Farming for the future
Country Life UK|June 14, 2023
Food security and land management are two of the most pressing issues facing the UK today, but the way forward isn’t simple. Here, nine guardians of the land outline what they think the next step should be
Farming for the future

Prof Sir Dieter Helm

FARMING has no option—it will have to be sustainable, otherwise it will not be sustained. Proportionately, it is the biggest carbon emitter and responsible for much of the pollution in rivers. Put simply, it has to produce food, achieve net zero and protect biodiversity and rivers.

That does not mean a return to some arcadian past. Science is crucial in this transition. Agriculture is increasingly a digital enterprise, mapping crops, soils and baselines for natural capital. Big data, AI and robotics are taking over and, with them, new skill sets and new kinds of farmers. Genetics are replacing the traditional plant and animal breeding.

Meanwhile, carbon credits, rewilding and anti-meat campaigns grab the headlines. The Wild West of carbon credits lacks serious system and land-use planning, and can sometimes increase emissions. Rewilders often confuse conservation management with abandoning the land and have few answers when it comes to the obvious question of where the food is going to come from. Anti-meat campaigns can lack a serious understanding of how livestock production and the soils interact, as well as the role of soil as a store of carbon and biodiversity.

Farming needs to rise above these fashions, navigating around silo policies and always with the science in mind. Activists mean well, but the risk is the road to hell is paved with simplistic rewilders and lynxes and wolves, trees planted on peats and thin soils, and the eradication of animals in upland farm systems.
Sir Dieter Helm is professor of economic policy at Oxford University and author of 'Green and Prosperous Land'

Baron Newborough

Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin June 14, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin June 14, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

COUNTRY LIFE UK DERGISINDEN DAHA FAZLA HIKAYETümünü görüntüle
Save our family farms
Country Life UK

Save our family farms

IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
A very good dog
Country Life UK

A very good dog

THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
The great astral sneeze
Country Life UK

The great astral sneeze

Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why

time-read
3 dak  |
November 27, 2024
'What a good boy am I'
Country Life UK

'What a good boy am I'

We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton

time-read
3 dak  |
November 27, 2024
Forever a chorister
Country Life UK

Forever a chorister

The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death

time-read
4 dak  |
November 27, 2024
Best of British
Country Life UK

Best of British

In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.

time-read
3 dak  |
November 27, 2024
Old habits die hard
Country Life UK

Old habits die hard

Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves

time-read
4 dak  |
November 27, 2024
It takes the biscuit
Country Life UK

It takes the biscuit

Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them

time-read
3 dak  |
November 27, 2024
It's always darkest before the dawn
Country Life UK

It's always darkest before the dawn

After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat

time-read
4 dak  |
November 27, 2024
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
Country Life UK

Tarrying in the mulberry shade

On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.

time-read
3 dak  |
November 27, 2024