| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| wildfoodie |
I wonder if you could sell them on to a farmers market stall holder*? or the WI stand? or do a car boot and sell them there! * just remembered I think there are eho rules about making and selling to an intermediary.... you have to be registered with the local eh office which involves standards, procedural checks etc, curiously enough I can make jams and chutneys at home and sell in the shop because there's no third party involved... go figure.. 
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| gil |
Not if it's a serious farmers market - produce should be reared/produced by the stallholder, NOT by someone else. |
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| wildfoodie |
or try this
http://www.letslinkuk.net/ |
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| cinders |
[quote="wildfoodie"]
Am i right in saying i thought the laws on foraging was that you were to use for yourself, and not for resale and gain? |
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| marigold |
Whatever the law I'm beginning to feel very uneasy about the business of popularising foraging and the use of wild foods in "gourmet" cooking. The area I pick blackberries in and which has loads of sloes could be stripped bare in a couple of hours by a determined group of people. Made into a few pounds of premium-priced jam/jelly for people who don't really know what they are buying - is that really desirable?
It's all very well making a passing reference in programmes and articles to the need to pick responsibly and legally, but the stupid and greedy won't take any notice of that. Sorry if that sounds a bit killjoy-ish (and I'm not planning on stopping picking wild stuff myself), but it seems to me that there are dangers in too much advertising of the idea of getting something for nothing. Pick a few greens from the roadside and sell them for a fortune to idiot toffs - great idea! Even better than putting dirt on ordinary spuds and selling them as "organic" at a premium price.... |
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| marigold |
P.S. Sorry, the above is way off topic, I have no problem with people picking for their own use, I'm just a bit uneasy about where a fashion for wild foods may lead. | ||||
| wildfoodie |
agree.... have climbed on this particular soapbox a fair bit on this forum and INEBG otoh its difficult to control an idea which takes the publics fancy, all we can do is keep stumm about our best sites and promote safe and ethical foraging http://wildfoodie.googlepages.com/howtoforage |
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| tiff |
The trouble is, this sounds like its ok for you but not for the general public? | ||||
| wildfoodie |
frankly if I've done the work to find the good sites, I don't feel obligated to share that hard won, shoe leather intensive knowledge.
finding and identifying the food for oneself is a vital part of the learning curve. by keeping quiet about sites I've found I'm not depriving people of going to them I'm just not making it super easy for them to find and pillage. |
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| tiff |
Sorry, I mean its ok for you to forage but not for others. I'm not saying you should disclose the sites you're using.
I think it will become more popular, then fade away again like it has done in the past. |
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| wildfoodie |
no offence taken, but not sure what you meant - what makes it sound like its not ok for the public to forage ? I'm all for it provided the knowledge of foraging is firmly coupled with an understanding of sustainability and respect for wildlife flora and fauna. |
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| tiff |
I got the wrong end of the stick then, sorry again lol. That will teach me not to scan read. | ||||
| gil |
No, it's not. But then again, it's not profitable either, so I can't see it having commercial value in the way that 'shrooming can. Doing the sums : labour cost of a 'group' of people for a couple of hours - at least that amount of time, cos sloes are very fiddly and painful to pick. Add cost of additional materials (sugar, lemons, jars and lids, labels), and even more labour hours and utensils to make the preserves. And costs of selling - stall fees, postage, delivery. Ain't viable; noone's going to get rick quick making jam from UK-foraged wild fruit. To make economically viable quantities, you'd need to import the fruit in bulk from (say) Eastern Europe, or use commercially cultivated/harvested. Stupid and greedy people don't tend to know how to make preserves, either 
I'd agree with what Marigold and wildfoodie have said. |
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| gil |
BTW, I just put together my tips for safe, sustainable and legal fruit and leaf foraging for a course I'm running, so to add to wildfoodie's link above, and the sticky Cab posted at the top of the Foraging page, here's my tuppence-worth :
SAFE, SUSTAINABLE AND LEGAL FORAGING : GIL’S GUIDELINES ·If in doubt about plant identity, don’t pick to eat (especially fungi) ·Don’t pick endangered or protected species ·Don’t dig up wild plants (it’s illegal) ·Think about the plant’s place in the ecosystem (immediate/local/regional) ·Get to know and understand the local environment ·Obtain the landowner’s permission (other than public verges, etc.) ·Harvest sustainably, bearing in mind [list=]
Prevalence of the plant in the area (spread picking between sites) The manner in which the plant grows + reproduces The needs of all wildlife (food and shelter) ·Avoid damaging the plant when harvesting ·Cause as little disturbance or damage to the surrounding area as possible (Flora, fauna and landscape) ·Observe the Countryside Code (especially re litter, dogs and shutting gates) ·Don’t get carried away and pick more than you will be able to process before it goes off (waste not) ·A good general rule of thumb is to stop foraging on 31st October (All Souls), until the following spring. What is still on the trees and shrubs should be left over winter for the benefit of wildlife – they will need it more than you. Possible exceptions include sloes in years when frosts and winter come late, and very common leaves such as nettles. ·Do pick or photograph a representative sample of a plant, to enable positive ID ·Use available resources to reach a positive plant identification (see list) ·Learn the terms used to describe the appearance of plants (and fungi) Perhaps we should pool the three versions, and make an Article as well as a Sticky. |
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| marigold |
Good point. It also occurred to me during a post-lunch muse/snooze that over-foraging is kind of self-limiting anyway - once the berries have gone they've gone and "fad foragers" would move onto the next fad. My main concern is ending up with a heavy-handed blanket ban on picking anything from the wild because of irresponsible commercial picking (or even irresponsible private-use picking) of certain high-value things, e.g. 'shrooms and wild greens. |
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| gil |
The other kind of commercial wild-harvesting that is slightly worrying, and has already had negative effects in the US, is wild-harvesting for medicinal herbs, especially those that become the latest fad or 'must-have', or where there is some pharmaceutically proven use. For example, echinacea, prior to the setting up of horticultural enterprises for cultivating it.
Generally speaking, if there is a sufficient market for a plant, commercial interests will often look at growing it under cultivation in preference to wild-harvesting, as cultivation is more controllable, known cultivars with particular properties planted (for example there are plenty of wild elder trees that don't produce much fruit, so a commercial operation would plant cuttings from trees known to produce large berries in large quantities), harvest can sometimes be mechanised and human workers more easily supervised. Even I am in the process of bringing more 'wild' plants and fruiting trees onto the holding and under cultivation. |
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| Tilia |
So what would be the advice on bringing wild seed home to sow in the garden? Is that ok? | ||||
| gil |
I would think that's absolutely fine, and one of the best ways to go about it, for smaller plants. I also rexkon that taking cuttings (in a sustainable manner and not harming the bush/tree) is also viable and good. I've also had thoughts about returning some of what I grow here back to the wild to increase populations, but still wondering about whether it's a good thing to do, or whether it would upset the ecosystem - assuming nature finds its population limits/balance without my help. |
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| Nicky cigreen |
this is the big one of course. a farmer neighbour of ours is cert organic and had a bumper show of mushrooms and so sold them to a local box scheme. great. apart from they were picked by other people - (who had some idea that the countryside is free) |
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| cab |
Go for it 
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| cab |
If its not a protected species, yes, that should be okay. Same rules apply as ever though; do no harm, don't take more than you need, leave plenty. |
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| cab |
I think that we should differentiate between sharing knowledge of how to forage, and sharing specifics of where and what.
I try to get across a sense of enthusiasm for foraging, and in some of the members here I see just that same love of picking wild food, and I think its great. That isn't just a gut 'we like the same thing' feeling, its a thought out approach towards the natural world that I've been trying to put forward since I was in my teens. I'll try to explain. If you use your environment, if you get something solid out of it, you'll appreciate it. I'm not talking about clean water and clean air, things that we all (perhaps naively) take for granted, I'm talking about something you can hold, something tangible. Whether its a mushroom, a fruit, a handfull of greens, doesn't matter. The point is, if you appreciate the actual uses of whats around you then you'll care about maintaining things, keeping things growing, not trashing the world around you. And you can't just fall in to foraging things, you have to put some thought and effort into it. Otherwise your time as a forager is likely to end soon, and tragically! So to learn to forage you pick up information about what grows where, when it grows, what else you might mistake for what you're looking to eat, etc. You become a better naturalist because you're a better forager. And you'll also see other things too... Might be the occasional fox, badger sets, the occasional deer, kingfishers, common lizards, woodpeckers, squirrels, a multitude of colourful insect species, kestrels... I see all of those and more when I'm out foraging. And you know what? When you've introduced someone to foraging, and the bug bites them, you're not left with a forager. You're left with a naturalist, and a conservationist. Someone who will care too much to trample over wild orchids just to get at some mushrooms. Someone who will stand up and fight to protect the wild spaces around them. Yes, theres another foraging culture, the one where people go for a few high value species and sod the damage they do. I find that approach quite alien, and I steer clear of reccomending some of the more high value species partly for that reason. Doesn't mean that you can't pick those species, it just means that you have to be aware that sometimes they're the ones that are under most pressure. Anyway, I've gone on a bit there. I think what I'm saying can be summarised by the statement 'responsible foragers are the best of the good guys'. Does this make sense? |
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| Nick Ritar |
We are located in a reasonably remote area of Australia that has had population booms throughout it's history. This means there are lots of feral fruit trees that are almost never harvested. Oranges, lemon, apple, plums, pears, figs etc etc. Something good came out of the gold rush.
It has never occurred to us to try and keep the location of any of these trees secret, in fact we've been actively encouraging people to share the location of these community resources so less goes to waste http://www.milkwood.net/resources/how-tos/how-to-make-a-feral-fruit-map.html Fare enough if you want to try and keep a resource that you have 'discovered' secret, but you can't really complain if someone else finds it, or even if they publish it's location to the world. The key concept here is greed. If people are greedy and take more than they need for personal use then have an issue with that. Don't be angry with those of us who altruistically share of a community resource. We are not ruining for others, we are sharing the joys of foraging with our community. [/url] |
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| gil |
Welcome to Downsizer, Nick Rivar
I don't think anyone would be angry with you for sharing feral fruit tree information. As you say, better than that the fruit should go to waste, in your remote rural community. What's the population, BTW, and the square mileage ? I think it varies somewhat according to what is being picked, and the needs of the local ecosystem. In my rural community, there are wild raspberries, brambles, sloe bushes and apple trees. Local people know where they are, and if they want, will pick from them for fruit and for jam-making, as their parents and grandparents did. These are a kind of community resource, although very few people now make productive use of them. |
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| Northern_Lad |
G'Day Nick (sorry, legally obliged to greet Aussies that way).
You could be our first forrager who has to look out for being forraged by the wildlife. |
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| cab |
Hi Nick!
I think the issues here in the UK are rather different to the ones you face. I've seen, all too often, wildling apple trees torn apart by people picking irresponsibly. I've seen rare plants trampled and killed by people picking mushrooms. I've seen some woods picked completely clean of all fungi, all taken away by low paid workers to be sorted out into edible and inedible later on. We're a small island, we're rather heavily populated, foraging has to be done responsibly here! Part of that is instilling a sense of learning to appreciate what else is growing that you can't eat, and letting people learn for themselves how to identify what they can eat. I'll share good spots with people who I know and who will be responsible pickers, of course. I'd hold back from posting online however, the potential damage is too great. |
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| doctoral |
 Hi Nick and welcome,
Unfortunately, the UK is rather small and has a huge population compared to Oz. Someone once told me that everything living there wants a piece of you 
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| wildfoodie |
gil wrote:
this sounds like permaculture!
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