Paying the price for the hidden costs of cheap food

Farmers have been getting a lot of criticism recently for environmental damage and high carbon emissions from modern farming practices. But many groups of people – from agricultural advisers to food processors to consumers – have contributed to the intensification of food production.

English farmer and best-selling author James Rebanks – who was due to speak at the Burren Winterage Festival in Co Clare tonight until flu intervened – is a strong advocate of so-called regenerative farming.

“There is no choice but to farm with nature. We have to change now and listen to ecologists and the new science of soil and grazing, and mend the land we are on. We can do this and look everyone in the eye and say we are stewards of the land, or we can bury our head in the sand and lose credibility,” Rebanks said in advance of what was due to be his first visit to Ireland.

The sheep and cattle farmer writes eloquently about the evolution of his views in his best-selling books, English Pastoral and The Shepherd’s Life. He returned home to farm the lands of his ancestors in Matterdale, Cumbria, after working away following his degree in modern history at Oxford University.

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With over 160,000 followers on his @herdyshepherd1 twitter account, Rebanks regularly posts beautiful photographs of his Belted Galloway cattle and flocks of sheep in the undulating fields on his Lake District farm where he lives in a converted barn with his wife Helen and their four children.

But he also tweets robustly about what needs to change to allow farmers make a decent living from producing local food in harmony with nature. And he clearly articulates the hidden costs of the cheap food that we all have come to expect when we do our weekly supermarket shop.

“People don’t think about things holistically,” he says. In English Pastoral, he writes, “the money that people think they are spending on food from farms [nearly] all goes to those who process the food and to the wholesalers and retailers. The winners are a handful of vast corporations who have politicians and lawmakers in their pockets.”

Cavan poultry farmers last month protested outside a supermarket for two cent more for each egg they sell to compensate for rising costs of production. Rebanks says the share of average income spent on food has dropped dramatically in the last 70 years. And as food prices were globalised and driven by vast quantities of commodities being produced by more efficient farming methods (with expensive farm machinery, fertiliser and pesticide costs, et cetera), the old farming systems were undermined.

But now Rebanks contends that as well as paying farmers more to produce local and seasonal food, farmers should also be paid to restore degraded land so that birds, insects and animals can thrive alongside farming practices.

“There is a green desert from grazing land intensively for dairy and beef farming which has squeezed out biodiversity and depleted the soil. Farming became reduced to a financial and engineering challenge rather than being understood as a biological activity,” he says.

Rebanks has not used fertilisers on his farm since 2015. His cattle haven’t been given any antibiotics since then either, and he uses very little bought in feed and few pesticides for his sheep and cattle.

In English Pastoral, he writes, “I want a farm full of birdsong, insects, animals and beautiful plants and trees. We can work the land and still have healthy soil. We can have fields full of wildflowers and grasses, swarming with insects, butterflies and birds. We just have to want this enough and legislate for it.”

Rebanks now strongly believes that farmers should be led by ecologists rather than economists. He has worked with a local river trust to re-wriggle the river to make it a better place for salmon and sea trout to come upstream. And he works with environmental schemes which bring new ideas and money to restore the landscape. “I want to be part of the solution. We have planted thorny and willow trees to create wide river corridors with young woodland. We have built 25 ponds and planted 36,000 trees. I love to see the diversity,” he says.

He now farms his land according to its capabilities with some woodland and wet, rough pastureland farmed extensively, and other more productive species in rich grassland farmed intensively. “I move my cattle twice a day for regenerative grazing,” he says.

He admits he is obsessed with soil organic matter, with farmers from all over the world visiting his farm for short courses on regenerative grazing.

He says the current crop of British politicians simply do not care about the environment. Post-Brexit, Rebanks would much prefer to be still part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). He believes it has flaws but notes its aspiration “to preserve natural resources and respect the environment” to its core aims, alongside the provision of affordable, safe and high quality foods to EU citizens and a fair standard of living for farmers.

Rebanks is determined to continue the tradition of mixed rotational farming he learned from his grandfather, while also learning new ways to farm with nature.

“There is an old saying that we should farm as if we are going to live for a thousand years. The idea is that we might protect our natural resources better if we had to face the long-term consequences of our actions, instead of passing on a mess for someone else to sort out. The best way to create a better rural landscape is to mobilise farmers and other country people, and to tap into their love and pride in their land,” he writes.

Ryan Dennis will now speak alongside Irish poet Jane Clarke at the farming with nature, Burren Winterage Festival tonight at 6.30pm at St Patrick’s Hall, Corofin, Co Clare. They will discuss how farming life and nature has influenced their lives. Burrenwinterage.com