A ‘Take’ on The Ruined Maid by Thomas Hardy
THE RUINED LAND
Oh nature, how changed you appear to my eyes
Where once you were always a delightful surprise
Now you’re polluted on land and in sea
“Oh didn’t you know I’ve been ruined” said she
You used to be verdant, productive and green
But now there is so little life to be seen
When once birds and insects were where they should be
“Yes, that’s what occurs when I’m ruined” said she
You used to have forests and woods full of trees
And hedges loud humming with industrious bees
But now monoculture is all we can see
“The vista is bleak when I’m ruined” said she
Your seas were prolific, your rivers ran clean
No plastic pollution would ever be seen
Your life forms were full of diversity
“But that’s in the past now I’m ruined” said she
There’s smog in the skies instead of clear blue
With fires and floods wreaking their damage on you
And humans ignore what they don’t want to see
“They’ll realise their fate when I’m ruined” said she
I wish we could find a way to repair
The damage we’ve done to land, sea and air
With nature returning to how it should be
“Let’s hope I’ll recover from ruin” said she
I’m getting more concerned that, globally, we have ‘parked’ saving the planet, until we have ‘sorted’ out our human ‘needs’ and self made problems. But nature can’t, and won’t wait until we are happy to take on the many climate challenges that refuse to be ignored.
But, I do feel more hopeful that there is a world wide groundswell of innovative farming methods that are pointing to a better way of growing our food, without depleting the major resource of productive soil. Ever since the end of the second world war monoculture has become the mantra for farming methods; leading to major destruction of the natural cycle of growth. Clearing virgin and farmland for monoculture crops has led to pollution and destruction of the basic structure on which all growth depends; soil.
And now, an amazing fact; A teaspoon of soil contains more microbes than people on the planet; and, probably, as many as 10,000 individual species. The past and current trend in farming has been to look upon soil as a handy medium to grow crops in, clear it of weeds with various herbicides, destroy any wild life in it with pesticides, grub trees and hedges out of it for more soil space; altogether these actions have resulted in soil being degraded and sterile. Last year I read that the nutritional value of field crops had reduced considerably since the second world war. Although yields of crops went up, nutrients reduced; and the disastrous cycle of large agribusiness ‘management’ (the aforementioned pesticide/herbicide routine) took over; and we didn’t realise what was coming down the road.
Hopefully this mindset is changing. My new go to read on all things growing is the ‘WickedLeeks’ website; an informed and informative series of articles on changes of farming methods all over the world. And, many thanks to the ‘Technical Department’ (my son Rory) for setting my sights on this inspiring source of information.
This is such a huge and growing movement that I know I will be returning to it, quite often, in future posts. Just one example of an innovative method taking off in many parts of the world is ‘Silvopasture, a return to combining pasture and arable husbandry. The re-discovery of the benefits of nomadic grazing under trees is growing in popularity. Animals reared under this method are more productive and less stressed, being able to take advantage of the shade given by their leafy surroundings; and, not only does the soil regenerate with the addition of animal manure, but grazing on brush in hot and dry grassland is proving to be a significant aid to preventing wild fires. In Catalonia, the high quality of meat produced by nomadic grazing herds is labelled as contributing to wild fire management; and purchasers of said meat know that they are helping in the fight against wild fires.
There are so many more examples of hopeful future farming, that I’m finding it difficult to finish this post. So I will stop, for now!
Wicked Leeks is a great little newsletter.
Fun fact #2: Animal agriculture is now the second largest driver of climate change according to a number of recent studies. Not to mention the pollution and disease associated with the industry. Some studies even have it at the top of the pile.
Dear T.D.
I’m assuming you have read the Wickedleeks articles about the essential place animals have in future sustainable farming.
I’d be willing to bet that those studies vilifying innocent domestic farm animals are statistically based on creatures trapped in huge industrial ‘factories’, fed unsuitable methane making food, treated with growth making hormones and antibiotics, and indifferently treated as profit making ‘products’; while being completely ignored as sentient creatures deserving of recognition as an important part of our future farming policies.
Make no mistake, sustainable farming needs our grazing animals. Yes, we will eat less meat; and yes, less crops will be earmarked for feeding to animals. But this won’t put a stop to monoculture; which will (is being already) be transferred to mass plant based farming; and cause just as many problems as it claims to solve; with the same use of pesticides, herbicides etc.
I never thought I’d think this, but I feel for the farmers in this country, who are now realising that, with the withdrawal of EU subsidies, they have got to change their ways; and a growing movement is taking shape towards more sustainable agriculture; and a more holistic method of feeding our population.
I completely agree we need to move towards more sustainable farming methods and of course domesticated farm animals will play a role.
The difference on my regenerative farm is I wouldn’t kill them and would allow them to live out their natural lives, fertilizing the land etc etc.
And yes, most of those studies do relate to intensive factory farming methods. On the point about plant farming causing as many problems as ‘plant-based’ claims to solve I will respectfully disagree. Producing animal protein is 80% less efficient than producing the equivalent plant protein. If we’d evolved fully plant based, at this point in history we’d need 75% less agricultural land to produce the same amount of protein! The stats are easily found online.
We do need to drastically cut our meat consumption to have any chance of feeding 10 billion mouths by 2060. It is an inconvenient truth.
The hypothesis that ‘If we’d evolved fully plant based, at this point in history, we’d need 75% less agricultural land . . .’ is irrelevant, because evolution advanced exponentially when we increased our brain power and survival ability with the use of cooking, and the benefit to our nutrition that meat eating provides.
And, if we had managed to survive on just plant based diets, what’s the betting we would have still used poisons, still have degraded our environment, still have cleared virgin forests; the list goes on.
I, of course, agree that animals need to be part of regenerative farming; but you can’t get away from the inconvenient fact that some will need to be killed. This does not need to be done in the inhumane and factory based methods of most of the industry today. I refer to Post 18 ‘Local meets Global’ and our smallholding experience so many years ago, when we treated our domesticated creatures with respect.
Yes, hypothetical but not irrelevant. It just serves to illustrate how much less land we’d need to feed everyone using plants.
The ‘eating meat made us clever’ theory is now also being challenged by various studies and archaeological finds. The more we learn, the more we realise how little we know.
Your point about still using poisons etc to realise 100% plant-based diets is valid but again, we’d need to use a lot less due to the massively greater land-use efficiency of using plants to supply us with the nutrition we need. Plenty of stats out there on this one.
Of course, some animals would need to be killed in a regenerative system. On my regenerative farm I’d only put down the lame animals and those who are suffering due to old age or some other problem.
I think the point is, our eating habits need to drastically change if we’re to reverse the onward march into climate chaos. The smallholding experience simply does not have the capacity to satisfy the massive demand for meat, globally (which is predicted to increase 75% by 2050!)