The future of land

Following DEFRA’s discussion on sustainable farming has unearthed this gem, which seems to me to summarise the issues in the UK amazingly well.

It comes from Sue Everett who says

...it is questionable whether, in the UK context, there is much scope for further intensifying farming without having negative environmental and social consequences. The sustainability of rural areas is already well undermined by the escalating price of land and demographic changes which have been to a substantial extent related to the intensification of farming. There are lot of profound questions to ask in carrying out the current review - we all need to really think out of the box and try to abandon dogmas which may be outdated. For instance, I can’t see we will be needing ‘more of the same’ (bigger farms, more monocultures, less farmers) to achieve better outcomes for social wellbeing, the environment and food production. There could well be an important role for supporting greater access to farmland for more people to grow a much greater diversity of crops. This would also need to be integrated with a wholesale change in the planning dogma related to building houses in rural areas because we would need more affordable houses, and new farm buildings. I don’t have the answers but would like to see every possible aspect of the debate explored, including options for diversifying crops, increasing the opportunities for more people to enter farming, the potential role of Community Farming Enterprises and Community Land Trusts, and how to encourage a greater degree of cooperative enterprise generally in farming (the English appear to be particularly reclusive in this respect - unlike the French). I have put a longer post on the environmental section of this forum. I have no vested interest other than having studied soil science/geography at University 30 years ago and being a professional Ecologist/environmental manager for the past 25. (I am though appalled that it has taken 30 years for the issue of soil erosion to begin to be addressed in the UK - I learned about all this stuff as an undergraduate). It is a tragedy that such basic land management science wasn’t integrated into agricultural college studies.

She also posts about soil erosion saying

...the facts are that soil erosion on UK farmland is a very big problem. Much arable is wholly reliant on artificial inputs now. Even straw is incorporated on only 25% of arable land when this is a vital source or organic matter and nutrients (see the HGCA info on this). In our area most of it is shipped off to SW England or Wales, when under previous mixed farming systems it would have been used locally for overwintering animals then used back on the arable or leys. The soil fauna has also been destroyed in many cases. A diverse soil fungi and invertebrate fauna (which is important in nutrient cycling) is largely replaced by soil bacteria under an intensive arable system with no organic inputs. Loss of organic matter is a real problem. A lot of our agricultural soil has ended up in local rivers to the detriment of salmonid fisheries, etc. etc. However, I think the point of this debate is not to look back but to think creatively about how sustainable agriculture can be effectively supported in the future in a way that does not repeat the mistakes of the past (especially introducing policies which have unintended and undesirable consequences)

You can access the whole discussion here

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