‘Sustainable isn’t a thing’: why regenerative agriculture is food’s latest buzzword
Written by Tim Lewis from the Guardian
Everyone from small farms to McDonald’s is getting involved in regenerative agriculture. Could it point the way to a better future for farming?
A pheasant struts around the Garden of Eden. The pheasant is, well, a pheasant, a male, with those long, jaunty tail feathers; the Garden of Eden is the semi-serious name given by Dan Cox, a 39-year-old chef turned farmer, to a patch of land about half the size of a football pitch on his farm in south-east Cornwall. Cox began working on it in 2017 and it is his experiment to create a growing space in complete harmony with nature, but also productive and bountiful with some of the most delicious vegetables you will ever taste.
Cox looks at the pheasant, which is picking at his seeds and shoots, and squints. “They’re like colourful Chinese chickens that have been bred for stupidity and flying upwards,” he says. “There’s nothing good about them. They don’t taste nice. They’re not supposed to be here. They’re very aggressive. You’re going about your business in your garden and the cocks are coming and attacking you. Crazy! Something’s gone wrong, something’s been removed from the system somewhere to allow that thing to flourish in the first place.”
Conventional farming is a travesty. You want to develop and evolve, make it as good as it can be
When we left some longer grass to grow we had barn owls return to the farm within about three months
There’s a lot to be said for trying to grow things that have that competitive edge on the market
Continue reading...
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Written by Tim Lewis from the Guardian
Everyone from small farms to McDonald’s is getting involved in regenerative agriculture. Could it point the way to a better future for farming?
A pheasant struts around the Garden of Eden. The pheasant is, well, a pheasant, a male, with those long, jaunty tail feathers; the Garden of Eden is the semi-serious name given by Dan Cox, a 39-year-old chef turned farmer, to a patch of land about half the size of a football pitch on his farm in south-east Cornwall. Cox began working on it in 2017 and it is his experiment to create a growing space in complete harmony with nature, but also productive and bountiful with some of the most delicious vegetables you will ever taste.
Cox looks at the pheasant, which is picking at his seeds and shoots, and squints. “They’re like colourful Chinese chickens that have been bred for stupidity and flying upwards,” he says. “There’s nothing good about them. They don’t taste nice. They’re not supposed to be here. They’re very aggressive. You’re going about your business in your garden and the cocks are coming and attacking you. Crazy! Something’s gone wrong, something’s been removed from the system somewhere to allow that thing to flourish in the first place.”
Conventional farming is a travesty. You want to develop and evolve, make it as good as it can be
When we left some longer grass to grow we had barn owls return to the farm within about three months
There’s a lot to be said for trying to grow things that have that competitive edge on the market
Continue reading...
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. Support the Guardian – it only takes a minute. Thank you.