Gryffe Valley Rotary Club
Gryffe Valley Rotary Club recently heard updates from two major national charities. First up was Ann Strang who spoke about SAVE THE CHILDREN. Ann was head teacher at Erskine Primary School and she noted that Save the Children was started by a teacher in 1919 to try to alleviate starvation among children in central Europe and it had grown into a leading international aid organisation. Ann became involved in 1984 when Bob Geldof’s Live Aid brought the plight of overseas children directly into our living rooms.
Ann spoke about her trip last autumn to India where 2 million children under the age of 5 still die each year. She described her visits to some appallingly dirty and smelly slum areas where 70% of the people live below the poverty line and 70% are under 30. A huge problem, but Save the Children does make a difference with simple yet effective community projects like local walk- in centres which provide food, water, healthcare, education and crèche facilities.
The other talk was from Jeremy Baystone on the BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION. Jeremy, formerly picture editor for the Times and Sunday Times, had suffered some heart problems and, following the death of a friend from a heart attack, he recently became Scottish organiser for the British Heart Foundation. The BHF started in 1961 and thus was celebrating a half century of work sponsoring research and raising awareness of heart matters.
Jeremy talked about blood pressure, beta blockers, cholesterol, statins, aspirin, stents and pacemakers, saying that the scale of the problem was illustrated by the fact some 1/3 of all deaths arise from cardiovascular disease, with 1 in 5 of the population affected directly or indirectly. A current information campaign called Mending Broken Hearts was focused on heart disease hotspots in the UK – of which Paisley was one.
Jeremy pointed out that, contrary to popular belief, the heart muscle does not recover after a heart attack and the BHF is embarking on a 5 year
£50M research project looking at the ability of the zebra fi sh to regenerate its own heart to see if this could be replicated in humans.
Two charities undertaking vital work in two entirely separate areas and both well worthy of everyone’s support.
Rhubarb & Romania
Jimmy and Willie Ritchie are well known Renfrewshire farmers whose interests include rhubarb fi elds near Houston. However, when Jimmy addressed Gryffe Valley Rotary Club, he focused on their activities in Romania.
He explained that in 2000 they chose to expand Romania as land there could be bought by foreigners. It was a hugely bureaucratic and complex process, with land divided into lots of small strips, each owned by different members of the same family. However they persevered and over a period of several years managed to accumulate a suffi cient acreage to be farmed and they now produce a variety of crops including barley, sunfl ower, GM soya and walnuts.
Jimmy went on to point up some of the differences between farming there as compared to here. The weather there ranges from –30 to +40 degC and they have earthquakes! Irrigation is essential and there is a huge infrastructure to pump water from the Danube. Less than 10% of the tractors are under 10 years old and, perhaps partly related, there are an average of 50 workers per hectare compared with 2 workers back here. Finally, unlike Edinburgh, there is a comprehensive and effi cient tram system!
Some things however are the same. Porridge is a staple of their diet and, being a true farmer, Jimmy bemoaned the fact that, with the higher cost of fuel and fertilizer, it was very diffi cult to turn a profi t (though he did admit to a capital gain on the land value since Romania joined the EU).
Some of the Romanian workers are given the opportunity of coming over here, particularly to help with the rhubarb harvest. Although their accommodation here is fairly basic by our standards, it is still substantially superior to their norm back home.
Overall the local connection served to highlight the farming differences between ourselves and a recent joiner of the EU. The photo above shows Jimmy with Alan Bowie, who introduced him and who knows a thing or two about farming himself.
12 |SEPTEMBER 2011 | your LOCAL news every month - in print and online |
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