I have been listening to the reading of the Sunday Times bestseller "English Pastoral - An Inheritance" by James Rebanks who also wrote " A Shepherds Life". It makes me want to weep at what we have lost, which I am lucky enough to be able to remember. I can also remember the coming of the agribusiness farmer & the complete change they wrought on the landscape & wildlife. All in the name of higher production & more profit.
Many years ago I remember coming home from a springtime walking holiday in the wilds of Greece, surrounded by an idyllic landscape filled with wild flowers & butterflies. The farmer, whose fields surrounded my house, had not only created huge fields, constantly spraying & planting right up to the hedge margins, but he had killed every blade of grass in the field adjoining my house. The whole field was a wasteland. He was very annoyed when I wrote to the local paper about my environmental concerns.
Man has managed to ruin one of the most basic & important elements of the world we live in. We have created soil depletion & erosion. There is less & less natural organic matter, which makes soil naturally fertile. We have disturbed the natural water cycle & contaminated that most precious & basic necessity to life. We have also contaminated our own enviromnemt, resulting in unhealthy effects on ourselves.
Monitoring water and the impact on the environment
We have saturated the land with herbicides & pesticides & been forced to use more & more artificial fertilizers containing methane, carbon dioxide,
ammonia, and nitrogen. Pesticides contain organophosphates which have a deadly effect on the nervous stystem. Fertilizers pollute waterways, can cause chemical leaf burn, increase air pollution, cause soil acidificatioon & mineral depletion.
In turn emissions from these have contributed to a great extent to the quantity of greenhouse gases present in the environment. This in turn is leads to global warming and weather changes.
Generations of farmers have turned their back on traditional methods of farming, which husbanded the land & valued soil quality. That has had a devastating effect on earthworm & insect populations. Because of the interconnectedness of nature, these depleted food sources have caused the decimation of birds.... And so it goes on right through the food chain.
A perfect storm of destruction. We are literally biting the hand that feeds us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_agriculture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-till_farming
https://www.healthline.com/health/organophosphate-poisoning#symptoms
http://www.sallefarms.co.uk/crop-rotation/
There is another way. We do know how to do it better. We need to change all food production radically, before it's too late.
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