Frack Free Food

Are you a foodie, farmer, fisherman , forager, grower, chef,  whole food shop, farmers market, community garden, wholesaler, restaurant, café, pub, supermarket, vineyard, brewer, butchers, bakers, grocer?

Will you help to keep LANCASHIRE FOOD FRACK FREE?

Lancashire has a fantastic local food movement with locally grown produce, farmers markets, organic farms, whole food shops, ethical supermarkets, we even have local food awards. The question is: Will chefs and consumers have faith in Lancashire food if fracking is allowed to take hold, industrialising our landscape and contaminating the land? As more of us are growing our own veg we understand just what is needed to produce healthy food. Pure water. Clean Air. Uncontaminated soil.

Our aim is to protect our local food economy from oil and gas industrialisation. Please Contact us with the name of your business, give us a quote as to why you oppose fracking in the UK, download one of our beautiful Frack Free Food posters to display on your premises, link websites with us! Together we will have a stronger voice.

Fracking has already been in process in the USA. We can learn from their experience of how this extreme technology affects food and farming. Please scroll down the page to read many articles on this.


How Fracking Affects Food

Healthy farming needs abundant supplies of clean water, clean air, and clean soil. It needs a critical mass of acreage that is not fragmented by drill pads, access roads, pipelines and compressor stations. Farms need to be free of the stigma that may be attributed to food sourced from areas where fracking could take place.


A few points to consider:

• Air-borne VOCs that are released in the drilling and transport process, and from thousands of diesel fueled truck trips per well, is converted to ground-level ozone when combined with sunlight. These emissions can cause health problems in humans and livestock. Ground level ozone has been shown to reduce crop yield by up to 30%, and endangers key feed crops such as clover, vital for pastured livestock.


• Methane and other chemicals that seep out in the process will wind up in air and surface water such as farm ponds, streams and rivers that provide irrigation for livestock and crops.

• Chemical residues in waste water can poison animals.

• Unlike agriculture’s water usage, water used for hydraulic fracturing is consumptive and permanently removed from the hydrological cycle. This is especially foolish and wasteful in areas of extreme drought where the availability of water is already shrinking.

• It is impossible for adequate food safety inspections to occur since oil and gas companies are not required to fully disclose the chemicals used in the toxic drilling cocktail. There is no set process for testing for contaminants or complete knowledge of what to test for.

• Interestingly, the ingredients of salt and water cannot receive organic certification.

• Fragmentation of farm land leads to inefficiencies in production and the reduction of vital infrastructure and services that support agriculture in a given area

• Sales of food and farm products from fracked areas will be adversely affected by the wholesale and retail buyers distrust of the health and safety of the product, forcing the end of businesses, the loss of food, and the end of a way of life.

• The combination of well pad construction and heavy traffic from hundreds of truck trips cause soil compaction, which can negatively impact normal root development and water infiltration and drainage.

• Shale gas development can result in increased competition for resources required by both the oil and gas industries and agricultural industry, such as water, labor, and transportation.



Resources and Links



Fracking poses risk to UK farm animals and food safety, experts warn
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2082668/fracking_poses_risk_to_uk_farm_animals_and_food_safety_experts_warn.html


Fracking sparks food safety concern as expert warns of serious risk to livestock
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/fracking-sparks-food-safety-concern-as-expert-warns-of-serious-risk-to-livestock-8822746.html

California Chefs Join Together to Fight Fracking
https://secure3.convio.net/fww/site/SPageNavigator/CA_Chefs_Against_Fracking.html

Anglers highlight fears for fish species if fracking goes ahead
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/anglers-highlight-fears-for-fish-species-if-fracking-goes-ahead-1.1710040

Why Fracking and Farming Don’t Mix
http://www.catskillmountainkeeper.org/our-programs/fracking/whats-wrong-with-fracking-2/farming-and-fracking/

Can Fracking and Farming Mix in America’s Biggest Ag State?
http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/03/27/fracking-farming-california

California Agriculture Under Threat as Fracking Spreads West
http://www.publicherald.org/archives/17336/investigative-reports/uncategorized/

When drought occurs, fracking and farming collide
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_25089583/when-drought-occurs-fracking-and-farming-collide

A lot of farmers in my area are leasing their land for hydraulic fracturing — is it good or bad?
http://www.farmaid.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=qlI5IhNVJsE&b=2723877&ct=10863325


Special thanks goes out to the Sussex Frack Free Food Alliance! If you are looking for a Frack Free Food Alliance in your area you should contact their Facebook site at :-

https://www.facebook.com/TheFrackFreeFoodAlliance