I’ve had dirt on the mind a lot lately. As a professional food lover, I probably should be thinking about the matter plants grow in and livestock graze on. This is literally where food comes from. And yet it’s not what I’m thinking about often, if at all. If you consider yourself a food lover, how often do you consider soil? But we need to, because soil is being destroyed by the way we eat today and so is the nature that depends on it.
Pic: My glamorous date for the evening Sarah Dean, founder of Noble Foods whose board I joined as a Non Executive Director, at the private screening of Six Inches of Soil
The world of soil health and management is packed with jargon and complexity, but I am going to attempt to break it down (see what I did there?). Soil is a living, breathing, complex multifunctional organism that captures carbon and sustains life. While you can’t necessarily see them, the fungi, bacteria, micro organisms within it are part of an ecosystem that support mutual health and work to the benefit of the plants that grow on it and the planet.
Earthworms are the most visible manifestation of healthy soil. When they borough through the soil they break it up, improving the access of air and water, fertilise it with their organic matter and feed the micro organisms in soil as well as birds. When they’re missing in action, it’s a sign of trouble. And there are other signs too. Decades of using chemical fertilisers on soil to improve crop yield, tilling, and general ignoring /advantage taking have left it depleted and eroded. Not only is this terrible for nature, it also leads to greater risk of drought, flooding and puts at peril growing the food we need to eat.
The Soil Association is the place for learning more. In their words: “We have taken soil for granted and now one-third of the world’s arable soils are degraded. The situation becomes even more urgent when we consider that it can take a thousand years for just one centimetre of topsoil to form.” The problem they articulate, is that too many of us think of soil as dirty and not the life sustaining powerhouse it is. Leading from the front by putting myself in this errant group too, obviously.
I’ve been eating dirt since I spoke at Groundswell last year, and a private preview screening of the Six Inches of Soil documentary has upped the ante further. Soil health is at the heart of the regenerative agriculture movement. Think of this as a step up from sustainable, where farmers are actually putting something back and working with nature rather than against it. Vicki Hird, an expert on food and environment who is working with the Wildlife Trusts, has written a definitive piece on regen ag here, if you fancy learning more.
The documentary came about when producer Claire Mackenzie moved to live in an arable area for the first time). Her grandfather was a farmer and she’d always had an interest in agriculture and the provenance of food, which meant the fields outside her new home piqued her interest. As did the link between agriculture and climate change. She met local filmmaker Colin Ramsay, and they made a short film about five Cambridgeshire farmers who are regenerating their soil and their communities. This inspired them to make Six Inches of Soil.
Six Inches traces the moving, sometimes hard to watch, journey of three new regenerative farmers. It explains in laymans terms with quirky animation, the challenges facing topsoil today. The first thing that struck me is what a labour of love transitioning to regen farming is, riddled with risk, uncertainty, financial and mental pressures. I took the owner and chair of Noble Foods along, the UK’s leading egg business whose board I have joined as a Non-Executive Director. She was the lone corporate voice that piped up (quite bravely, I thought) in the room full of food and climate activists.
The documentary is a must watch. Please try and locate and attend a screening. But it left me with some questions. Namely:
Who will pay for regenerative farming?
While there are benefits, transition to more more nature and climate friendly farming and food production will cost money and carry risk says Vicki. “Those risks are doubly hard in an environment where buyers at the farmgate are squeezing farmers so hard. If they are start using great regen tools to support soil and nature they need better prices, a decent contract, better specifications (eg cosmetic, size, colour uniformity are often unnecessary for consumers) on products that reflect new farm conditions and no unfair treatment in negotiations such as on cost price increases needed,” says Hird.
In an ideal world, says Vicki, there’d be:
A sufficient mix of consumer demand
Better returns for farmers so they can invest in agroecology
A huge increase in new shorter routes to market getting the barriers smaller so farmers and consumers can respond; and finally
Financial support and baseline regulations from government.
How do you get consumers engaged and interested?
The market needs to recognise and value the importance of regen ag, and this includes consumers. However, at the moment, the consumer “pull” so to speak is missing. Most people don’t know what regen ag is, understand the impact of intensive cheaply produced food or have the ability or willing to pay more for farmers to spend more and grab what Vicki calls “a piece of the food pound”.
This is the point at which Sarah spoke up. Shes the owner of Noble Foods, a leading egg production company with 250 dedicated farmers. She said: “I recognise the immense potential of regenerative agriculture in shaping a sustainable future. However, challenges persist, particularly concerning the financial implications and consumer understanding. Larger companies like ours have a responsibility and an opportunity to drive positive change in the industry and that by working together we can collectively pave the way towards a more environmentally conscious and resilient food system”.
Without a doubt, more corporates like her are needed in the room.
How do you reward farmers who make the journey? At the moment, it’s not so easy to get into farming let alone invest in regenerative.
In the current environment, it’s hard to see where the push for farmers would come from apart from the passion to do the right thing clearly on show in the Six Inches documentary. But hold that thought! The Sweet Spot report by the Wildlife Trust has shown that it may be cheaper - where farmers find their input costs are reduced and nature provides the free new tools for farming - up to 45% higher. Interestingly, says Vicki, regen and organic farmers find that yields get back up over time and free tools provided by nature are hugely valuable.
The inefficiencies in the whole system do need to be addressed. “Where it may be more costly as it may reduce yields slightly, that loss could be absorbed by the rest of the players in between or the final consumer. We need a whole system approach as so much food is heavily processed which adds costs, does not necessarily provide better value overall,” says Vicki.
We have to start somewhere. For those of us who aren’t farmers but love food, thinking about dirt differently and digging deeper into soil is a great place to start. Watching the documentary will be worth its weight in gold, a bit like soil really.