to wonder why people have become so detached from the countryside?

[petswinprizes]

Inspired partly by the badger nests mentioned elsewhere, and partly from a question about the 'dead, black crop in the field' from the head teacher of a rural school (field beans, in case you're wondering), why is so little known about the countryside?

When children are small, its all Tractor Ted, Big Barn Farm, stories about animals in farmyards, then as soon as they get to school, whoosh, nothing.

How can we all consume so much, and have so little knowledge about where it comes from and how it is grown?

Don't know. Even round here, really rural, lots of farms, arable and other, there is so much iggerance!

I also love the way people recoil from non shop food. Until we moved we kept chickens. I used to take eggs in to work. One woman wouldn't take any as she really didn't want her 6 year old put at risk!

I have no idea what she thought my free range, GM free chickens would hide in their eggs, but she was very afraid of it.

Another woman would immediately wash any dirty eggs. We (other egg 'growers') tried to explain why this was a really bad idea, but she couldn't abide a dirty egg - or re-used egg box. Oh, and she wouldn't take any of our excess fruit and veg either. Because it had NOT been prayed with commercial 'stuff' and so might have something horrible lurking in it!

I have given up wondering why... it just is. As in so many things we are becoming more and more divorced from the reality of dirt!

Supermarkets don't have the best relationship with suppliers, do they?

Overall, I'd say the triumph of economies of scale have turned the countryside into a set of evil twins: cheap, cheap supplies versus "artisan" supplies.

Because the reality is nothing like the farming you see in books for children. It is industrial and hideous for the most part - I live in a farming village.

This is a hugely important to me. I am a Primary teacher but am also a director of a Community Interest Company that focuses entirely on food/rural life/rural jobs. We provide alternative provision for children who are struggling for whatever reason in mainstream schools.

On paper, these young people are a teacher's worst nightmare. Some excluded for knife crimes, violence in school, drugs... some are just unsuited to formal education. But put them in a rural setting, working on a farm, creating wood products, mass catering using the centre's own grown products etc and they come alive. One lad has secured an apprenticeship at a local butcher; one has been taken on as a trainee chef.

We also host primary classes for one-off days or long term projects. The lack of knowledge about where their food comes from, or just ANYthing about the countryside is shocking.

I don't know but I am irritated by the fact that my children attend a rural school and there's no nature table in my year 2 child's classroom! Why!?

I might have to think up some nature related craft or something so I can have an excuse to get something naturish happening.

We live in the fairly inner city. I doubt most kids at my DCs' schools know much about the countryside, but they know loads about the way a city works and moves, and quite a lot of that I'd really rather they didn't yet know, so it evens out, I guess. But I think it's sad, although natural in an increasingly urban society. There is a whole thing about dirt and going outside and kids in nice clean clothes, when it's probably more useful in the long run to get them mucky but outdoors and learning about the natural world (if the child wants to, I mean). We seem to be becoming a more cautious country, iyswim? Which isn't bad necessarily, but kids aren't getting outside as much, aren't 'exploring' as much, aren't going to the countryside as much.

We live in a very rural area and apart from my 3 dc there is only one other child from a farming family at our primary school of 200 kids.

We do have 3 resident school chickens though......

Because the reality of farming is nothing like it's portrayed . I live in the fens , where farming is the single biggest employer . Round here is intensive growing because the area holds something like 70 per cent of all the grade 1 soil in the UK . We grow the vast majority of the peas , beans , potatoes , carrots , and sugar beet in the UK . The soil round here is referred to as 'black gold ' and goes for about £8.5k an acre for arable use . As I type , I have a beet harvester and two 28 tonne lorries queuing up outside my house to take the beet off the field and get it to the British sugar factory than runs 24/7 . When it's pea harvesting season it's like formula 1 but with mud all over the roads . Romantic and wafting about with a trug gathering artfully quirky vegetables it ain't . The trouble is that some people seem to think the countryside is always going to be green, leafy and full of friendly artisans doing cottage industry, because that's the image that keeps the tourist industry going , and is perpetuated by things like 'glamping' , which whilst they're wonderful and very popular , are by no means an accurate reflection of the countryside , which , if you'll pardon the pun , is much more down to earth.

Stickem... what are chips made from?

You see, I used to work with a local charity, promoting healthy living. I got hung up on this question and, over 4 years, must have asked a few hundred people where chips came from? I only remember 2 people telling me 'from potatoes'.

Other answers, they just are; from the freezer; Iceland (the shop); made from?; erm; stuff left over from making something else that is squeezed into strings; chip?

I am not joking. Hardly anyone knew that chips are made from potatoes. Why is that bad? Well, it does sort of leave you relying on pre-made or fast food.

And as for kids not knowing that beef comes from cows, pork from pigs, etc. Or my friends favourite tale: she had a friend who had always lived in a foreign metropolis. He came to visit, she took him out around her village. He saw a field of cows and ran... just ran. She found him and asked what was up? He was terrified. Cows on the telly, in the adverts, look really small. He had not realised they were HUGE!

It just seems very wrong to be so divorced from the world that feeds you!

MrsWinnibago We always used to have a nature table! We would all take in interesting things like conkers and acorns and collect coloured leaves. Once I even found a tiny skull when out on a walk. When my daughter was at primary I was very disappointed at the lack of a nature table, when did they stop doing that? It's such a simple, cheap and effective tool. Perhaps the teachers don't know enough about different trees etc to be able to do it?

I'm always astounded at the ignorance about the most basic things. Last year when I was picking blackberries a boy asked me if they were raspberries. At least he was close I suppose and was showing an interest.

Nomama the council here are talking about putting some sheep out on some public land to eat down the scrub/ragwort etc. People have actually been writing to the local paper to complain it will be dangerous for walkers. People are afraid of sheep! . Cows I can understand, I'm wary of them myself because they can and do attack people and have been known to kill, but I've never seen sheep doing anything but run away.

Scared of sheep?!?!?!

Cows, OK. There is something terrifying in a herd of cows finding you really interesting, so you don't need angry ones to be wary.

Everyone knows it is pigs you need to be scared of! We used to carry pig prods (think extra strong taser) when walking home, just to be on the safe side when walking through a field of pigs.

Send them daft persons here, they can drive through the forest and see how scary sheep are. Well, I suppose they are when they just walk out in front of the car

I think some kids never escape the urban sprawl. You need transport for a kick off.

I agree we need a connection to the land. Understand food doesn't start in a shop. Otherwise, how can we ensure we are educating a future generation who can make sensible decisions about food or farming or land?

There is definitely a fear factor. Muddy veg, dirty eggs, smelly animals. People don't want their kids getting - ooh - germs...

No danger of that where I live, frequently held up on the school run due to tractor loads of vegetables being transported, plenty or rural 'smells', we can see the crops from our windows (even though we live on an estate), local economy thrives on farming and children regularly go on farm visits etc.

I feel detached from city life .

Seamus Heaney's The Early Purges cured me of any interest in country life.

This isnt a new issue for town based people, there were lots of surprises during WW2 about how few of the evacuated children knew what pigs and cows looked like, where milk came from etc.

Farming has moved from being smaller scale being the major employment industry in many rural areas to being more industrial, with the numbers employed vastly reduced, further separating people from the processes involved.

In rural areas, the amount of farmland that's accessable to the public is reduced.

It's unknown and not part of the bulk of people's lives. And how many farms are like the Cbeebies farms anyway? With a couple of pigs, a handful of sheep, chickens just wandering where they fancy etc.

Because town and country are complete opposites.
One is all about controls see traffic, planning, H&sS etc. the other is all random variables..weather, amount of effort, labour etc.
On the one hand country life is miserable ( hard work, low financially reward cold, wet ,dark, relentless) but essentially real. You would definitely want to be with a country person if the third world war hit. On the other hand town life is totally nuts and divorced from any kind of reality but offers the lovely life we all aspire to in the end. Ie lots of money for less effort and relative comfort.

Nomama's first post on this thread made me think of a recent documentary on advertising. There was a lot on the way that advertisers have managed to terrify people into believing that they'll die if they don't spray everything they touch and eat with brand-named chemicals - so commercial cleaning products, supermarket bought food etc. have become sort of post-industrial talismans for the the fearful.

I guess that unless you're lucky enough to have your own land to grow food on, or you have real, lived experience of rural life and agriculture, or rural roots/close friends/family, then there's no real reason that you'd be any more familiar with the countryside and how food is produced (or should be) than you'd know about the inner workings of your own body - without someone else explaining them to you!

I thought about this also when hearing about Diana Mitford - I knew nothing about her, but was interested in how she wanted to help show people that agriculture and land management involve skills and constant hard work - that the countryside doesn't just sort of 'happen'! I know so many people who think it does!

I suppose, then, that those of us with a foot in both camps find it more weird than the confirmed urbanites!

Mary, I recently told a city born and bred friend that our local secondary school has its own farm. (It does - it teaches agricultural studies.)
Dear friend replied replied 'Yes, my school had a farm, too.'
The 'farm' at her school was a couple of goats in a pen!
So perhaps when people are making well-intentioned efforts to help children in cities experience and understand 'rural' things, they should be more careful with the language they use.

My grandad had pigs. He had an old door with handles on and always kept if between him and the sow because they really can be lethal.

Oh yes, one of the 'complaints' was about walkers catching germs from the sheep droppings. Shame they weren't as concerned about all the poo their dogs left behind. I know which I'd rather be washing off of my boots! I'd rather be faced with a sheep than a badly-trained dog too.

See, I disagree about the countryside people = real life. It'd be the same as saying farmers don't experience real life, only hunters and foragers do.

Chapina - I agree! And so apparently does the Harari geezer in his fab book 'Sapiens'. Really interesting stuff in there about how wheat 'tamed' the human race....

I didn't know anyone had said anything about countryside being real life. That certainly isn't anything I have intended to infer.