There is a better way
There are East Anglian farmers proudly recovering what industrial agriculture has lost
HUGE fields, heavy machinery, record yields—these are the hallmarks of modern East Anglian agriculture. They are also the signs of unsustainable farming. Soil compaction, soil erosion, loss of fertility, persistent weeds—these are the inevitable concomitants of modern monoculture. Its proponents can only offer more of the same: more herbicides, insecticides and chemical fertilisers.
However, critics are providing a series of increasingly hopeful replacements, ranging from extreme re-wilding or the complete conversion to organic farming to a series of less radical, but environmentally more friendly regimes that begin to put the heart back into the soil, increase the biodiversity and replant hedges and trees.
The flat lands of East Anglia have encouraged some of these extreme forms of modern arable farming, but there are individual farmers who are proudly recovering what industrial agriculture has lost: acres where wildflowers bloom again, cattle and sheep graze contentedly and birds sing. What was once the preserve of a few enthusiasts is now fully commercial.
These are practical farmers who have done the sums and shown that working with Nature, foregoing the increasingly expensive inputs and putting back into the soil instead of taking away, gives them a more profitable business. They’ve also learned that these are practices that begin to remedy other ills, rarely admitted by their conventional neighbours.
Perhaps chief among these is the recovery of the bee. Many farmers have taken pollination for granted, unwilling to admit that their chemical-laden systems have meant that huge acreages are devoid of the plants and flowers that attract and maintain bees. By their action as pollinators, bees contribute more than £650 million a year to the British economy and are worth many billions to agriculture worldwide. Even so, most of us take bees for granted and have hardly noticed that a combination of pollution, industrial agriculture and disease has severely depleted the bee population. Most of us, that is, but not the Hayward brothers. Mark and Paul are third-generation family farmers over on the Suffolk Coast. Theirs is a really commercial enterprise, rearing highvalue pigs for some of the most discerning customers in the country, from Gordon Ramsay to Michel Roux. Lockdown has meant more dependence on their direct-mail operation, selling bacon and ham, sausages and charcuterie. All this good food is produced amid fields that aim to host more than a million bumblebees.
They plant mixes of flowers on about 85 acres of farmland to produce the nectar that bees love. The insect carries pollen from flower to flower, brushed onto its body as it seeks to get its tongue into the hidden sweetness. The flowers are planted sequentially, ensuring the longest possible flowering, from June to September.
It’s not only the bees that benefit, but many other insects, butterflies and moths. Dingley Dell Pork is a colourful living haven for biodiversity. It’s also providing an essential service to nearby farmers by rebuilding the native ecosystem that conventional farming has all but destroyed. As you would expect, this detailed concern for the natural world means that these farmers care about the welfare of their Red Duroc pigs and the taste and flavour of the meat they produce.
This is not hobby farming or the enterprise of an enthusiastic amateur. This is an efficient modern business that shows at every turn that it’s possible to farm profitably at the same time as caring for the environment. This must be a better way forward than the chemically driven monoculture that has so depleted our soils and our biodiversity.