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. 

Heron Wars in Stockbridge

The garden in winter 

The tranquillity of the garden in winter has recently been replaced by the threat of a predatory heron. He arrives at about 7.30 each morning and stands on the roof of the garage to check the lie of the land before flying down to the lawn and then walking across to the pond to begin his predations. I watched 'my' bird for some time this morning and although he couldn't see me, he was wary and stood on the lawn for about 20 mins before flapping off. 

The heron waiting before approaching the pond

I went out at lunchtime and when I returned, he had been waiting and launched himself off the top of a huge chestnut nearby and flew over my head giving loud krrraarrk calls before returning to the tree. I hoped he might have been pleased to see me but in fact, I think they were either taunts or calls of thanks - because when I got to the pond I could see from the 'dust' that he leaves on the surface that he had been in. Curiously, although he has been visiting daily for a couple of weeks now, there still seem to be almost as many fish in the pond, and I can only assume that they hide successfully in the mud at the bottom or that he is following doctor's orders and taking only one a day.

The heron standing beside the pond

They are magnificent birds an stand over 3ft tall with a wingspan of 6ft.  As the RSBP website puts it, 'they are not easily deterred'. They also become tolerant of humans - and we of them

Update as of April 2019: I have waited for the water to warm up and the fish, if any, to energe from the mud where they have spent the winter, but I am sad to report that I can see only one fish. The rest have gone. 

Favourite Quotes - John Ruskin

John Ruskin by Millais

“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting alot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey.

"Keep nothing in your houses you don't know to be useful or believe to be beautiful"

There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.