The Scourge of Intensive Farming

Stocks Down Farm from Old Winchester Hill

The most important books I have read in 2018 are about the way our food is produced and the massive and destructive changes to our age-old farming practices brought about in the last 60 years. These are principally the change from raising animals on pasture to feeding them inside on surplus grain, coupled with the use of chemicals to sustain high levels of grain production. The loss of pasture grazing also brings about a steady decline in soil fertility and a reduction in nutrients finding their way into our food. 

These books are 'Grass-Fed Nation' by Graham Harvey (2016) and 'Wilding' by Isabella Tree (2018). 

In 'Grass-Fed Nation' Graham Harvey writes: 'We have allowed a small cabal of laboratory scientists and their corporate backers to change the very nature of the food we eat. They have substituted their own technologies for the natural processes that have fed humankind since we evolved on the planet. And they are fast destroying the land that feeds us. No one asked us if we wanted our food produced by Monsanto and Syngenta rather than by nature. There’s been no national debate, no referendum, and it would be hard to think of an issue more important than the nature of our food. The silent revolution has been mostly brought about by the secretive lobbying of governments and public servants. Fortunately, we now have the knowledge and the means to reverse the takeover of the food supply. It’s an opportunity presented to us by our grasslands. All we have to do, each one of us, is to insist that the meat dairy foods that we eat come from animals grazing pasture. It will mean our diets are healthier. Even more important we will be putting nature back in charge of the food supply.

Other  practices such as 'no-dig' and growing a diverse range of crops instead of a moncuture of wheat barely and rape are also extremely beneficial.  Interestingly, these practices originate in the US where the degradation of soils has long been a serious issue.,

Note: I grew up on a farm - Stocks and Harvestgate Farms in the valley below Old Winchester Hill - which were farmed by Patrick Lawford from 1950 to 2002. Originally there were sheep on the downs and wheat, barley, and potatoes in the lower fields. Beef cattle were also reared on pasture and crops and pasture were rotated in the time-honoured fashion. Patrick brought a shepherd from Litchfield who stayed with us for many years. We had a Jersey cow for milk,  butter, and cream, and lots of chickens (when not decimated by the fox) scratching about on grass next to the vegetable garden. Although the farm gradually became largely arable (mainly barley for malting), it has now, under a new owner, reverted almost entirely to sheep.

And, as a further aside, my parents were friends with George and 'Dorrie' Stapledon who argued against subsidies for farmers and, rather that proper prices should be paid for food to enable farmers to sell their produce at above the costs of production. The present system simply subsidizes the consumer by allowing large industrial farms to sell their produce at or below the actual costs of production because of the whole acreage subsidies they receive.