Western Morning News (Saturday)
DAIRY DELIGHTS
Martin Hesp hears why regenerative farming and healthy soils are the future of agriculture
As world leaders travel to the G7 summit in Cornwall next month, they will see an awful lot of fields as they fly, drive or take a train down the length of the Westcountry. And some, if they have time to glimpse out of the window, might think what a pleasant, green and generally unspoilt environment this peninsula represents.
Then, as they gather in Carbis Bay to discuss vast global problems such as climate change, they might trot out the modern mantra that the world must consume less meat and dairy – a message the mainstream media now repeats on an almost hourly basis without analysis or question. The irony being, of course, that much of the green and pleasant land the politicians will have been admiring is intrinsically linked to those two agricultural sectors.
Much of the green on view will have been grass – and grass in fields is all about grazing, which is what the ruminants who supply the meat and dairy industries do for a living.
Now we come to the crux of today’s food pages – the core of a new argument which will run and run and which this article sets out to introduce... because there are very different kinds of grassy fields and forms of grazing – which means there are very different ways of producing those traditional things we like to eat and drink, which, indeed, this region is famous for... such as clotted cream, great milk and marvellous meat.
I was thinking all this as I stood in a Cornish field recently with the managing director of a highly respected Cornish dairy company and a farmer who acts as a consultant within the world of pioneering agriculture. Francis Clarke is joint MD of Trewithen Dairy and Tom Tolputt is a founder of South West Farm Consultants.
We were knee-deep in a thick, complex, mix of grasses, herbs and clovers – and the thought struck me what a good thing it would be if those world leaders peering out of the windows of their VIP helicopters knew about this field and others like it.
Because fields like this one on the South Cornish coast are capable of both feeding cattle and locking away vast amounts of carbon. Indeed, a farming industry which was based on the sort of practices followed by Tom would go a long way towards helping to solve climate change.
One thing Tom and others like him are passionate about is soil health. It’s the tip of an upside-down and majorly holistic triangle which underpins a growing movement known as “regenerative farming”. One of the mantras of this movement is: if we humans look after the soil under our feet, it will look after us.
Looking after soils which are going to help produce foodstuff means avoiding mono-crops and heavy applications of fertilisers, fungicides and chemicals. It means planting with as much of an eye to the health of root systems as to possible yields – and it can mean the introduction of carefully managed grazing regimes.
Even a layman like me can see that soil should not be a dead and lifeless thing that can be turned into a growing medium by regular helpings of arterial fertilisers. It should be full of natural living organic matter that helps nature do what it does best, i.e. grow stuff.
But forget the layman’s view. An increasing number of scientists are beginning to discover the amazing complexities of healthy soil which go hand in hand with an endless list of benefits.
Carbon sequestration being just one. Healthier meat and dairy products being another. No wonder Francis Clarke was looking extremely absorbed and interested as he stood in that Cornish field. Not that I was surprised, because Trewithen Dairy has a reputation for leading the way and “doing things right” – which is why it has been taking a big interest in regenerative farming over the past couple of years.
The family-run business has been working with Tom and others in its bid to pioneer the dairy industry’s move towards a greener more environmentally friendly way of producing milk – and last week Francis and I went to see how Tom’s forage crops were coming along this year.
“The cold dry spring is definitely holding the season back – we are behind, especially with the legumes and things flowering,” said Tom. As we were struggling to wade through the thick carpet of grasses in the field, you could have fooled me that it was behind – but it wasn’t so much the visible crop that Tom wanted us to see. Soon he was down on his hands and knees digging holes so he could show us the all-important root systems. “Basically we improve the ability of the soil to take in carbon and store it,” he said after we’d had an introductory chat about how ‘holistic’ the overall approach towards regenerative farming should be. “By adding diversity, such as deeper rooting crops – by adding better grazing patterns – the ability for the soil to absorb and retain more carbon is huge. It can utterly offset through good practice the carbon that is released through practices based on ignorance and by people not knowing what is happening.
“We know that arable fields within a rotation are holding about 4% carbon, whereas the permanent pastures are holding about 8% carbon. So over the past 80 years we’ve lost 4% of the carbon (or soil organic matter) through cultivation, and through fertilisers and other things. We can return that 4% to the 8% and offset the carbon created by the industry around that carbon and start to turn the tide.”
You don’t need to be a mathematician to work out that if vast swathes of the agricultural landscape were returned to a form of grazing-based farming which nurtured soils, rather than degraded them, then it would be possible to develop a meat and dairy sector which was helping to reduce climate change rather than
make it worse. To a layman, this was a “you can have your cake and eat it” moment. But Francis, although plainly excited, was more cautious in his approach. Which is perhaps how you should be when you’re in charge of a successful company that employs 250 people.
“This is about long-term – it’s about learning,” said the tall, thoughtful young man as he began to explain how Trewithen Dairy was approaching the concept of regenerative farming. “Ever since my parents began crafting dairy products here in Cornwall in 1994, we have adhered to what we call ‘Trew Standards’ in everything we do – and so the Cornish farmers who supply us with milk all work to the very highest specifications and, indeed, are exemplars in what they do. But the world is constantly changing and there are new ideas within agriculture, as well as new demands from consumers – which is why we decided to listen to people like Tom, in a bid to see where concepts like regenerative farming could take us. We’ve been asking: ‘Could these eco-friendly farming practices be part of what we are doing at Trewithen?’ There were a couple of farmers in our group of 35 contracted farms who were inquisitive about the potential and of a mindset to embrace the change. They were looking at the wider view around the holistic management of their farms and we were interested in how this could lock carbon into the soil. And so, combining their work with conversations we’ve been having with Tom, we are asking if there are ways in which we can take this forward and then actually measure and demonstrate the changes to our customers?
“It’s the beginning of a journey for us... our journey to carbon zero. We would love to see regenerative farming being much more widespread, more integrated into the other great work which farmers are doing around reducing emissions. So it is this very holistic approach which is required.”
Tom agreed. “It’s a story that is based in history – the symbiosis between ruminants and grassland which has evolved over millennia.”
In this article I’ve only had room to scratch the surface of this deep and fertile subject. Francis, Tom and I were out in those Cornish fields for more than two hours, and you can hear much more of our in-depth conversations on my podcast, which you can listen to for free at https://www. rawfooddrink.news