“Mixed farming is muddled thinking.” That’s what Douglas, one of our neighbours, said of my father’s complex mixed farm, 40 years before anyone had heard of regenerative agriculture. They had both started farming as church tenants after the war, running mixed farms (traditional systems rearing both crops and livestock), with cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, cider orchards and grain fields. As agrochemicals got cheaper, and as machinery got bigger, Douglas sold his livestock, grubbed out his orchards, and focused on grain – which he did very well at, retiring early and comfortably.
We grow around 60 crops on the farm now; down from over 100 in Riverford’s early days. It sometimes feels like we are fighting the 18th century economist Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” (the unseen forces that move the free market economy to serve society’s needs), which would have guided us towards scale and simplicity. There is no doubt that in farming, as with any business, the more different things you do, the smaller the chance you will do any of them well.
I remember visiting Frank, a Dutch glasshouse farmer who grew only cucumbers. He apologised for having to leave early for his amateur dramatics rehearsal; when I asked what the play was about, he said, without irony, “cucumbers”. Needless to say, he was excellent at growing cucumbers, with high yields and lower prices. So why should you pay for us lacking Frank’s focus? I do think that our lower yielding, shorter season cucumbers taste better – and they certainly have a lower carbon footprint, being local, grown without artificial heat, and part of a crop rotation that benefits the soil.
Our mix of crops and weeds support more biodiversity than would ever be found on Douglas’s grain farm. Market forces have driven agriculture towards specialisation and scale; the increased yields have reduced the price of food over the last 70 years, but with catastrophic environmental costs.
The mixed and regenerative farming advocated in Henry Dimbleby’s excellent National Food Strategy (essential reading for anyone interested in the future of food and farming – nationalfoodstrategy.org) is widely held to be key to feeding ourselves while caring for the environment. But, as Dimbleby concedes, we have a mountain to climb in terms of reskilling, and reshaping our food systems, to make it financially viable for farmers to deliver. More on his report next week, when I have had time to digest it.
I agree with everything you’ve said. Since I was a child in the mid 50’s to 60’s I experienced mixed farming as a normal practice by my grandfather, my relatives, their friends & neighbours in Lincolnshire. I lived on the edge of the Cotswolds and in both areas I observed awful changes in the countryside of growing mono crops, facilitated by destroying hedgerows and awful smelling chemical fertilisers or pesticides. I used to see so much wildlife in the little fields, hedgerows and small woodlands over 40 years, getting less and less. I’ve always thought mixed farming made a lot more common sense as a balanced and harmonious way to work with nature. I trained to be a nutritional therapist, as a later life career and learned that most modern diseases are the manifestation of poor diet and lifestyle caused by lack of nutrients, microbes in the soil and our polluted and stressful environment. I cannot tell you happy it makes me to see and read what you are achieving with your organic mixed farming.
Hi Val, So glad that this article made you feel joyful – we really need hope and a healthier vision for our futures right now! The changes you talk about in the name of ‘progress’ really are shocking. Time for us to remember our place in the world – part of it, not separate to it – and as such we need to make room for all life. For a perspective on this you may love do check out this article from earlier in the year: https://wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/features/environment-ethics-biodiversity/listening-quieter-voices
Not that I know much about it, but I am thankful that most of our veg comes from mixed farms such as Riverford…but am I right about that? Do some of the growers for Riverford concentrate on one crop?
Anyhow, I look at hedgerows grubbed out here in Hampshire for huge wheat and barley fields ( decimated by recent downpours), oilseed rape and late harvested maize as I wander the lanes on my bike, occasionally being scared to death by huge machines and grain wagons going far too fast than is good for anyone in order to get the product off the fields and into the money machine. .
Up in the South Lakes on an adjacent organic dairy farm maize is a substitute for hay from the old days and silage in recent days – so there are no more lapwings and lines of plastic to encourage rapid young growth – bit bizarre, really. Do I remember those lines of plastic in fields along the Buckfast to Totnes road all those years ago?..Rum old world and things change and we’ve gone for a plastic-free box this week!
I am also reminded of land in County Clare, Eire, that rather than paying to go wild is covered with monoculture fir to the great loss of peat bog and hare. And I wonder is it becoming any different from tea or coffee plantations etc as cash crops for bourgeoise Western consumption?
Sad to hear you don’t see those ;lapwings any more! And vast monocultures really are such poor habitats. definitely a need with tree planting for it being the right tree in the right place. On organic farms, the good news is that wildlife is up to 50% more abundant, with much greater biodiversity.
Some of the farmers who grow veg for Riverford have shared their stories on Wicked Leeks in our ‘News from the farm’ section throughout the year. Many of them have some crops which are specialities due to the unique growing conditions in that area, but grow a variety of different fruit and veg throughout the year.