This is how we feed our future
By: Matt Franks
Tags: Nature, Climate Change, Farming, Environment, Food

Beautiful. Scenic. Colourful. The deep hue of golden cut stalks running to the horizon.

Take another perspective:

It’s a field of a single crop grown at huge scale with absolutely no other plants, tiny amounts of biodiversity and scant protection from the worst of the weather.

Is it really all that natural?

Back in the early noughties, people were already talking about the need to fundamentally address the farming system. Yields were falling, food quality declining and nobody was happy — farmers particularly. It was a profession few young people wished to follow. It is also become increasingly monopolised meaning fewer job and tighter margins.

So why do we force our crops to grow in the way we do?

The mechanised food system has shaped the natural environment like no other. It’s made strict uniformity out of vibrant diversity. It’s nullified natural selection for rigorous control of crop’s gene diversity. Sure, consistency is great but when disease comes it ravages everything.

With only a few decades before global soils becomes infertile, it’s clear that denuding the earth without replacing, naturally, the nutrients that support plant growth will create vast wastelands. More synthetic fertiliser will not solve this. We must allow nature to do what it does best, to heal itself, without interference.

This isn’t one of those posts. Telling you that the global food system is responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emission; telling you that only 10% of people know when the most popular fruit and vegetables are actually in season; telling you herbicides are killing millions of animals beyond the farm boundaries and polluting drinking water for millions of people…

I will just stop and state this: this forest (below) is also a farm. This must be our future.

This is the other way.

Growing with nature means we don’t have to do all the back breaking, time consuming work — we can just manage and spend more time focused on cultivation and harvest. We can stop fighting and start collaborating.

Take, for example, a wheat field right now:

Usually sown in early winter, in uniform rows by machine. Across sometimes tens, but often, hundreds of acres. The same crop. Genetically exactly the same crop.

Yes, they all look like this.

It’s sprayed with herbicide to prevent ‘bad’ plants growing. And then pesticide to stop troublesome insects invading. This is done several times through the growing season. These chemicals get into the plants. They affect farm workers. They cause cancers.

The field dries out because there are no other supporting plants for shade, the earth cracks and the wind carries the soil nutrients away. The soil degrades. Intensive watering is needed to bring crops to maturity. Hundreds of tonnes of water for each field, on each farm. And much runs off because the soil is so dry. This water takes the chemicals with it to the rivers and streams that we get our drinking water from and what all wildlife drinks, lives and thrives on.

The fields are devoid of life. Wildlife clings on to the hedgerows around the perimeter suffering species’ ending declines in numbers.

It could be so different. Link to image source

Now take our new ( but also old ) field…

Amongst the trees and fruit bushes, rows of organic wheat are sown. The soil is rich with the organic growth left to rot down from last season and the droppings of browsing wild-fowl and birds such as chickens, ducks and geese which fuels the richness of the soil.

The soil is never exposed directly to the harsh sun because of the intermittent shade provided by the non-competing crops, shrubs and trees.

Less water evaporates. Fewer nutrients are lost.

The trees capture more moisture and prevent precious soil washing away during storms as their roots bond the earth together. They stop heavy rains from damaging crops — instead it slowly drips to earth. They limit the impact of winds. More crops reach harvest.

On this new farm, technology help too. Water is saved, stored and trickle-fed into the field — it’s also captured from the air.



The giant combine harvesters sit unused as a fleet of agile mini-harvesters manage the field. They farm alongside people who pick the organic and diverse crops all growing in the field together, at the same time.

Wildlife floods into the fields, plant pests are contained by their predators and they are contained by their predators, ad infinitum.

The crops, lean on one another, supporting each other’s growth. They share nutrients, they share water and the soil becomes a lush patchwork of microbes, providing better crops. Imagine the tastiest, reddest, freshest tomatoes you’ve ever tasted…that’s this.

It’s sustainable and it focuses on the long-term health of the field and the environment. It becomes a carbon sink, drawing carbon from the atmosphere and locking it into the soil.

So you see, our new field is much like an old, old field…

This practice is not new. It’s centuries old. It’s called agro-ecology , some call it agroforestry, it has other names. It’s simply growing with nature, not against it. No longer do we have hundreds of acres with a single crop growing for as far as the eye can see.

We return to a rich tapestry of foods that collaborate, that support, shade and enrich each other.

It provides shelter and habitat for struggling species, it gives new life to dying soils. It holds water and removes the need for chemical usage. That’s the ‘ecology’ bit. The ‘agro’ involves us selecting which crops grow best where, when and next to whom to get the best out of the field.

Let me explain how this works a little bit

Let’s take our current wheat field again. The one with the perfect manicured crops that are all the same. Now take away the humans. Stop the fight. Let nature come back in.

The field would become incongruous, misshapen, dynamic. It would change. Back would come other plants. Seeds from trees would be blown and dropped all over and after time large beech, oak and other trees would grow. A forest would form. Nothing out of place. Everything in harmony.

Now take this and change the trees to sweet chestnut, maple and walnut. Add in a wide variety of native fruiting trees. Add in bushes of damsons, plum and cherries. Weave in currant bushes, blueberries and raspberries too. This is just the upper levels of the canopy. Nature allowed to grow but curated, if you will, to produce food. To be productive and prosperous to it’s own end.

It’s so rich. Picture the wildlife. You hear the bees from the hives dotted through the field, going about their pollination routine.

It’s begun.

Studies highlight that this kind of farming delivers 244% improvements in yields, 3x more wildlife than conventional farming and with zero chemicals.

This is an example of how this is being used in Africa to incredible effect. If countries with poor infrastructure, little technological support and few subsidies from the state can do this why can’t it be delivered everywhere?

I’m going to tell you it can. I’m going to show how, what’s needed and what must change. The infrastructure, the techniques, corporate bodies that must change and the thinking that must alter in us, the consumers.

The new farming manifesto

Farmers

We return to a condition of respect and admiration for the land stewardish delivered by farmers everywhere. Not only do they provide our food but they enrich the living environment. They draw down carbon out of the atmosphere, they promote diversity and they give us flavours most people can currently only dream of.

This is precise work. Wise, observant people who carefully nurture all that we hold dear. No longer are they forced to work to economies of scale and the lowest cost possible. They are paid CORRECTLY for the significant work they do on behalf of their nation and the planet. This isn’t lowly, manual work producing commodities, this is a public service. They are guardians, teachers, natural doctors; they conjure life from nothing. This is hugely important work and should be regarded as such.

T here should be a tax levied on corporate carbon footprints that goes directly to farming bodies for distribution, training and support.

Food

We pay a true and fair price for food. We have a transparent system that levies costs of environment maintenance, welfare and simply the time and dedication it takes farmers. This will focus minds on food waste and enhance respect for agriculture.

Food prices should reflect the cost of time, energy and sustainable production rather than the present unrepresentative lowest-common-denominator approach

Communities

No longer is there a disconnect between food and the people. From curriculum mandates around food provenance and animal husbandry to farmers markets in schools at weekends — this is about drawing parallels and making everyone appreciate the efforts of their near neighbours.

In the same way as student’s have cultural exchanges, there should be a system of experience and learning to help share ideas and connections to foster empathy and action

Nature

A key feature of COVID has been the growth in contemplation of, and marvel at, nature. It’s beauty and abundance has been taken for granted. This system aims to set that right. Tougher legislation, public humiliation of companies that break rules, documenting of milestones and amplification of success stories. All this aims to put the focus on how we all benefit when nature does. Food tastes better, we are healthier and wildlife prospers

A levy on global financial transactions, a tiny 0.001%, could generate $389m each year for investment into farming technology to monitor, spot problems quickly and highlight successes for sharing.

Where we go from here

There is so much more here. So much to be said, certainly to be done. This is going to be a blueprint, a call to arms.

I will be speaking to NGOs, farmers unions, supermarkets, wholesalers, horticulturalists and everyone else

I am writing a template to lead this agenda from conception to reality

Finding projects, globally, that can be used as examples of positive farming

The future as it could be

As fields return to a more natural state, we see wildlife prosper. This is not wishful thinking, this is a real condition that occurs when we work with nature. We’ve lost so much, so many species, this is a chance to return to a varied and vibrant ecosystem; fields should be part of nature, not devoid of it.

This is a solution to some of our most pressing problems: water consumption within agriculture; chemical usage on food; wildlife habitat loss; carbon sequestration. It’s not the only solution we need to work towards, but just imagine the possibilities.

As more and more natural land is lost to current agriculture and more land is left to go fallow because the soil does not have the nutrients to grow crops any more — this is the solution we need to feed the growing global population.

And that’s the kicker: this method of farming produces more food. By growing with trees, shrubs and grasses (rice, wheat, barley & rye are all grasses) — we are growing at all levels of the canopy. It’s been done. and done again. And proven to produce MORE food than monoculture practices. Now it just needs to go mainstream.

Wellbeing

If we take the UK as a reference point, it’s one of the most depressed countries in the world. The majority of people live in cities and rarely see much nature. They see concrete and commuting. Hell, many have never actually seen a cow in the flesh. We need to change this. We need to take humans back to nature and immerse it back into their increasingly digital lives. Nature is hugely beneficial for wellbeing and it’s been forgotten for too long.

This new approach shows that food, wildlife and people don’t have to be distinct; they can, and should, rub together. From those who undertake the work to bring food to our plates, who are continually undermined and denigrated, to those who visit those monotonous hectares for a few precious weeks each summer — we have the opportunity to support and explore.

This new practice is a profound new way to consider the vocation, to highlight the complexity of interwoven relationships that the farmers comprehend. And then to bring these techniques and lessons to a much wider audience as city-dwellers are invited to explore nature more. Because, after all, when they are invited, they end up coming in their thousands…

A fight with no sides

This isn’t a leftist vs rightist, this isn’t an idealists argument, this isn’t socialist vs capitalist. This is an argument for everyone, everywhere, on every continent. Because everyone has to eat.

This approach benefits everyone.

Plenty: this is how we feed our future

The book will be published in 2021, look out for copies in all good bookshops.