There is something wonderfully English and old-fashioned about allotments. They conjure up images of the 1940s – a resilient nation, growing its own in the face of food shortages and rationing.
But the paradox is that allotments are also a thoroughly fashionable and modern concept. As people become more and more concerned about the origin of the food they are eating, and more and more inclined to promote local food, the allotment becomes a more and more attractive idea.
Over coming years, the trend towards growing more for ourselves of what we eat is likely, if anything, to intensify. Shifts in the diet of two billion increasingly prosperous people in China and India, and the prospect of reducing food production in Africa due to climate change will increase pressure on world food security. We will need to make more effort to match food supply with food demand in Britain.
Of course, allotments by themselves are not going to cure all of these problems. We need – and we are indeed beginning to experience – a revolution in local food production.
Farmers in West Dorset and elsewhere are increasingly, and rightly, branding their products and selling much more directly into local markets. The woeful commoditisation of agriculture that occurred in the second half of the last century is being gradually reversed. Modern techniques are being used to make food that has old-fashioned virtues and hence more appeal to the modern consumer.
But, even if allotments aren’t the whole answer, they can play a significant role in increasing food security. So we should surely be finding ways of encouraging them in the Bridport area, in West Dorset more widely and in the country as a whole.
Besides, the pleasure that people take from cultivating a plot – and the thrill of eating something that you have nurtured from seedling to plate is a therapeutic gain that can only do good things for the people involved and for society at large.
So the question is: how do we conjure up little parcels of land which can be devoted to these benevolent uses?
There isn’t, of course, a single solution. Having been involved in efforts to find pieces of earth for allotments in various places in West Dorset, I can testify to the fact that it is not an easy task.
But we shouldn’t let that put us off. With ingenuity and persistence, we should be able to find bits of land here and there which are, for one reason or another, lying idle – and each little conquest contributes to the achievement of a much larger victory.
Count the square metres, and the hectares will gradually take care of themselves.