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A Farm for the Future

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I always think this Devon landscape is the most beautiful place on Earth

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and to me this is a very special farm, because it's where I grew up

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and it's the only place I've ever really called home.

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My name is Rebecca Hosking and I'm from a long line of farmers.

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But it was the wildlife here more than the farming that really fascinated me as a child.

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And this led me into a career as a wildlife filmmaker.

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But now I'm back here to be a farmer...

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and in very interesting times.

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An approaching energy crisis will likely force a revolution in farming

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and change the British countryside for ever.

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It will affect what we eat,

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where it comes from,

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and even the alarming question of whether there will be enough food to keep us fed.

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If our farm is to survive, it will have to change.

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In this film I'm going to find out how to make my family farm in Devon

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a farm that's fit for the future.

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I think when people sort of find out I was brought up on a small South Devon farm,

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they always think I must have had the most amazing childhood ever.

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When I think back to when I was brought up here,

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I just think of a load of bloody hard work really.

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We were just small time farmers and with that is involved not much money

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and a lot of hard work, to the point that it's almost drudgery.

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Dad often describes farmers as glorified lavatory attendants.

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And my family, like many farming families I think

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up and down the country, wanted something better for their children

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and I was actively encouraged to get out of farming, go and find a job, go and make a decent living.

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'So that's what I did.'

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And while I was away pursuing my career, my dad and my uncle Phil

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carried on, as ever, farming in a pretty traditional way.

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But now it's time for me to come back.

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The thing is, both Phil and I now, we...

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I was going to say we're several years beyond retiring age and should

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have retired, and most farmers have done that, but we've kept the farm

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going and, um...kept it going as long as we can,

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trying to keep it as we found it, as we sort of inherited it.

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You know, I'm delighted to think somebody will take it on now and keep it going, hopefully.

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But it's not going to be easy because of pressures of all sorts of things...

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food shortages, oil prices going up...

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it's not going to be easy at all.

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Many would say, "Just sell it.

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"That would make more money in a heartbeat than a lifetime of working the land."

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But how can I turn my back on somewhere so beautiful, and a place that made me who I am?

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However, making a living while continuing

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to preserve all the wildlife on the farm, as Dad has done, is going to be a major challenge.

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The inconvenient truth is that this farm,

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despite being a haven for wildlife, is no more sustainable than any other.

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All the farms I know, including organic ones,

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are utterly dependent on fossil fuel, particularly oil.

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This dependence is dangerous for two reasons...

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climate change we all know about,

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but there is also growing evidence that the oil we need may soon be in short supply.

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Last year's fuel prices hit us badly

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and for me it was a bit of a wake-up call.

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I recently learned that those crippling fuel prices may be just a tiny

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taster of what's to come as world oil production begins to decline.

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If there's any truth to this matter, then this will be my

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biggest challenge in keeping our farm going into the near future.

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So I decided to track down one of the world's most respected authorities on the subject.

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After a distinguished 40-year career as a geologist in the oil industry,

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he continues his research from a small village in the west of Ireland.

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To Dr Colin Campbell, the facts about our oil supply are simple.

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Despite searching the world with all the advances in technology and knowledge

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and incentive and everything,

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we've been finding less and less for 40 years.

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And in 1981 was a kind of turning point when we started using more than we found in new fields,

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as we started sucking down what had been found in the past...

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eating into our inheritance, you could say.

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So I don't think there's really any serious doubt that we're close to this turning point.

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A sort of turning point for mankind, you could say, when this critical

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energy for agriculture in particular, which means food, which means people, is heading on down.

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And there's a huge debate raging of exactly the date and the height of the peak of production.

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And really I think this misses the point.

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It doesn't matter whether it's this year, next year, five years out.

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What matters is the vision that after this peak you have a decline of only 2% or 3% a year,

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but there's a huge difference between climbing for 150 years and descending for 150 years.

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What Colin is saying is this decline will mean fuel shortages

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and prolonged economic turmoil.

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I tend to agree with him.

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It doesn't matter whether it's two years or ten years away,

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the impact it will have on pretty much every part of our lives is huge.

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But for me the biggest concern is how it will affect farming...

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which means our food.

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I don't think most people have given it much thought how much fossil fuel goes into our everyday food.

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I just bought this garage sandwich just before we got on board...

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and I'm going to pull it apart and go through all the ingredients.

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I'm gonna start with the bread.

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So somewhere in the world some farmer has had to plant the cereal.

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First off, he's in a diesel-run tractor.

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So he has to plough the field...

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then harrow the field. Then he has to drill the seeds into the earth.

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And then to get the cereal to grow, he's probably had to add a load of chemicals. To protect the crop...

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fungicides, herbicides, insecticides - all made from oil.

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And for the nutrients, chemical fertilizers...

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and at the moment most of the farmers' fertilizer is derived from natural gas.

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Once the cereal has ripened, it needs to be harvested.

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Then the grain is dried using big heaters and then it's driven using even more diesel to be processed.

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And it isn't some little granny in a corner shop doing this.

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This is huge industrial buckets making this kind of bread.

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So then we move on to the inside and ham obviously comes from a pig

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and that's even more energy hungry because pigs are fed on grain.

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And one pig can eat nearly half a tonne of the stuff.

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And then, just to add to it, we've got a little token very sad piece of salad in there

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which was either shipped in, flown in or grown in a heated greenhouse.

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Once again a huge amount of energy.

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All of these ingredients were either cooked or cooled or both and driven mile after mile in a refrigerated

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lorry before they were assembled into a sandwich.

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Basically, this sandwich, like most of the food that we're eating today, is absolutely dripping in oil.

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And the way that our food production is today, if we didn't

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have places like this, then in this country we'd pretty much starve.

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My visit to Ireland has given me a lot to think about.

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Even on our little farm, without fossil fuel energy, farming and food production

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would grind to a halt pretty quickly and we would be left with, well,

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a nature reserve. And nature reserves don't feed people.

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This is such a serious issue, I'm guessing the rest

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of the farming world must be as concerned as I am.

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Perhaps some of them have some ideas on how to move forward.

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A major Soil Association conference on the future of British farming seems like a good place to start.

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We may all think we're immune here because we can nip along

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to Tesco Metro whenever we like in the middle of the night and buy something...

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that whole system is in jeopardy.

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How are you going to feed Britain? How are you going to feed London?

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40% of the world's production comes from the 500 or so giant oil

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fields, half billion barrel oilfields. Most of those...

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They're certainly worried.

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And from what I'm hearing, the energy problem seems, well, imminent.

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It will hit us by 2013 at the latest, not just as an oil crisis

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but actually as an oil and indeed energy famine.

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Farmers are going to have to move from using ancient sunlight...

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using oil and gas...

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to using current sunlight.

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And that seems to me the most enormous challenge that agriculture

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has ever faced, certainly since the Industrial Revolution because we have so little time to do it.

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If we can get government to be part of that, so much the better,

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but if government won't be part of that, we'll have to do it without them.

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These are the new fundamentals on which the food system

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is going to have to be based or else we are buggered.

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The farmers' conference made it clear to me there are no easy answers.

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If our farms and machinery are so energy-hungry, what are the options without oil?

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Alternative energies are coming on leaps and bounds nowadays.

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Which one is likely to fit the bill?

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Over in California at the Post Carbon Institute,

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there is a man who has advised business, industry and governments on how to cope with oil depletion.

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Richard Heinberg kindly agreed to talk to me via the internet.

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I mean, surely with wind and solar and nuclear we could use all of this

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and the depletion of oil really isn't a problem?

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We've waited too long to develop alternative energy sources

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and there's also the likelihood that

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even all of these alternative energy sources put together won't be able to

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power industrial societies in the way that we've become accustomed to with fossil fuels.

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People have to understand that we've created a way of life that's fundamentally unsustainable.

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And that doesn't mean that it's just, you know, ecologically irresponsible, it means that it can't continue.

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The scale of the challenge ahead Richard is talking about becomes clear when you look at bio-fuels.

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Oil seed rape is the most productive bio-fuel crop in our climate.

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At Britain's current rate of oil use, a whole year's harvest from a four-acre field like this

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would be used up in less than one third of a second.

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That would be little help to agriculture as it stands today.

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Aside from transport, cars, trucks and airplanes,

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agriculture is the most fossil fuel intensive industry.

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We use in the industrial world about ten calories of fossil fuel energy

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for every calorie of food we produce.

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So this is an enormous problem we've created for ourselves.

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We have solved enormous problems in agriculture before.

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In the past 50 years, agricultural technology

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has tripled crop yields and overcome everything nature has thrown at us.

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But all of these advances rely on abundant fossil fuel.

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In a sense, they have taken us exactly in the wrong direction to deal with this new problem.

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Even the latest technologies, like GM crops, regardless of the other

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arguments, are as utterly dependent on fossil fuel as any other.

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So where does this leave us?

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It's possible in fact that food systems could collapse not just in the poor countries,

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but also in the wealthy current food exporting countries like the United States, Canada and Australia.

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And we are going to have to transform our entire agricultural system very quickly

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if we're going to avert a global food calamity.

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So, does this mean a return to horses, carts and hand tools on our farm?

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I personally wouldn't know how to do this, nor would most farmers today.

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The knowledge of how to farm in this manner is all but gone.

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However, on the next door farm is a woman who knows a thing or two about it.

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My dear old friend, Pearl.

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'Ello darlins, you waitin' for tea?

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You little beggars.

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They're handsome looking.

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Oh, they are. They're sweet.

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Do you know what that's for?

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-No idea.

-Well, years ago we used to make hayricks.

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Right, yeah, and put all the hay out to dry.

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Out to dry. Well, then you'd go up with your wagon, you see, and you'd want a wagon load of hay.

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And you'd have to cut the hay across to take away a section to put on the wagon...

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-and that you have to go like this.

-Oh, and literally cut like that?

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Yeah, like that.

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-It's a good old weight, though, isn't it?

-We weren't mice.

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I wasn't big but boy I was strong.

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The Lord gave me a lot of strength.

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He certainly did, He gave you all a lot of strength

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and we don't realise how easy we've got it now I think, do we?

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You don't.

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For those tasks too heavy for people, there were horses...

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and Pearl was an incredible horsewoman.

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Oh, Pearl, look at that, wow.

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-Look at those.

-Yeah, that's me bridles...

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Those are bridles. How many have you got, Pearl?

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Well, we had you see three big shires...

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Of course you did.

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When you had a horse and cart, well, it often was too big a load for one

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so you'd put that on the fore harness and that horse had a collar, that on it and two chains that came

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back and hooked into the front of the cart...

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-So when you needed a bit more extra horsepower, literally...

-That's right, that one was there to pull.

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-To get you up a hill.

-Yeah.

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At best, Pearl had a two horsepower system to help her with the heavy work.

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Today, farmers' tractors can be up to 400 horsepower.

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Trips off the tongue, doesn't it?

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400 horsepower... but think what it actually means...

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400 horses...

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that's the power we get from oil today.

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Do you know, today's energy supply is equivalent in energy terms

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to 22 billion slaves working round the clock.

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So we're basically living with this enormous stock of slaves working for us in the form of oil.

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But by the end of this century, there ain't any more of them. And that's a huge change we're facing.

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It affects just absolutely every aspect of the modern world.

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I often think how times have changed

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because you see we do all this work just to keep our cows going but now

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a bit of silage boy and it's all done mechanically and you can go and sit down.

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Your sons, if they had to farm like you did, do you think they would do it now?

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No, I don't think they would, I think they'd have more sense.

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But I was happy.

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This way of farming is something we couldn't go back to even if we wanted to.

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When Pearl was young, there was ten times as many farmers in this country

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and only half the number of mouths to feed.

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Also, most British farmers today just don't have the physical strength for hard manual labour.

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The average age of a farmer in Britain now is 60.

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And even worse, there's only 150,000 of them left.

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As an industry, British farming has effectively been left to die.

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And in recent years, more and more of our food is coming from abroad.

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The UK is a net food importer by a long shot, so this is a... This is a very perilous situation.

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Because of course all of that import has to come by way of fossil fuelled

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vehicles of one kind or another, whether it's ships or airplanes.

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And as fossil fuels again become more scarce and expensive, that means that that food is going

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to become more expensive and the whole system will start to creak and groan around the edges.

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Realistically, the only changes I can make are right here.

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And even that isn't as straightforward as it may seem.

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Ours is a traditional livestock farm.

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Raising beef and lamb on pasture may not look that fuel intensive,

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but there is one major problem.

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Bringing the cattle in in the winter for beef farming or dairy farming is just part and parcel

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of what we do in this country because of our climate.

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If we were to leave them out on the land,

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it's actually bad for the pastures because they carve up the grass

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and it hasn't got enough time to recover for the next spring.

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And obviously with the cattle in the barn, then they can't get to their grass.

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So we then have to bring their grass to them in the form of this hay.

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And the hay harvest by far is our biggest single use of machinery and fuel on this farm.

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This is why I was fascinated to hear about a farm up in Shropshire

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run by Charlotte Hollins and her brother Ben.

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Fordhall Farm is much the same size as our farm and like us, they raise cattle and sheep.

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But at Fordhall, the cattle stay out on the pasture all winter with little need for additional feed.

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I found it hard to believe, but as a result, the only machinery they have is a quad bike.

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The secret to this is underfoot.

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The grass.

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Even though we have hundreds of species of wild grass in this country, most farmers only use four,

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which they buy in a bag from a seed merchant.

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But not at Fordhall.

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And we've probably got almost 20 different species of grass here.

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Some are hardier than others, some will grow quicker than others and some have roots which go deeper down

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in the soil and bring minerals up and some have got much shallower

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roots which help then protect the soil across the surface.

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If you come down and have a look at the grasses here,

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you can see straight away that you've got a great big tight structure there at the bottom.

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It's like Scottish Tweed.

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Exactly. And even when you get to the soil, it's so matted up with roots,

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it takes an awful lot of force and effort to break through it.

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So it doesn't get trodden up to a muddy mess straight away.

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Then the cows and the sheep get the benefit of it

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and you get the benefit because you don't have to buy so much feed in.

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We know year on year it will work, there will be feed...

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We can produce beef, we can produce lamb, and we can sell it and we can make a living.

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And whatever happens to oil prices or anything else, we know we can keep going on that system.

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But these amazing grasses didn't happen by chance.

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Charlotte and Ben's late father, Arthur Hollins, was a bit of a local legend and a farming visionary.

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Dad started his way of farming

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just after the war but he spent his whole lifetime developing the system.

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And it was only just before he died in 2005 that he actually said, "I'm happy with this.

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"I think I've got the grasses right, I'm happy with the pastures."

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The soils on our farm are completely different

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to the ones here at Fordhall, so the grasses Arthur encouraged may not suit our fields back in Devon.

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But that's not to say we couldn't try something similar with other types of grass.

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Knowing which species to encourage may be just a case of careful observation.

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And that's exactly what old Arthur had to do

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because the pastures here weren't always so rich.

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Dad was always a great observer and he came through the woodland

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and he saw how much was growing here, especially during the summer months,

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and he wasn't touching it. But more importantly he wasn't paying for any of it to grow, it was just doing it.

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And he saw straightaway in the top few inches of leaf litter on the soil there was life,

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whether it be spiders, or woodlice or centipedes.

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And then you go down a little bit further and you start to see worms.

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But he couldn't see any of that in his soil he was ploughing and cultivating year on year.

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-There was no sign of any life.

-It was dead.

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It was dead. And he got to then learn about all the millions of different

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bacteria and fungi that were also in the soil that keep it fertile, cycle the nutrients,

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that hold those nutrients in their bodies and release them to the plants, and they weren't in his soil.

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I mean, if you just look down, I mean, this is classic woodland soil, look how rich this is.

0:24:210:24:26

-Yeah. Exactly.

-And it's gorgeous, gorgeous rich topsoil.

0:24:260:24:29

I mean, even there in that soil you've got bits of twig,

0:24:290:24:33

the bits of leaf that are slowly being broken down to create soil.

0:24:330:24:36

And the worms and everything else do that job for you.

0:24:360:24:39

They eat it, process it through their bodies and you end up with worm poo,

0:24:390:24:42

you know, which is soil, which feeds the plants.

0:24:420:24:45

And without that life, you've got nothing to feed the plants to keep that system going.

0:24:450:24:50

Taking the lessons he learned from the woodland, Arthur realised that to rejuvenate his fields

0:24:510:24:58

he would have to go against one of the most fundamental principles of agriculture.

0:24:580:25:05

The biggest thing Dad found was damaging the soil

0:25:050:25:08

was exposure to sunlight. Overturning through ploughing.

0:25:080:25:11

-And Dad always said it would be like humans ripping off their skin... You know, it's not nice.

-No.

0:25:110:25:16

And you know, and you don't survive.

0:25:160:25:19

So why do it to the soil and why kill all those organisms in the soil

0:25:190:25:23

that, at the end of the day, are your best friends?

0:25:230:25:26

Are you telling us not to plough?.

0:25:260:25:28

Yes.

0:25:280:25:30

We've been ploughing for 10,000 years. It's what farmers do.

0:25:300:25:34

Not ploughing is a pretty radical idea for any farmer.

0:25:360:25:41

But looking at some old footage from our farm, the damage it causes is now pretty obvious.

0:25:430:25:47

This is one of our fields back in the 80s.

0:25:470:25:52

The life in the soil is a feast for the birds.

0:25:520:25:56

After 20 years of the same treatment...

0:25:560:25:59

No birds, the soil is dead.

0:25:590:26:02

Turning the soil has been part of agriculture for millennia,

0:26:040:26:09

but I guess with muscle power alone, the damage was slow to show.

0:26:090:26:14

With diesel power, the destruction is much faster.

0:26:140:26:19

The only reason modern agriculture can get away with killing the life

0:26:190:26:23

in the soil is through another use of fossil fuel.

0:26:230:26:27

This time it's by turning it into chemical fertilizer.

0:26:280:26:32

These granules contain three essential plant nutrients.

0:26:320:26:36

Nitrates, phosphate and potash.

0:26:390:26:43

Over 95% of all the food grown in this country

0:26:450:26:48

is totally reliant on synthetic fertilizer.

0:26:480:26:52

Without it, we'd be in serious trouble.

0:26:520:26:56

We've used fossil fuels,

0:26:570:26:59

essentially, to grow plants in soil that is otherwise dead.

0:26:590:27:05

And that works as long as we have

0:27:050:27:07

the cheap fossil fuels with which to make the nitrogen fertilizer

0:27:070:27:11

and to transport all the inputs and so on.

0:27:110:27:13

But in the end, you know, when we don't have the cheap fossil fuels,

0:27:130:27:17

we're going to need living soil once again.

0:27:170:27:20

And that living soil is something that requires time and care to build,

0:27:200:27:24

it doesn't just happen overnight.

0:27:240:27:27

BUZZING

0:27:270:27:29

This field is far more typical for our farm. It's called Orchid Meadow.

0:27:290:27:35

And it's never been ploughed or dosed with synthetic fertilizer,

0:27:350:27:39

yet it's clearly thriving.

0:27:390:27:42

It just does feel like the whole thing's heaving with life,

0:27:420:27:45

there's so many flowers, on a sunny day the whole place comes alive.

0:27:450:27:50

And you've got the birds in the trees, but it just buzzes -

0:27:500:27:54

the whole thing buzzes and you've just got so many insects.

0:27:540:27:57

If you step over this, especially in an evening,

0:27:570:28:00

and you walk through this, the insects come up in great big clouds.

0:28:000:28:05

And it's all built on the foundation of healthy, living soil.

0:28:050:28:09

After seeing Fordhall Farm, I can see by developing these pastures,

0:28:110:28:15

we could reduce our dependence on oil.

0:28:150:28:18

But, no matter how good the grasses are,

0:28:180:28:22

rearing cattle takes a lot of land.

0:28:220:28:25

Every study on the matter concludes that if Britain is to become more self-sufficient,

0:28:250:28:30

we need to eat less meat.

0:28:300:28:32

Now I'm realising, we'll probably have to diversify,

0:28:320:28:37

changing not just how we farm, but what we farm.

0:28:370:28:42

And this where I get stuck.

0:28:420:28:44

Because I can see how you can farm cattle without ploughing

0:28:440:28:47

and using natural fertility,

0:28:470:28:49

but how do you grow everything else we need?

0:28:490:28:53

Well, it seems there are a number of people around the world who have already grappled with this problem.

0:28:530:29:00

They've developed a system known as permaculture.

0:29:000:29:02

Britain's leading expert is Patrick Whitefield.

0:29:040:29:08

Permaculture seems to challenge all the normal approaches to farming.

0:29:080:29:13

You know, people often think

0:29:130:29:16

that there are two ways of doing things.

0:29:160:29:18

One is by drudgery and the other is by chucking fossil fuel at it.

0:29:180:29:22

Now, permaculture is about a third way of doing things

0:29:220:29:25

and that is by design, by conscious design.

0:29:250:29:29

Basically, you're designing the labour out?

0:29:290:29:32

-Or are you designing the need for that energy out?

-Both.

-OK.

0:29:320:29:35

So why does it take so much manpower and energy to sustain farmland

0:29:350:29:42

when you look at a natural eco-system,

0:29:420:29:45

and we've got a wood behind us, and that can just keep going?

0:29:450:29:48

Because this inherently is not what the landscape wants to do.

0:29:480:29:53

If you leave the landscape totally alone, it would turn into something like that.

0:29:530:29:58

So that is the low energy option.

0:29:580:30:02

In the natural eco system, there's no work -

0:30:020:30:05

well not by any humans, there's no waste, and yet it's thriving.

0:30:050:30:10

You know, look at it.

0:30:100:30:12

It's easy to forget Britain used to be a forested island.

0:30:150:30:19

And so much of the energy we expend in farming

0:30:200:30:24

is just to stop it reverting back.

0:30:240:30:27

But woodland has evolved over millions of years to be the most

0:30:270:30:30

efficient growing system in our climate.

0:30:300:30:34

In that respect, I can understand its appeal if you're trying

0:30:340:30:37

to design the best way to grow food.

0:30:370:30:41

But the obvious problem for me is, well, we can't eat trees.

0:30:410:30:45

With all the greatest respect, a few wild berries, you can't...

0:30:450:30:50

-It's not a cornfield.

-Course it isn't, no, no.

0:30:500:30:53

No, it's insignificant.

0:30:530:30:55

What we've got to do is to take the principles of this

0:30:550:30:59

and see how far we can bend them towards something more edible.

0:30:590:31:05

'A food growing system based on natural ecology really appeals

0:31:060:31:11

'to my naturalist side but the farmer's daughter in me needs a bit more convincing.'

0:31:110:31:17

I suppose the big question is, could permaculture feed Britain?

0:31:170:31:21

Yeah, good question, although the first question to ask actually is,

0:31:210:31:26

can the present methods go on feeding Britain?

0:31:260:31:30

-Yeah, I suppose, yeah.

-And yeah, because actually, that is doubtful.

0:31:300:31:35

Well, in the long term, it's absolutely certain that

0:31:350:31:37

present methods can't because they're so entirely dependant on energy,

0:31:370:31:41

on fossil fuel energy.

0:31:410:31:43

So we haven't really got any choice other than to find something different.

0:31:430:31:48

'Last year, I may have dismissed permaculture as not proper farming,

0:31:500:31:54

'but with what I've learned about the oil situation,

0:31:540:31:58

'I'm keen to see it in practice.'

0:31:580:32:01

A visit to a permaculture smallholding in the mountains

0:32:010:32:04

of Snowdonia has given me the opportunity.

0:32:040:32:06

Now, the farmland I'm used to seeing is clumps of trees surrounded by fields.

0:32:080:32:14

But this is the complete opposite,

0:32:140:32:17

a collection of small clearings in a massive woodland.

0:32:170:32:20

It may not look like a farm, but it clearly works.

0:32:200:32:25

For a few days work each week, Chris Dixon and his wife

0:32:250:32:29

produce all the fruit, veg and meat they need

0:32:290:32:33

and the fuel to cook it.

0:32:330:32:35

But 20 years ago when they arrived,

0:32:350:32:39

it was degraded, marginal pasture land.

0:32:390:32:42

The first thing they did was to let much of the land return to its natural state.

0:32:420:32:48

Now the fertility has returned to the land.

0:32:490:32:54

Observing the forest as it regenerated offered

0:32:550:32:58

all the inspiration they needed to design their smallholding.

0:32:580:33:02

But it is a woodland still, and it is chaos.

0:33:020:33:05

It is chaos, but chaos in this space is very, very highly ordered,

0:33:050:33:09

very highly structured. It's just that we see it as untidy and a mess.

0:33:090:33:14

Nature doesn't see it like that at all.

0:33:140:33:16

Every plant is doing something useful, important, valuable on the site.

0:33:180:33:23

So, for example, the gorse, fixing nitrogen,

0:33:230:33:26

the bracken, collecting potash, that sort of thing.

0:33:260:33:29

They gave me the feeling that every plant is important in some way.

0:33:290:33:34

Everywhere you go on the Dixons' smallholding seems to be teeming with wildlife.

0:33:380:33:42

How important is the biodiversity?

0:33:460:33:49

So, we're hearing birds above us as well.

0:33:490:33:51

How important is all of that to this system?

0:33:510:33:54

Very important because by encouraging the birds, the habitat for birds,

0:33:540:33:57

we're encouraging phosphate cycling through the system.

0:33:570:34:01

So again, phosphates is another of the sort of crucial plant nutrients,

0:34:010:34:05

every plant needs them.

0:34:050:34:07

And phosphates, you'll find in things like insects and seed.

0:34:070:34:11

So the birds that eat insects and seeds,

0:34:110:34:14

they're accumulating phosphates and the excess comes out in their dung.

0:34:140:34:19

So, up here in the mountains,

0:34:210:34:23

there's no need for sacks of fossil fuel-derived nutrients,

0:34:230:34:28

it's all done by nature - nitrate, potash, phosphate.

0:34:280:34:34

And no need either, for petroleum based pesticides.

0:34:340:34:37

We use ducks, Khaki Campbells, as slug control.

0:34:370:34:43

We've kept ducks for 22 years

0:34:430:34:45

and the Khaki Campbells are the best slug-eaters.

0:34:450:34:47

-Oh, really, there's a big tip.

-And it can be very difficult to find

0:34:470:34:51

-slugs in here during the summer, which is great.

-Fantastic, yeah.

0:34:510:34:55

Chris's veg garden may look untidy to a regular gardener,

0:34:590:35:03

but like in the woodland, every plant is serving a purpose.

0:35:030:35:07

For example, some deter pests, some help drainage.

0:35:070:35:13

Some encourage bees for pollination

0:35:130:35:16

and others have long roots that pull up minerals deep from the soil.

0:35:160:35:21

The largest clearings in the woodland are kept as pasture for the livestock.

0:35:220:35:27

But the animals here don't just eat grass,

0:35:270:35:29

they are benefiting from the trees as well.

0:35:290:35:32

Nutrient-rich willow, lime and ash are all used as fodder crops.

0:35:320:35:38

Feeding trees to animals,

0:35:380:35:41

this is something I would never have thought of.

0:35:410:35:44

We don't have much woodland on our farm, but what we do have

0:35:490:35:54

are massive hedges and now I'm seeing them in a different light.

0:35:540:35:58

Well, I've always thought of a hedgerow as a land division between two fields.

0:35:580:36:03

And I've always...

0:36:030:36:05

Well, I suppose on this farm, thought of it as a wildlife corridor as well.

0:36:050:36:09

But I've never actually thought of it as a yielding crop.

0:36:090:36:14

But their potential even just as a fodder crop is huge.

0:36:140:36:19

I'd never noticed before how much the cattle like eating ash.

0:36:190:36:24

And there is also a wealth of fruits here

0:36:240:36:27

and that's with doing nothing at all.

0:36:270:36:30

With a bit of careful steering,

0:36:300:36:32

who knows how much a hedge could produce.

0:36:320:36:35

Ironically, I've learned hedgerows could be much more productive

0:36:350:36:41

than the fields they enclose and require much less work.

0:36:410:36:45

You don't have to add anything, it's self-maintaining,

0:36:450:36:49

you know, you're not having to tend it,

0:36:490:36:52

it's just there in abundance.

0:36:520:36:54

And why is it there in abundance? Because it wants to grow here.

0:36:540:36:58

It's the natural food that should be here.

0:36:580:37:00

The only difference is it's growing upwards and not across.

0:37:000:37:04

Actually, by utilising the full height of trees and hedges,

0:37:040:37:08

you can squeeze a much higher yield out of the same piece of land.

0:37:080:37:13

Turns out just up the road from our farm is the best example

0:37:130:37:17

in Europe of just how far you can take this way of producing food.

0:37:170:37:21

Until now, I had no idea it existed.

0:37:230:37:26

The man behind this pioneering system is Martin Crawford.

0:37:260:37:31

This is a forest garden where there is a big diversity of trees and shrubs and other crops

0:37:310:37:38

all growing together, very carefully designed

0:37:380:37:42

so everything is working together, to give many different yields from the same space.

0:37:420:37:48

The trees are spaced very carefully so that there's enough light

0:37:480:37:54

getting into the ground layers beneath so you can actually grow something productive.

0:37:540:38:00

Forest gardens are one part of permaculture where design is clearly inspired by nature.

0:38:020:38:09

Something that makes a natural woodland so productive is it grows on many layers.

0:38:110:38:17

It's rather like having half a dozen fields stacked on top of each other.

0:38:170:38:22

A forest garden imitates each woodland layer but uses more edible and desirable species.

0:38:230:38:31

This one down below my feet here is very low, it's called Nepalese raspberry.

0:38:310:38:37

And it's a fantastic plant and it protects the soil from winter rain.

0:38:370:38:41

-And it saves on weeding.

-Yes, so there is no weeding to be done, you see.

-No.

0:38:410:38:46

The garden floor is covered with fruit and veg and above them,

0:38:460:38:50

the shrub layer is equally abundant, if not a little unusual.

0:38:500:38:55

One of several hawthorn species.

0:38:550:38:57

Massive thorns on it, but much bigger fruits and much tastier fruits.

0:38:570:39:00

And the other side is a mulberry.

0:39:000:39:02

You never see mulberry bushes nowadays.

0:39:020:39:05

You don't but they're really nice fruits and quite easy to grow really.

0:39:050:39:09

Another big salad crop from the forest garden are lime leaves.

0:39:090:39:13

And I use them as a base, kind of a base ingredient, in a salad.

0:39:130:39:17

-Right.

-Like lettuce.

0:39:170:39:18

-OK, so they are your replacement for lettuce?

-Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:39:180:39:22

Big lettuce, Martin!

0:39:220:39:24

A bit higher up are the fruit trees, like apples, pears, medlars, plums and quinces.

0:39:270:39:33

And then there's the canopy where those trees

0:39:350:39:38

that aren't producing food are serving other essential functions,

0:39:380:39:42

like cycling nutrients.

0:39:420:39:45

And the Italian Alders are a very good example.

0:39:450:39:48

They're very fast growing and supply a lot of nitrogen to the plants around.

0:39:480:39:53

And this is through the root system?

0:39:530:39:55

It's through the leaf litter, which is still quite high in nitrogen.

0:39:550:39:58

And the root system, and also through beneficial fungi,

0:39:580:40:02

which link up everything under the ground and move nutrients around.

0:40:020:40:05

If there's a lot of nitrogen in one place in the soil

0:40:050:40:08

and a lack of nitrogen in the other, the fungi will move it for you.

0:40:080:40:12

Everything is here for a reason, isn't it?

0:40:120:40:14

Everything's here for a reason, often multiple reasons.

0:40:140:40:18

So, you know, behind us, the mint here,

0:40:180:40:20

this is horse mint which is one of the native British mints.

0:40:200:40:23

The main use for this mint is actually to attract beneficial insects.

0:40:230:40:28

It's fantastic at attracting hoverflies, which of course eat aphids amongst other things.

0:40:280:40:33

So, you know, by having plants that attract beneficial insects,

0:40:330:40:37

I don't get any pest problems.

0:40:370:40:39

So no pesticides?

0:40:390:40:40

-That's right.

-Fantastic.

-That's right.

0:40:400:40:43

Martin has over 550 species of plant in his forest garden.

0:40:430:40:50

Surely a growing system this complex must require endless attention and work?

0:40:500:40:55

Over a whole year, it probably averages out about a day a week,

0:40:550:41:00

-a lot of that is harvesting.

-Right.

0:41:000:41:02

In terms of maintenance,

0:41:020:41:05

well, say ten days a year.

0:41:050:41:08

'That's ridiculous!

0:41:080:41:10

'Compared to running a farm, that's virtually nothing.

0:41:100:41:13

'But how much food does it produce?'

0:41:130:41:16

If designed for maximum yield, it can be very high.

0:41:160:41:19

This forest garden isn't designed for maximum yield

0:41:190:41:22

cos I'm experimenting a lot and I have a lot of unusual crops I'm trying, and so on.

0:41:220:41:26

So, you know, in terms of one designed for maximum yield,

0:41:260:41:29

-you would be able to feed probably ten people an acre on a maximum yield forest garden.

-Really? OK.

0:41:290:41:35

That's roughly double the amount of people that we can

0:41:350:41:40

currently feed from an average acre of conventional arable farmland.

0:41:400:41:45

It is an amazing low energy, low maintenance system,

0:41:450:41:50

but what you can't grow in a forest garden are cereal crops.

0:41:500:41:54

And we are rather addicted to our high carb diets.

0:41:540:41:58

But as oil gets more expensive and farming begins to change,

0:41:580:42:03

it will become necessary for us to broaden our diets and embrace new foods.

0:42:030:42:08

Down the road from his forest garden, Martin has created a four acre nut orchard.

0:42:080:42:14

It would help enormously

0:42:140:42:17

if we could move more towards nuts and less towards cereals

0:42:170:42:21

cos they are much more sustainable because they grow on trees.

0:42:210:42:25

In other parts of Europe, France and Italy, there's a big tradition

0:42:250:42:28

of growing hazelnuts, sweet chestnuts, walnuts.

0:42:280:42:31

You know, an orchard crop like a sweet chestnut,

0:42:310:42:33

it takes far less energy and maintenance to grow than a field of wheat.

0:42:330:42:37

'Less energy and maintenance maybe,

0:42:390:42:41

'but can the yield from nuts really compare with a cereal crop?'

0:42:410:42:45

You're talking sweet chestnuts, two tonnes an acre or something,

0:42:450:42:49

which is pretty much what you get growing wheat organically.

0:42:490:42:52

-And the composition of chestnut is almost identical, actually, to that of rice.

-OK.

0:42:520:42:58

And it's very similar to the other grains in terms of calorific value.

0:42:580:43:01

Even at this experimental stage, Martin's nut orchard

0:43:040:43:08

and his forest garden have a huge output for such a tiny acreage.

0:43:080:43:12

Back in Wales at the Dixons' equally small plot,

0:43:150:43:19

there is a similar story of productivity.

0:43:190:43:21

The whole site is seven acres,

0:43:210:43:24

which now, after 22 years of the natural regeneration and the stuff we've done,

0:43:240:43:31

it's too much for one family to harvest.

0:43:310:43:34

-Wow.

-So, you know, really, the smaller is better.

0:43:340:43:38

To me, this is the big difference between farming and gardening.

0:43:400:43:44

So I'm not a farmer, I would consider myself a gardener.

0:43:440:43:48

Are you trying to say gardeners are the way forward, rather then farmers?

0:43:480:43:52

I wouldn't say that gardening is better than farming,

0:43:520:43:55

gardening is different from farming.

0:43:550:43:58

But I would suggest that, as far as I can tell from what I've done

0:43:580:44:01

in my own practical experience, and from what I've tried to find out,

0:44:010:44:05

that gardening with hand tools is more productive

0:44:050:44:09

and more energy efficient than farming.

0:44:090:44:13

It's the attention to detail that a gardener can give

0:44:140:44:18

to a small plot that makes it so productive.

0:44:180:44:21

A veg garden with an experienced gardener can produce

0:44:210:44:24

up to five times more food per square metre than a large farm.

0:44:240:44:29

Supermarkets reliant on transportation

0:44:300:44:34

and the industrial scale farms that supply them

0:44:340:44:37

are unlikely to survive as oil declines.

0:44:370:44:40

But a host of veg plots, allotments and smallholdings

0:44:400:44:44

could easily make up for their loss.

0:44:440:44:46

But only if we have a lot more growers.

0:44:460:44:48

The dominant demographic trend of the 21st century, I think,

0:44:480:44:52

is going to be re-ruralisation.

0:44:520:44:54

That's not to say that the cities will all disappear,

0:44:540:44:57

but the proportion of people involved directly in food production is going to increase.

0:44:570:45:03

Think back to the Second World War, for example,

0:45:030:45:06

there was the Victory Garden movement where everyone was growing a garden plot and something like 40% of fruit

0:45:060:45:12

and vegetables were being produced from front yards and back yards and vacant lots, and so on.

0:45:120:45:19

That's a model to imagine and look back to.

0:45:190:45:22

But we also will need a lot more full-time farmers, otherwise, you know, what are we going to be eating?

0:45:220:45:29

Feeding ourselves as oil goes into decline is clearly going to require

0:45:300:45:36

a national effort and, in an ideal world, a bit of government leadership.

0:45:360:45:43

But for my part, weaning this farm off fossil fuel is all I can do.

0:45:430:45:49

And the pioneers I've met recently are a big inspiration.

0:45:490:45:53

Now I've learnt to observe the land, and work with it rather then fight against it.

0:45:530:45:59

I'm fascinated to find out what species of grass we have, and how I can improve our pastures.

0:45:590:46:05

And how we can make the most out of our trees to benefit our cattle.

0:46:050:46:10

But also I think we need to produce more than just livestock.

0:46:100:46:15

Who knows, in a few years from now, we might even have a forest garden here.

0:46:150:46:20

Although I'm not quite sure what Dad would make of that.

0:46:200:46:25

But for any of these ideas to work, it's essential to continue preserving the farm's wildlife

0:46:250:46:31

and work even harder to encourage greater biodiversity.

0:46:310:46:37

Biodiversity is far more important to us than I ever gave it credit for.

0:46:370:46:42

I just always thought it was pretty and it was, you know, it was a species we lived with.

0:46:420:46:47

You know, now I've learned the big lesson that

0:46:470:46:50

it keeps us going, it gives us food, it protects our food

0:46:500:46:56

and it's crucial that we keep it.

0:46:560:47:01

I'm so grateful for what my uncle and my dad have done on this farm because they've kept it all.

0:47:010:47:08

But there is still so much work to be done here.

0:47:100:47:14

And what drives me to make our farm a farm of the future

0:47:140:47:18

is the knowledge that I have no other choice but to try.

0:47:180:47:24

Of all the people I met,

0:47:240:47:26

I think Dr Colin Campbell puts it best.

0:47:260:47:31

What we can say now without any shadow of doubt

0:47:310:47:34

is that petroleum man is just about extinct by the end of this century.

0:47:340:47:39

That poses the thorny, difficult question, will Homo sapiens be as wise as his name implies

0:47:390:47:47

and figure out a way to live without oil, which is the bloodstream of virtually everything?

0:47:470:47:53

And it seems to me the sooner we begin that transition

0:47:530:47:59

to a new, low-energy future,

0:47:590:48:02

the easier the task will be.

0:48:020:48:03

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:48:290:48:31

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