Martin Lines – Chair of Nature Friendly Farming, and an arable farmer from Cambridgeshire
Food security starts on the farm, but goes much deeper, into the soil itself; as well as being within the infrastructure. We need to re-purpose and re-evaluate farming. How does thinking of farmers as asset managers of our national green assets change our attitude?
We need to make the landscape more resilient while creating healthy food for local consumption. Studies have shown that greater biodiversity leads to an increase in yield, so the dual aims of supporting nature and producing food do not have to be seen as working against each other. With effective support farmers could make a real improvement to the landscape.
62% of the grain produced in the UK goes to either feeding animals or anaerobic digestors, with the existing infrastructure leading to food being transported all over the place before it gets to the consumer. Keeping the infrastructure more local would reduce the use of fossil fuels used in all that transportation. We need to build a more circular farming economy. That can be done as simply as getting animals out of the sheds and into the fields to eat fresh grass, fertilising the soil for us as they go. We need local mills to process our grains, and local abattoirs. As consumers we need to become become more resilient by understanding more about the local production of our food. In turn we would begin to appreciate food for its social and environmental value too, and local support for farmers would grow.
The landscape needs to be wilder with habitats that are more interconnected. Rather than farms being carbon copies of each other they could develop differently in different areas. Local farmers need to learn from each other as deeper local knowledge develops. The land use framework could inform local development.
Procurement chains would be more resilient if they were shorter and more local.
Farming is a challenging and difficult job. We need to get back to valuing our local farmers and giving them back pride in what they do.
Martin finished by inviting us to get behind his organisation, Nature Friedly Farming, whether you are a farmer or not.