The northern England region of the Seed Sovereignty Programme has been contributing to a brilliant collaborative project that’s looking at growing, cooking and eating more pulse crops across the region.
The group includes Northern Food and Farming (coordinated by LESS CIC) in Lancashire, the Organic Research Centre, Foodwise in Leeds and academics from both York and Leeds Universities, and came about in response to a consultation event that highlighted a pressing need to address both procurement and diversity in agro-ecological food systems as a means to bring about regional resilience.
Kindly funded in these initial stages by Farming the Future, the group have met twice to explore these intentions, and will do so once more in the spring. Most recently, this has involved a visit to Hodmedod’s, a retailer that specialises in ‘pulses, grains, seeds, flours and more from British farms’ – long time allies of the Seed Sovereignty Programme and consultants to the pulse project.
Hodmedod’s operates from a central warehouse in Suffolk. Their products are brought on site from farms across the country and packed for orders, the majority of which are placed online and despatched by mail. We visited on a Friday, their quietest day, but still a hive of activity with plenty to see!
As a nation, we do not consume enough pulses and when we do, we tend to eat those that don’t grow so well in our cool climate. We learnt that the term ‘bean’ is used as a catch all in the US, and this has caught on to an extent here, making it difficult to make a case for the pulses we can grow more easily – principally those from the pea family. For small scale growers, this difficulty might not be so apparent, but scaling to farm, bottlenecks and roadblocks begin to appear.
Growing any type of legume is a great addition to agro-ecological systems. Their roots add nitrogen to the soil for all but the final stages of growth, they attract pollinating insects and support complex ecosystems, and the harvestable product – a dried pea or bean – stores well enabling good prices to be attained. They can even be ‘bicropped’ with cereal crops, fertilising their roots and supporting them from ‘lodging’ (falling over). On the face of it, pulses are a no-brainer to a farmer.
But this isn’t the reality sadly. Harvesting and cleaning at the mid-scale is challenging, and the mechanisms in place generally cater for huge producers, not the small-scale agro-ecological or organic farmers that we’d like to encourage. And with limited market opportunities, asking a farmer to give space to a more experimental crop, when most are at the limits of being profitable, is a big deal. Too big to gamble.
Hodmedod’s have several mechanisms in place to mitigate these aspects – farmers are paid fairly and often at a premium to cushion any failures for example. And Hodmedod’s work hard to increase consumer demand, with recipe cards and relevant campaigns being amongst the marketing strategies. This involves an input into community interactions to the extent that they’ve now set up a separate organisation, Barleybird CIC, to focus on community engagement and education.
At the end of our visit, our group met to discuss our next steps. We realised that we do not want nor do we have the capacity to replicate the amazing work of Hodmedod’s, and our roles are more about encouraging more people to value pulses as a food crop in the north of England.
We have a ‘pulse heritage’ that is enviable: parched peas in Lancashire, Carlin peas in Tyneside, pease pudding and Sheffield’s past association to marrowfat peas, through to the incredible pulse-based culture of our recently arrived communities which bless particularly our cities. Surely we should be celebrating this more?
And our role as seed custodians? All of us are seduced by the beauty and diversity of beans (many will cite beans as their favourite crops of all!) and need little incentive to grow them, but can we fall in love with peas? As savers, they’re easy due to their predilection to self-pollinate; as gardeners we love their flowers; as growers their large seeds are easy enough for even the most challenged hands. We can help by growing in bulk to alleviate some of the risk of trying a crop, we can champion their diversity, we can note what works well and what’s more difficult and we can tell their stories within our communities. Maybe we’ll even eat some of our harvests too!
And as the momentum builds, we gradually create new markets for crops we can do really well up here, gaps that farmers are pleased to step into, in all their diverse glory. Maybe one day soon we’ll see pulses on the menus in our schools and hospitals.
This year:
World Pulses Day is today, 10th February! You can find out more here. Missed it? Start planning for next year! Or…
Carlin Sunday falls on 6th April. Can you celebrate this humble pea by sowing, growing and eating?
Hold an event that celebrates a pulse that has a special place in your community. Can you identify recipes that can adapt to crops that thrive in the local climate?
Add pulses to your crop planning. Tall pulses for small spaces; bushier types for easier harvesting. Keep some seeds back at harvest for re-sowing and sharing!
Consider exploring some of the more unusual pulses: field beans as a food crop, lentils, chick peas maybe. Not just growing but added to your mealtimes!
Share the pulse love! Can you use your networks and connectedness to spread the message far and wide? Let’s build a pulse movement!
For more info:
Hodmedod’s – https://hodmedods.co.uk/
Northern Food and Farming – https://www.northernfoodandfarming.org/
LESS CIC – https://lessuk.org/
Organic Research Centre – https://www.organicresearchcentre.com/
Foodwise Leeds – https://foodwiseleeds.org
Universities of Leeds and York (Fix Our Food project) – https://fixourfood.org/
Farming the Future – https://www.farmingthefuture.uk/
