It's time to take a step back

Shropshire has undoubtedly some famous sons and daughters; people without whom this county would be a poorer place, writes Rural Affairs Editor Nathan Rous.

The likes of Charles Darwin, Eglantyne Jebb, Wilfred Owen, Captain Webb, Robert Clive, Abraham Darby. Each and every one of them overcame obstacles to push the boundaries of modern-day perception.

To them, and many more like them, second best was not an option.

But sometimes it is worth remembering that progression is not always the answer to life's riddles. Going forward is not THE way forward, so to speak. Occasionally we have to lovingly caress the past and understand that the way it was done back then is often still the best way it can be done.

True, there is something inbuilt in mankind which makes us unable to accept the status quo, but it does not mean we should apply the same logic to all our endeavours.

Take food production as an example. Fifty years ago farmers could make a profit even after the meticulous rearing of their animals. Today, with supermarkets fixing an impossible price, pig farmers are trading at a loss of £23 per beast and broiler chickens have a shameful existence in order to make the tills ring.

It is no wonder corners are cut and welfare is the last thing to be looked at. Indeed, by making the choice through the supermarket trolley, particularly when it comes to Asda's now fabled £2 chicken, shoppers are endorsing these appalling methods.

In America, foodies are enjoying a new phenomenon which involves eating dinner on a farm where all the food is produced. Hundreds of people are gathering at the Dinners at the Farm series in Connecticut, for the chow-downs. But it's not new. Or novel. It's just a reinvention.

Chef Jim Denevan says: "Everybody has to eat and they eat every day, yet previously no one had any idea where their food came from.

"People realised along the line that the story of where the food came from might make food more interesting but also make it taste better."

Of course the simplest ideas are often the best: the man who invented the cocktail umbrella banked just over a billion dollars; likewise the inventor of the roadside "cats' eyes" would not have struggled to put his kids through school.

These are the people we need. What we can well do without are those who push for personal gain at our expense. Those who put the welfare of their bank balance ahead of the welfare of their staff, livestock or neighbour.

Yet this is not just a food issue. Everywhere you look in Shropshire you will see examples of so-called "progression" harming our very environment.

Post Offices, so often a lifeline for the needy and the isolated, are disappearing when we need our communities to be at their strongest. Independent High Street shops are being forced out in favour of faceless chains, while villages are spreading anonymously as greedy developers ensure their pockets are lined with cold hard cash.

It all adds up to a shameful loss of identity. Our county becoming a collective only in terms of numbers, not in ethics, morals or kinship.

I'm all for going backwards.