Phenotypic plasticity

It's a beautiful morning - I was awake early and rather than lying there I crept out of bed got dressed and headed to the croft for a spot of weeding. The sun was already quite high - but it was very still and the midges did their best to protect the weeds - but I stuck at it.

Phenotypic plasticity is the remarkable ability of most plants to change the way they look according to environmental conditions. I'm discovering how good thistles are at phenotypic plasticity. There are lots of thistles on my veg patch and it's difficult to get out the whole root. Each time you pull a thistle (and half it's roots) it will grow back a little bit pricklier until they grow masses of really prickly big prickles that can penetrate even the most prickle proof gardening glove. Picking prickly thistles with prickle proof gloves must have a tongue twister in it somewhere.

A somewhat less charitable example of phenotypic plasticity was on display on Monday night when the Crofters Commission came to town for a public meeting. The main discussion for the evening was the Shucksmith report into the future of crofting, which I've commented on previously. It was good to be at a meeting of crofters and hear from them that they felt most of the recommendations were rubbish. They also felt they had not been properly consulted and that the report had been overly influenced by people who don't croft.

One of the recommendations of Shucksmith is that the Crofters Commission be abolished. Now I've never heard ANYONE have a good word for the Crofters Commission - useless interfering pen-pushers is the best I've come across - until that is, someone suggests abolishing it - suddenly it becomes (with all it's faults but) a shining example of compassion and understanding of crofters needs.

But what Shucksmith really seems to have got wrong is the creation of a network of 'local crofting boards' that would have the powers to evict crofters from their land (not their homes) if the board felt that the crofters weren't crofting. The Board would also have the power to decide who the land should go to - potentially overruling the heritable rights that crofters have had for generations. This is not going down well.

Now to bore you with nuances - there are two ways crofters occupy land - one is an assured tenancy for which they pay an annual rent to the land owners, two is for the land to have been bought from the landowner under a tenants right to buy. Shucksmith proposes that these powers should cover even purchased land, so some crofters are facing the prospect of buying the land but then being told how they can use it and even being evicted from it. As one old lady remarked "Have we learned nothing from Communism?"

But it is a very real dilemma. Crofting is symbolic of Scottish resilience, hardiness (and oppression) and politically very important. The Government wants to protect it as a sort of window into the past. But it don't stack up - crofting doesn't pay. You can't protect a way of life that doesn't exist anymore (on several occasions I've heard old folk say 'In the old days we wanted for nothing'. (what no mobile phones/ playstations / washing machines??) It was repeated again at the meeting.).

Much of Shucksmith is trying to work out how to ensure that crofts continue to be worked - the answer is simple - money. If you make it pay to be a crofter then there'll be crofters. But then again if you make it pay it wont be crofting anymore because the essence of crofting was subsistence farming - that romantic ideal doesn't exist - except in the minds of idiots like me. But it could be made to pay - if there was a proper sustainable food strategy that recognised the importance of local food. And that, we hope, will come.

We have a field of thistles.