Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes by Rosie Boycott

fridges out of the area where the chickens now live. I know how much work it has been and how much
     it has cost, but although I can see that, on paper at least, we need to expand in order to produce enough to supply not only
     Dillington but everything that the Popp Inn (with which we have arranged a small, regular supply contract) needs, as well
     as some other local restaurants. I'm worried. Bob, who used to be a council worker in Yeovil, mowing the roundabouts and tidying
     up the town's public spaces, is now with us full-time. Clearly we needed an extra pair of hands, but that means another salary
     to pay.
    The original budget is way out of kilter. Last night Charlie and I decided that we needed to have a serious financial conversation
     with David, but we're both rather dreading it. The farm has grown in lopsided ways with little formal structure and hope has
     generally triumphed over more serious considerations of profit and loss. Charlie is good with figures: his VAT returns go
     in on time and he compiles them himself. I bundle all my receipts, bills, invoices and cheque stubs into an envelope and send
     them to my accountant with only days to go before the quarterly deadlines. In our marriage, Charlie looks after our joint
     finances, but I'm meant to be in charge of the farm business and I've been ducking the need to sit down with David to hammer
     out just where our investments are going and, more importantly, when and what money will be coming in. But I'm cheered when
     David tells me that the chickens laid seventy-five eggs yesterday, 17 January, their record production to date. We've laid
     four-inch-wide bendy blue plastic perforated pipes through their run and the ground is now dry, despite the heavy rains. It
     may be fanciful, but I think they look happier, standing around in peaceful groups and pecking the ground for grubs, their
     eyes bright, their feathers glossy.
    Since we started the farm, I've been reading copiously about food, farming, the countryside, the environment and animals.
     One of the best books I've read is Felicity Lawrence's Not on the Label. This searing indictment of supermarket practices lifts the lid on chicken production, food miles, additives and more. I met
     Felicity at the beginning of January at the Soil Association's annual conference in London. When she learned that our smallholding
     was just outside Ilminster, she told me she'd recently written about the situation in Chard, a small Somerset town five miles
     away, where Portuguese immigrants have been brought in to work for Oscar Mayer, a firm which manufactures ready meals for
     Sainsbury's.
    There are, she told me, enormous problems with the Portuguese immigrants and they are directly linked to the cheap food available
     in our supermarkets. Oscar Mayer, which employs 900 people, was also once the owner of Hygrade Meats, where David spent his
     dismal years processing pork into ham and stuffing it into packets. Supermarkets keep firms such as Oscar Mayer on a tight
     financial string. Their contracts are never assured and can be cancelled at a moment's notice. Like many companies that have
     contributed to the UK's economic success in the last decade, Oscar Mayer has invested in all the latest technology to keep
     up with the demands of the supermarkets, their main employers. When Tesco opened up their 'metro' stores in the middle of
     busy high streets, they ripped out the storerooms in the back to create extra retail space. Computers linked to cash registers
     signal when supplies of product are running low; these messages are fed to trucks which restock the shelves, sometimes several
     times a day. This technique, where nothing is kept in stock and food is constantly on the move in trucks, is known as 'just
     in time'. For the supermarkets, it means prices are kept down because food is never idling in storage, but supplying this
     market means that firms like Oscar Mayer have to cope with huge and often last-minute