Norfolk Chickpeas in a Changing Climate
Last year (year 2 of field scale chickpea production) was a real struggle: drought through much of the season, intense heat in late May, then extraordinary rainfall in August (⅛ of the annual average fell on the crop in 4 hours!) presented the chickpeas with successive challenges.
This year (chickpea year 3) hasn’t started much better to be honest: a cold start and prolonged wet conditions are not what chickpeas like.
It’s a funny old thing. This is a crop that we and Henry the farmer (he’s in the orange in the photo) are interested in as part of diverse cropping strategies that just might help adapt to a changing climate. They can fix their own nitrogen and cope with more water and heat stress.
But the fact is climate change - or perhaps more accurately climate chaos - brings greater uncertainty and more frequent extremes, not a gentle slide to a new steady state. What works in Norfolk now will almost certainly be a heck of a lot more difficult in a decade or so, and there are unlikely to be straightforward crop substitutions - system changes rather than just dropping lentils or chickpeas into existing rotations.
So it’s critical that we find crops that as well as being part of an adaptive process can also contribute to lower input and lower impact food and farming systems.
 was a real struggle: drought through much of the season, intense heat in late May, then extraordinary rainfall in August (⅛ of the annual average fell on the crop in 4 hours!) present...&media=//hodmedods.co.uk/cdn/shop/articles/Norfolk-Chickpeas-Henry-Raker-1800x1200_600x.jpg?v=1622453292){kind=link}
Leave a comment
Comments will be approved before showing up.
Also in Hodmeblog
Liberty Fields: Cultivating Taste, Tradition, and Sustainability
A few years ago we were looking for a sweetner for some granola recipes, something UK produced and minimally processed. When our apple syrup order from Liberty Fields arrived we knew we were onto something special - we quickly added them to our short list of brilliant Guest Producers
Getting more pulses & grains into British kitchens with Holland & Barrett
We've launched ten pulses and grains from British farms as part of Holland & Barrett's transformation of their food range, available in their stores across the UK. It's a fantastic opportunity to make British-grown fava beans, carlin peas and quinoa, along with other pulses and cereals, available more widely and to support more diverse farming.
Apple Natural: wholesome fruit snacks from a traditional Cornish orchard
Down a warren of country lanes, not far from the Tamar Valley in Cornwall, is Julie Bailey's orchard Lower Trelabe, where she grows historic local varieties of apple and makes her delicious Apple Natural apple shreds, traditional fruit leathers that contain only the natural plant sugars.
Josiah Meldrum
Author