The pioneering English rewilding project at Knepp in West Sussex may produce high-quality free-range meat but George Monbiot - a big fan of rewilding - has pointed out that its meat production per hectare is so small that, if rolled out across 10% of British farmland, it would provide just three meat meals a person a year.
Small-scale, low-impact market gardening lacks significant government support and yet it is remarkably productive: as Monbiot reveals in his book Regenesis, market gardener Iain Tolhurst produces 120 tonnes of fruit and veg a year on 7 hectares. In Norfolk, the 0.4-hectare community market garden Eve's Hill Veg Co has a turnover of £96,000 ($116,000), supplies vegetables to eight shops and restaurants and about 50 families, employs three trainees and helped put more than 40 people through an introductory horticulture course.
This story is from the October 27, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the October 27, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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