What an excellent article! I knew about the way enclosures created a dispossessed workforce, but I didn’t know about open and closed parishes or the intentional absence of edible plants in hedgerows. Very timely in view of the current anti-migrant rhetoric coming from both government and sadly, the increasingly ‘in name only’ opposition.
All well said ... and do I recall a tv documentary a couple of years ago revealing that food producers in Eastern Europe, struggling to find labour, are using workers from North Korea sent by their government under some very dubious arrangement?
What an excellent article! I knew about the way enclosures created a dispossessed workforce, but I didn’t know about open and closed parishes or the intentional absence of edible plants in hedgerows. Very timely in view of the current anti-migrant rhetoric coming from both government and sadly, the increasingly ‘in name only’ opposition.
All well said ... and do I recall a tv documentary a couple of years ago revealing that food producers in Eastern Europe, struggling to find labour, are using workers from North Korea sent by their government under some very dubious arrangement?
Thank you for writing this. And for the history lesson. Shouldn’t be, but I am shocked. Everything changes but everything stays the same.