After the G7 Summit, climate change is very much back in the news again and predictions are that in many countries as well as the UK we shall see more dry periods with high temperatures, as has happened this year, and paradoxically more incidents of intense rainfall leading to flash floods.
VALUE OF GRASSLAND
Graham Harvey, agricultural graduate and journalist, observes in his book ‘The Carbon Fields’ 'Cereal cropping is extremely vulnerable to these conditions whereas grassland, by contrast, is remarkably tolerant of them. Fertile pastures with higher levels of soil organic matter offer protection against both drought and floods'. ‘While intensive grain farmers base their production on oil - in the fertilizers, chemicals and diesel fuel they use as inputs - grass farmers make full use of energy from the sun.’ He goes on to explain, ‘Grasslands are essential collectors of sunlight. A grass field acts as a large photovoltaic cell, intercepting incoming solar radiation and using some of it to power the production of sugars from carbon taken from the air as carbon dioxide. You could compare a grass leaf with a small solar panel. The difference is that in a pasture, leaves are set at different angles, which makes the whole canopy more efficient at gathering sunlight than a flat solar panel.’ CONSUMING LESS MEAT NOT JUSTIFIED A move is afoot to persuade people to believe that, for the sake of the planet, they should consider eating less meat or become vegetarian, but in actual fact it is not meat production as a whole but intensive farms, known as factory farms with their lagoons of slurry, that are a main source of pollution. Harvey points out that tests have shown methane produced by pasture fed cattle is 20% lower than that from conventional, high yielding herds. Furthermore, he claims, the overall carbon footprint per litre of milk produced was as much as 40% lower on grassland farms compared to intensive farms, not to mention the important potential for capturing carbon in the soil. 
SUCCESS OF ROTATIONAL GRAZING ON SMALL FARMS
Small mixed farms used to be the backbone of British farming but despite their being in decline for many years, there is no more urgent time than now to bring them back. A revolutionary system of farming has been carried out for many years very successfully by Joel Salatin, who farms organically in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, USA. Salatin raises beef, chickens, turkeys, rabbits and pigs on just one hundred acres of pasture, surrounded by and closely inter- connected with forest. As each pasture field reaches the right stage of growth it is grazed, first by cattle and then by poultry, pigs and rabbits. As explained in Harvey’s book, using the simple practice of rotational grazing, understood by generations of farmers before the industrial era, Polyface Farm produces every year about twenty tons of beef, fifteen tons of pork, ten thousand chickens, twelve hundred turkeys, a thousand rabbits and more than four hundred thousand eggs. The animals are reared out in the fields and all waste is recycled naturally with the result that, for all their prodigious output, and without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilisers, the pastures become ever more fertile year on year as essential minerals and trace minerals are returned to the land. This system provides a secure food supply in a truly sustainable way fit to feed a growing population. |
WORDS OF WISDOM IGNORED
Dr. Walter Yellowlees, much loved and respected general practitioner and a founder member of the McCarrison Society for Nutrition and Health wrote, ‘... government dictate, by tax or by subsidy, now determines the priorities in land use and in the production of food. In the United Kingdom these priorities have not so far included the preservation of mixed farming or a halt to rural depopulation, or the availability of fresh, organically grown food. To blame the "greed" of farmers for this state of affairs is unjust. Farming policy is now determined by government ministers and their officials, sitting not in London or in Edinburgh, but (at present Ed.) in Brussels.’ GOOD FOOD BASED ON SOUND AGRICULTURE ‘The choice of priorities in preventing disease is not made easier by the attitude of the medical profession. The concept of unity in the health of the soil, plants, animals and man seems to be beyond the comprehension of professional leaders with their passion for specialization and their consequent limited vision. Techniques in medicine or in surgery, however advanced, do not create health. Health cannot be created without good food based on sound agriculture.’ ‘Unless there is a change in our national diet so that we replace refined, processed and chemically manipulated food by fresh whole food, our National sickness will not improve. There will be no substantial reduction in the modern killing diseases. The cost of the National Health Service will go on escalating.’ Very little has changed since these words were written more than 30 years ago. 
OLD TRADITIONS PROVED THE BEST
The adoption of Salatin’s method of farming could not come too soon. In his book ‘An Agricultural Testament, written in the 1940’s, Sir Albert Howard warned of impending disaster after farmers abandoned the old and well tried principles of mixed farming in favour of artificial manures. Until the mid-20th century, farmers maintained phosphorus levels in the soil by composting plant waste or spreading phosphorus-rich manure. Sir Albert wrote 'This slow poisoning of the life of the soil by artificial manures is one of the greatest calamities which has befallen agriculture and mankind...' He pointed to the steady growth of disease in crops, animals and mankind. 'The spraying machine was called in to protect the plant; vaccines and serums the animal…The population, fed on improperly grown food, has to be bolstered up by an expensive system of patent medicines, panel doctors, dispensaries, hospitals and convalescent homes.' To this list one could add the increase in the number of prisons as a result of the violence and aggression, especially knife crime, that is so prevalent in today’s society. ENCOURAGE COMMUNITY FARMS Sir Albert stressed that the importance of the connection between a fertile soil and healthy crops, healthy animals and healthy human beings must be made more widely known. He urged communities with sufficient land of their own, to feed themselves by producing their own vegetables, fruit, milk and milk products, cereals and meat, thereby demonstrating the beneficial results of fresh food grown on fertile soil. |
Fundamental changes need to be made at government level now, before it is too late. With financial backing to help young farmers get started it would all be possible.
