Portrait by Richard Allenby-Pratt for The Suffolk Project
Hang on, what's the question? Why is everyone talking about regenerative farming, for starters. For fibre as well as food. #regenag is fashion's new favourite hashtag. What if we put back more than we took out? Stopped drenching the land with toxic chemicals? Worked in harmony with Nature? Could we feed and clothe the world if we produced less, and differently? Would we starve? Would prices skyrocket? How did we get to this place, where no one - not the land, not biodiversity, not the nutritional content of food, and not the farmers who are on the front lines - wins?
Oh, and have you heard the one about there being just 60 cycles of soil left on Planet Earth? That's no joke. While this oft-quoted stat has been disputed, there's no denying that intensive, so called "conventional" farming practices are depleting soil health the world over.
During WWI, food shortages had us in a panic. No wonder, in the 1950s and '60s, we were obsessed with maximising yields. Through a combination of hectic new pesticides and herbicides, cheap synthetic fertilisers, and tearing out trees and hedgerows to make managing monocrops easier, farmers produced so much, there was plenty to spare - and waste.
But the bonanza couldn't last forever.
Today, they are experiencing a backlash. Once celebrated for filling our plates, farmers now find themselves vilified for destroying our environment. That many are the very same people who remember when everyone loved and respected them, and are only doing what governments and consumers said they wanted, is not often discussed. Can regenerative farming save them, and our soils?
Sarah Langford is the author of Rooted, How Regenerative Farming can Change the World (Penguin). She’s also a farmer herself, although she didn’t start out that way…
NOTES
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE has no formal definition but as Sarah outlines there are generally agreed main principles, starting with the idea that farming this way puts in more than it takes out, and leaves the land in a better condition than it was before you started. It is, she writes in Rooted: “is more than just growing food … it is a movement which can cure not just ecological ills but social ones too.” It’s not necessarily ORGANIC, which requires zero synthetic chemical pesticides or fertilisers. BTW: in the UK there is funding available to convert conventional farms to organic - see here.
The US-based Noble Research Institute defines regenerative agriculture as, “the process of restoring degraded soils using practices based on ecological principles. It requires managing a farm by considering the interactions among the soil, water, plants, animals and humans — interconnected pieces of one whole system. Benefits include:
Increased soil organic matter and biodiversity.
Healthier and more productive soil that is drought- and flood-resilient.
Decreased use of chemical inputs and subsequent pollution.
Cleaner air and water.
Enhanced wildlife habitat.
Carbon captured in the soil to combat climate variability.”
HISTORY
Farming is ancient in the UK, but how ancient? According to Professor Mark Thomas at University College London: “The transition to farming marks one of the most important technological innovations in human evolution. It first appeared in Britain around 6000 years ago; prior to that people survived by hunting, fishing and gathering. For over 100 years archaeologists have debated if it was brought to Britain by immigrant continental farmers, or if was adopted by local hunter-gatherers. Our study strongly supports the view that immigrant farmers introduced agriculture into Britain and largely replaced the indigenous hunter-gatherers populations.” More here.
In Rooted, Sarah writes about hedgerows dividing fields that date back hundreds of years. Hedges have been used as field boundaries in England since Roman times. Many Anglo-Saxon hedges used as estate boundaries still exist. Although these early hedges were used as field enclosures or to mark the boundaries of one person's property, it wasn’t until the 13th Century that there was a systematic planting of hedges in England with the first enclosure movement. Farming expanded in the 15th Century and Enclosure really stepped up in the 1600s. By the 1800s, most of the land in the country was enclosed and farmed.
P.S. Slightly off topic (veering into the suburbs), here’s a great read from Smithsonian Magazine about Britain’s hedge obsession.
1940s FOOD SHORTAGES In January 1940, the British government introduced food rationing. The scheme was designed to ensure fair shares for all at a time of national shortage. The Ministry of Food was responsible for overseeing rationing. Every man, woman and child was given a ration book with coupons. These were required before rationed goods could be purchased. Basic foodstuffs such as sugar, meat, fats, bacon and cheese were directly rationed by an allowance of coupons. Housewives had to register with particular retailers. A number of other items, such as tinned goods, dried fruit, cereals and biscuits, were rationed using a points system. The number of points allocated changed according to availability and consumer demand. Priority allowances of milk and eggs were given to those most in need, including children and expectant mothers. As shortages increased, long queues became commonplace. It was common for someone to reach the front of a long queue, only to find out that the item they had been waiting for had just run out. Via Imperial War Museum UK
Post-war, it was all about preventing such food stress from every happening again. So in the 1950s and 60s, policy makers across Europe pushed farmers to prioritise YIELDS, made possible by government incentives, advances in chemistry, new pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilisers.
PROBLEMS WITH CONVENTIONAL FARMING The issues with SOIL HEALTH are well documented. If you drench soil with chemicals designed to kill stuff, you’re not just ending the pests, but the friends too - obliterating worms, beneficial insects and fungi. DESERTIFICATION is a growing risk - see this study. Furthermore, conventional tillage breaks up the natural soil structure, which makes it more vulnerable to COMPACTION. Meanwhile, all those toxic chemicals affect the birds and animals too, contributing to BIODIVERSITY LOSS - exacerbated by tree and hedge clearing. Did you know about BIRDS AS POLLINATORS? Sarah mentions that jays play an important role in planting oaks in the UK. Read this Guardian piece for a deep dive.
Yes, BUTTER MOUNTAINS were a thing in the 1980s thanks to the EU’s subsidy-laden Common Agricultural Policy. They weren’t actual mountains though - just stockpiles in warehouses.
MARY OLIVER was a Pulizer Prize-winning American poet. Sarah mentions this quote of Oliver’s: “ATTENTION IS THE BEGINNING OF DEVOTION.”
ALTERNATIVES
CSA stands for Community-Supported Agriculture. It’s a globally recognised model of food production and distribution that directly connects farmers and eaters. According to the CSA Network of Australia and New Zealand: “As CSA farms are directly accountable to their consumer members they strive to provide fresh, high-quality food and typically use natural farming and regenerative methods. Generally there are more people working on CSA farms than on conventional farms, and some CSAs encourage members to work on the farm in exchange for a portion of their membership costs. CSA is a shared commitment to building a more local and equitable agricultural system, one that allows farmers to focus on good farming practices and still maintain productive and profitable farms.” More here
DIRECT DRILLING places the seed in the ground without any prior soil cultivation in the stubble of the previous crop. NO-PLOUGH / LOW-PLOUGH is gaining traction, as a way to protect nutrients, organic matter and the complex web of worms, fungi and friendly bacteria in the top six inches of soil. Read why one Irish farmer who works this way is a fan here.
AGROFORESTRY does what it says on the tin - adds trees. Why? The intentional integration of trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming systems helps create environmental, economic, and social benefits.
BEETLE BANKS “A tussocky grass strip through the middle of a field, such as a beetle bank, provides essential over-wintering habitat for many welcome insects and spiders. These move into the crop in the spring and feed on crop pests….Beetle banks also provide habitat for species which prefer to nest in open farmland away from field boundaries, such as corn buntings, reed buntings, skylarks and mammals like harvest mice. Grey partridges sometimes choose them in preference to hedge banks to avoid predators.” Via RSPB
See also COVER CROPS A cover crop is a plant that is used primarily to slow erosion, improve soil health, enhance water availability, smother weeds, help control pests and diseases, increase biodiversity and bring a host of other benefits.
Sarah suggests that: “Farmers in the future might find themselves making more money from their method of farming than the food it produces.” COULD FARMERS ROUTINELY GET PAID FOR SEQUESTERING CARBON? It’s complicated, but here’s some stuff to read:
“Selling carbon from trees & soils” - State Govt Victoria, Aus
“The Latest Farmed Product - Carbon Credits” - New York Times
“Is carbon sequestration on farms actually working to fight climate change?” - Green Biz
“How Farmers in the UK Can Get Paid for Restoring Their Land to Nature” - Palladium Group
TOO HARD BASKET The further we get from life on the land, the easier it is to distance ourselves from the natural cycles of life in Nature and also the less palatable realities of farming and producing food. As Sarah writes in her book: “Death is kept away from us, hospitalised, sterilised and shrink-wrapped.”
The modern FOOD SYSTEM doesn’t just disconnect us from the source of we eat - increasingly, it damages our health. Sarah recommends the books Ravenous, How to Get Ourselves & Our Planet into Shape by Henry Dimbleby, and Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken for more on how our reliance on high-input farming and processed food is making us - and the planet - sick.
“MY GRANDFATHER PETER WAS A HERO WHO FED A STARVING NATION. NOW HIS SON CHARLIE, MY UNCLE, IS CONSIDERED A VILLAIN, BLAMED FOR ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE AND WITH A LEGACY NO ONE WANTS…” - Sarah Langford
POLITICS George Monbiot, the environmentalist and guardian columnist, describes farming as “one of the most destructible human activities ever to have blighted the Earth.” Rooted came out around the same time as Monbiot’s latest, Regensis, Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet. In a joint review for the Guardian, writer Amy Liprot, who describes herself as “a farmer’s daughter and an environmentalist, said this: “I find myself in the middle of what is often a fierce culture war about how to respond to climate change and biodiversity loss and what that means for the future of our land.” Let’s just say this can be polarising stuff. As Sarah says, the only answer is empathy.