Keith Brian raised interesting points in his letter last week regarding organic farming and the importation of produce into this country.

Whether organic or not, hundreds of tons of foreign produce is imported into Britain every week by supermarkets which, I suspect, damages the viability of our farmers, growers and their employees.

Admittedly we grow neither melons nor citrus fruit but there is much we can grow as Mr Brian says. Additionally, we do not know how much health damaging pesticide is used in the growing of imported food, but I would hope that the preservative, diphenyl, is no longer used on lemons which poisons them rendering the peel unfit for consumption. Diphenyl also seeps through to the outer part of the pulp (G. & T. drinkers beware!).

Supermarkets have a knack of not paying proper prices for British grown foodstuffs to the point where growers give up and/or go bust! Only recently I have learnt of yet another local dairy farmer giving up milk production at seeing the price paid for his milk fall by about 40% whilst at the same time his overheads have risen. Similar is happening to lamb and beef production because of supermarket pressure. If the smaller dairy farmers could sell 'raw milk' directly to independent retailers and/or the public it may be their salvation. After all, raw milk is far healthier for one because it is alkaline and has its full complement of calcium and vitamin C. Processed or pasteurised milk is acidic, vitamin deficient and probably the cause of many digestive and allergy problems in humans.

Despite falling unemployment the 'new jobs' created are becoming increasingly minimum-wage and dead end ones helping to widen the financial gap between the 'haves' and 'have-nots'. If for example the Sainsbury family's wealth were to be divided equally between every adult resident of Looe, he or she would receive about a million pounds each! The wages of jobs displaced by supermarkets, usually supported families and mortgages - the pay of the displacing jobs do neither and are, more often than not, part time, minimum paid ones. Being a cashier or shelf-filler in such places or a 'boner-outer' in a meat processing factory is akin to working on the much despised production line - it is a repetitive, demoralising job undermining the human spirit.

Finally, a post eclipse article appearing in a national broadsheet on 13th August said, among other things, of the Cornish experience that: "the financial losers of the event were the local businesses' and 'the financial winners included the supermarket and petrol station chains which fed and fuelled the visitors, but little if any of their profits will stay in England's poorest country'.

CHRIS TAMBLIN.

Looe