriving in imports of food and plants are now able to survive and spread thanks to the UK's increasingly mild climate.
The new inhabitants include a species of false widow spider and some believe the deadly black widow could be next to invade.

Drought hits Ethiopia

Aid agencies are warning that Ethiopian authorities are under-estimating the scale of the country's drought.
Official estimates of the number of people facing hunger and hardship stand at 4.6m but agencies warn the real figure could be more than 8m.
There is also confusion over the amount of money needed to meet the crisis, with the Oxfam agency estimating it at about $500m.
However, the United Nations reports that $772m has already been pledged.

Rising food prices

As Mrs M complains about the rising cost of staple foods such as bread and milk the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) - has warned the industrialised countries that unless they increase yields, eliminate barriers and move food to where it is needed most, a global catastrophe could result.

The recent food crisis is believed to have pushed 100 million people into hunger worldwide. Poorer countries are faced with a 40% increase in their food imports bill this year, and experts say some countries' food bills have doubled in the past year.

According to the World Food Programme higher food prices are rooted in increased energy costs, rising demand from economic growth in emerging economies, the growth of biofuels and increasing climatic shocks such as droughts and floods.

The map below shows how the rising cost of food is affecting countries ballance of trade. Balance of tarde is the difference between the cost of exports and the cost of imports for a country.