Hazels

Hazel nuts are reasonably prominent in our affairs here at Epsom, as perusal of references 1 and 2 will reveal. Nuts to make sage and onion stuffing with, nuts from hedgerows roundabout, nuts from Neal's Yard Dairy, witch hazels and miscellaneous mentions. Also the destructive habits of grey squirrels. And then, during my childhood, we had two middle sized hazel nut trees, one on each side of our front drive, yielding getting on for a cubic foot of nuts a year, including the shells and their wrappers. So I was interested to come across the article about nuts in Italy at reference 3 this morning - an Italy where I believe lots of small hill farms are being abandoned as no-one can be bothered with them. Italians, like most of the rest of us, would rather live in a town with urban amenities, urban hours and urban salaries.

But it seems they are getting themselves into a right twist about Progetto Nocciola Italia, or the Italian nut project, from Ferrero, the Italian company that makes Nutella, the world’s largest buyer of hazelnuts. A project with the aim of bringing hazel nut production back home from Turkey, far and away the world's biggest producer, with more than seven times Italy's production on less than three times the land.

Much agitation about industrial scale monoculture destroying the essential character of rural villages, destroying the heritage, the environment and much else. But also much agitation about the need to repatriate ('reshoring') food production so that it can be properly supervised: no slaves and no unpleasant chemicals. Oddly, no mention of squirrels, grey or otherwise. Perhaps the Italian menfolk with their penchant for shooting anything small that moves, have killed them all.

I expect BH will put it all down to what she calls the silly season.

PS 1: the curious behaviour of the illustration when you click to enlarge is probably down to it being a png file, rather than my more usual jpg file. Behaviour which can be eliminated by passing the file through Microsoft's Paint, Snip & Sketch or some such.

PS 2: the next day: a rather different kind of farming story at reference 4, mainly about Spain, olives and water. But a problem which is spreading.

References 

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=hazel.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/search?q=hazel. Easy enough to reach the other volumes by changing the digit 2 to 3, 4 or 5.

Reference 3: Farmers fear for their land as hazelnuts spread across Italy’s hills: Nutella maker’s push to shorten its supply chain stokes environmental backlash in rural communities - Davide Ghiglione, Emiko Terazono and the FT - 2021.

Reference 4: Spain counts cost of agribusiness in rising desertification: In Europe’s most affected country, the agricultural overuse of water is made worse by climate change - Daniel Dombey and the FT - 2021.