by Cleve West, Chelsea Flower Show best in show winner and vegan organic gardener
It’s around 10 years since I visited Iain Tolhurst’s Hardwick Estate in Oxfordshire to learn about his organic, stock-free system that excludes fertiliser derived from animals. I was vegetarian at the time and hadn’t quite made the connection with vegan ethics but was already experimenting with green manure and had, from the outset, adopted a ‘live-and-let-live’ policy at our West London allotment, where nothing was killed deliberately. In essence, this is what veganism is about, a way of life that seeks to avoid, where practically possible, all forms of exploitation and cruelty to animals for food, clothing and any other purpose. Of course, there are always going to be unavoidable, accidental deaths among smaller, unseen creatures. The aim is to avoid the deliberate, unnecessary ones.
After becoming a fully-fledged ethical vegan in 2015, I started to do a little research of my own and found that not only are animal products the leading cause of the most common diseases in the western world, but also that the negative impact of animal agriculture on climate change and the wider environment (rainforest destruction, species extinction, pollution and ocean depletion to name a few) is reason enough to adopt a plant-based diet.
The facts are staggering and, in truth, disturbing. But challenging the morality of people’s eating habits that have been endorsed for centuries by culture, tradition, convenience and the propaganda from the food and pharmaceutical industries isn’t easy. People don’t like being told what to do at the best of times let alone when it goes against everything they’ve been taught since birth. However, thanks to the internet, (which has helped expose the truth behind animal agriculture) veganism is at last being taken seriously and, with over 1 per cent of the UK now adopting a plant-based diet, being vegan shows genuine concern for environmental issues and the unnecessary commodification of animals on an unimaginable scale.
So, I was delighted when Matthew asked me to write this foreword for this book. Gardeners are a sensitive bunch and, in my experience, most already consider themselves environmentalists. They are well-placed, therefore, to become a driving force to educate others about the challenges this planet faces from the increasing threat of climate change and how to feed an ever-growing population.
The vegan movement is gathering pace, particularly with the young who are concerned for the future of this wonderful planet and its inhabitants and who can see the benefits of a kinder, more compassionate world. But it’s not exclusively their gig. Old farts like me are welcome too and I can honestly say that my only regret I have about becoming vegan is not having done it a whole lot sooner.
Cleve West.