George Monbiot

You know, so many things can go wrong.

And it's knowing how to navigate that is a really skilled job.

Now, the hopeful thing is that there are loads and loads of young people who would desperately like to get into growing.

I'm constantly coming across people who...

You know, they don't really have a way in, but they're so keen to become fruit and veg growers.

And yet, you know, the market isn't there.

It's a great way to lose all your investments because it's just very, very hard to compete at the moment.

So we need government to step in and say, let's help these young people get a foothold.

Let's help the existing players to stay in business.

That's really important.

But also...

bring in new players, bring in people who are prepared to acquire those very difficult skills.

But we've got to nurture this.

You leave it to this thing called a market.

The market, it will eat you alive.

The market is not a market in the way that we understand markets.

A market is a small group of extremely rich, predatory corporations and oligarchs who will have the shirt off our backs.

Yeah, so it's very dangerous both in the short term and in the long term.

So, you know, the fertiliser crisis is admittedly hitting other countries much harder than ours and Ireland or the UK.

Africa is being absolutely hammered by it because many African countries are totally dependent on those imports of fertiliser from the Gulf and don't have other sources to draw on.