Glimpse of the Future

We went to a presentation by the facilitator of the North East Cotswold Farmer Cluster. This took place at FarmEd - a shiny facility that aspires to "inspire, educate and connect people to build sustainable farming and food systems that nourish people and regenerate the planet."

The place and the presentation are as far from muddy boots, picture-book farmyards and rosy-cheeked rural folk as could be. There were maps and charts, statistics and policies. Phrases like 'corporate social responsibility', 'stakeholder management' and 'private investor confidence' were all on offer. One ambition of the Cluster is to "better prepare for ELMs" - they assume that their target audience already knows that this stands for Environmental Land Management - government payments to farmers for environmental improvements

The regeneration of soil and soil carbon was mentioned a lot, so was the management of water and flooding; provision of wildlife habitats and biodiversity were included. A far cry from both my rural childhood and my professional years, when production per hectare was the only real focus of most modern, business-minded farmers

I am not cynical about this change, however much it jars with my rose-tinted memory. The old, careless ways were destroying everything, including the long-term sustainability of farming itself. The commitment in the room to doing things differently seemed to me to be not just business decisions, but a change in mind-set. I hope I'm right

Before all this, I stood in the (empty!) bath to try to capture the dawn light on both the wood that was planted as we arrived in this house eleven years ago and the ironstone chimney. I think woodland must be a more diverse habitat than the low-intensity grazing it replaced, and certainly it will reduce the risk of flooding and increase soil carbon. A new dawn