Changing our nature
We are facing serious nature and climate emergencies. To prevent further system shocks, we need system change
by Sue Pritchard @suepritch
It is February 2020, and I am sitting in a barn at Fir Farm in the Cotswolds with local farmers, talking about short supply chains and fair food systems. Being a ‘local farmer’ here can mean a variety of things; the group includes deep green environmentalists, organic farming campaigners, old landed gentry, retired rock stars and celebrities, and more traditional farmers. But they share at least one concern: how can they develop a more sustainable food and farming system that serves their community better and is in harmony with nature?
A couple of weeks later I am on a Cumbrian hillside in the Lake District, far from the Cotswolds. Another iconic version of UK countryside, this area has become a hotbed of arguments between local farmers and environmentalists about how to protect it for generations to come, as if these concerns are mutually exclusive. James Rebanks, aka the Herdwick Shepherd, shows me his beloved sheep, hefted to these hills, just as he is. He is proud of his tree planting and his river ‘rewiggling’ projects, practical demonstrations of landscape regeneration that work hand-in-hand with his farming.
System shock
And now it is April, and I write this amid the Covid-19 lockdown, in what is likely to be the biggest public health and economic crisis that the world has seen for decades.
Yet it is not the only crisis we face. When the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission published its report, Our Future in the Land, in July 2019 (which seems like a lifetime ago), we set out, as clearly as we could, the full extent of the nature and climate emergencies and the public health crisis currently facing us. From the globalised, industrialised, intensive agriculture that has poisoned water, depleted soils and destroyed wildlife, to the massive rise in diet-related ill health that ruins lives and burdens the NHS, the case for change was already overwhelming.
Now, thanks to Covid-19, the fragilities in the food system have been shown up in stark relief. The concentration of capacity in fewer businesses, making them more vulnerable to sudden shocks; the reliance on transient labour for our fruit and veg to be picked; and the food workers in shops and takeaways who we have so often taken for granted, and who are often on low-pay, zero-hours and precarious contracts, but who we have now realised deserve to be described as key workers. Just-in-time and long supply chains are severely disrupted when these often invisible links — pickers, packers, processers, packaging companies, truckers and air freighters — start to struggle.
Yet in communities around the UK, inspirational and resourceful stories are emerging. Neighbourhoods are mobilising and using their on-the-ground knowledge to identify and respond to the needs of the most vulnerable. But for all the stories of creative and heroic effort, the whole system of food and farming needs radical reimagining. It has to be better for people, better for the planet and more resilient to systemic shocks; Covid-19 has shown us all too clearly the weaknesses inherent in our current systems.
Moving to an agroecological system
Thinking in whole systems can be overwhelming. The antidote to potential paralysis is to start with the grounded, the real and the practical. And there is nothing more so than the basic human need for nutritious, affordable, available food. With this at the forefront of our minds, in Our Future in the Land we call for a transition to agroecology by 2030. Agroecological principles, like all systems-thinking principles, work together in a coherent and integrated whole. At its heart, agroecology applies ecological and socially just principles to the whole food system, from methods of production to fair rewards for workers. It combines science with traditional, practical and indigenous knowledge, respecting and empowering producers. It is also place-based, responding to local conditions with contextualised solutions. And it enhances the adaptive capacity of people and communities to build their resilience for the long term. Its 10 interconnected components (see box-out) build on each other; our work in the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission has convinced us that a transition to agroecology is the future we need. It is too early to learn lessons from the current health crisis. Premature evaluation is always risky. But it is the right time to start thinking about what really matters to us in our communities. As a matter of urgency, the Commission is gathering evidence and stories from communities around the UK to ensure that all voices are heard in the policy discussions beyond this crisis. We are also working with our partners IDDRI, the French institute that produced Ten Years for Agroecology in Europe, to model the impacts of introducing agroecology in the UK. Agroecology is more than just an approach to food and farming; it is the shift to radical systems thinking and grounded action that the world needs right now.
An agroecological future
1. Diversity
Diversity is at the heart of the transition to agroecology, in the same way that diversity is central to all systems thinking. Diversity is manifest in practices like agroforestry (in which trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops or pasture in vertically layered systems), intercropping (growing complementary crops together) and rotational grazing with ruminants (where sheep and cows are grazed between arable crop cycles to improve organic matter in soils or conserve grassland and other habitats). Diversity improves soil and water quality, recovers wildlife, strengthens crop resilience and reduces reliance on synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides. Diversified business models are more resilient to economic shocks, enabling farmers to balance income streams. And more diversity in the food we eat strengthens the human microbiome, improving health and wellbeing.
2. Co-creation and sharing local knowledge
Peer-to-peer, context-specific knowledge is about sharing what works. We know farmers tend to learn best from each other, in practical and grounded ways, and this is especially true when microclimates and local ecosystems need highly tailored approaches. For example, in the Cotswolds, I learned about the Fir Farm mobile abattoir project. With the closure of small abattoirs around the country, it is becoming increasingly difficult — in some places impossible — to produce high-quality meat for a local market. Fir Farm takes the abattoir to farms, enabling small and medium-sized farm businesses to ‘home kill’ under high standards and sell locally; with the added benefit that there is also much less stress to the animals, too. Farmers were enthusiastic about this project, showing how farmer-led innovation via sharing knowledge and resources can create systems that work for them.
3. Synergies
Agroecological systems design for multiple benefits, for environment and people, through partnerships and cooperation. Agroforestry supports vertically integrated production systems, layers of fruit and nut trees, bushes and intercropping. Thinking about synergies also means rethinking scale. The ubiquitous call to scale up has led to consolidation and concentration in food systems, creating critical ecosystem vulnerabilities. Synergies are best understood at the scales appropriate to their ecological resilience, and instead of scaling up they emphasise joining up, through partnerships and collaborations.
4. Efficiency
Managing diversity to create synergies enables agroecological systems to improve resource-use efficiencies. Reducing reliance on external inputs increases the autonomy and profitability of producers. It also exposes some misplaced assumptions about productivity in our current agricultural practices, where, perversely, the need for more external inputs reduces profitability. At Nethergill Farm, in the Yorkshire Dales, Chris Clark discovered — contrary to received wisdom — that by reducing the number of sheep he kept, his profit margins rose, and flora, fauna and mosses increased in number and in species.
5. Recycling
Waste is a human concept. In agroecological systems, biological processes recycle nutrients and materials that would otherwise be lost and encourage innovation to use by-products. For example, a Scottish farmers’ co-operative, East of Scotland Growers, found a whole new product line when they made broccoli crisps out of the otherwise ‘wasted’ stems.
6. Resilience
Diverse agroecological systems are more resilient to external shocks. Farming with the natural contours of the land, using methods like cover cropping (in which a crop is grown for the benefit of the soil rather than because of its yield), prevents soil erosion and water loss. Companion planting, in which certain plants are placed close together in order to benefit from naturally occurring pest control, reduces the need for pesticide use. At the country scale, resilience means thinking carefully about how much food we need to grow in the UK in order to provide nutritious, safe, affordable food for people, fairly, while remaining within our ecological limits.
7. Human and social values
Placing equal emphasis on dignity, equity, inclusion and justice, agroecology puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce our food at the heart of a fair food system. The right to nutritious food and care for the environment go hand-in-hand, so that the non-human world and future generations can prosper. It seeks to improve gender inequalities: women make up half the global farming workforce yet own less than 15% of land. Young people, meanwhile, struggle to find meaningful work and access to land.
8. Culture and food traditions
Our human heritage is built on food and agriculture. Yet western societies have become disconnected from food production. Food insecurity, malnutrition and obesity exist side by side. Around the world, some 2 billion people suffer from nutrient deficiencies and 2 billion are overweight or obese. Agroecology aims to rebalance traditional and modern food systems in order to return to a healthier relationship between people and food. Countries that are successfully improving their food systems are emphasising their cultural traditions.
9. Responsible governance
Unfettered markets will not rebalance the system when they are often the beneficiaries of that imbalance. We need to level the playing field for a fair food system. The UK’s Environmental Land Management scheme, the planned replacement for the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, will be designed to incentivise farmers to deploy nature-based solutions to the climate and nature crisis. Campaigns such as Food for Life, for instance, work with schools and hospitals, reconnecting people with where their food comes from, teaching them how it’s grown and cooked, and championing the importance of well-sourced ingredients. And at the Commission, we have proposed a land use framework to enable transparent, responsible, participative and fair decision-making about how the UK uses this critical natural resource.
10. Circular and solidarity economy
Agroecology prioritises localising and equitable economics. Imaginative innovations are based on local needs, assets and capacity. It emphasises developing short supply chains, incentivising local collaboration and community schemes, and improves incomes for primary producers, while still maintaining fair prices for consumers. It ensures that citizens are not paying the hidden costs of polluting methods elsewhere in society.
Sue Pritchard is Director of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission
