First Thoughts

‘A Future’ implies that this is one future amongst other possibilities. The others might involve GM foods, and a continuation of monoculture deserts, supermarket hegemony, and British people wracked with guilt (they should be anyway) because they are exploiting land that should be used for the people who live there, and disrupting the climate due to continuing dependence on fossil-fuel powered machinery, transport and agrichemical production. PFAF’s concept of our Future is possibly the only sustainable future, a future of food security for Britain, secured by a transition towards more plants foods, cultivated vegan-organically – stock free, because the land of Britain could obviously feed the 60 million population on its 60 million acres, but not 10 million cattle (the size of the UK herd) as well, and goodness knows how many millions of other livestock too. See below for an exploration of how Britain might feed itself.


The site was acquired by me, Chris Marsh, trustee of Plants For A Future, the Charitable Company on 4 April 2008. [At the time of writing I was] the sole trustee willing to take PFAF forward. Two other trustees [had] done sterling work in the past, but need to move on. I am seeking people to replace them, and there is already interest, possibly on a quid pro quo basis: people working for another organisation have invited me to become a trustee of their charity on the understanding that they will be trustees of this one. This will mean new trustee work for me, and so, for PFAF, I shall want to shrink back into the proper trustee role: determining policy, taking strategic decisions, rather than doing any of the administration. ‘Make yourself redundant!’ Rob Hopkins, of Transition Town Totnes, urges the ‘core group’ of a new Transition Town initiative. Excellent idea! I shall appoint myself Transition Manager of PAF, and aim to delegate all the important tasks to others ASAP.

My one strategic decision – agreed to by the two existing trustees – is to commission and fund a piece of research work, focused on the PFAF research site, a 28 acre piece of land at Penpol in Cornwall, incongruously called ‘The Field’. The Terms of Reference for that work can be downloaded here, and anyone who is interested in getting involved is welcome to email me.

Chris Marsh