One of the founders of the Oxford Real Farming Conference, Colin Tudge, recorded a life story interview for National Life Stories (NLS) at the British Library in 2016. In the interview he looked to the past for examples of good practice that might inform and inspire a new ‘agricultural renaissance’ based on ‘agroecology’ – ‘the idea that agriculture should be run along ecological lines […] a positive contributor to the biosphere’. One of these past examples was the network of agricultural research stations that dotted the UK until the 1980s when they were closed or privatised:
Colin Tudge Sound Cloud Clip
Colin Tudge’s interview sits alongside many other life story recordings with UK farmers (including regenerative and organic farmers such as Helen Browning and Jyoti Fernandes), farm workers, agricultural scientists and advisers, and ecologists. A partnership between NLS and the RENEW Programme at the University of Exeter is recording further interviews with natural and social scientists who have worked collaboratively to tackle biodiversity loss across the UK’s predominantly agricultural environment.
These uniquely detailed and extensive interviews – most over ten hours long – are full of details of agricultural practice stretching back to the 1930s as well as inspiring reflections on personal motivations, satisfactions, decisions and regrets. We think that they are a rich resource for those working towards a future in which agriculture and environment are no longer opposed.
Here we present clips from the collection of interviews capturing:
1. Memories of traditional farming practices
2. Past overlaps between agriculture and ecology (including ‘nature conservation’)
3. Hints at a way forward for real farming!
1. Memories of traditional farming practices
Regenerative farmer Jyoti Fernandes (see cider label image above) tells us about learning from farmers in South West England who remember, or never gave up, traditional approaches:
Jyoti Fernandes Sound Cloud Clip
More ‘conventional’ farmers – such as David Houston in Scotland and John Rankin in Northern Ireland – have found themselves seeing the farming practices of parents and grandparents in a new light:
David Houston Sound Cloud Clip
John Rankin Sound Cloud Clip
2. Past overlaps between agriculture and ecology
What can look like a simple clash between farming and environment in the later twentieth century was never so simple. The following clips suggest that the artificial distinction between ecology (and nature conservation) on the one hand and farming (and growing) on the other was constantly breaking down.
Judy Ling Wong remembers how the Black Environment Network introduced vegetable growing and community gardening to the world of mainly white environmental organisations in the 1980s:
Judy Ling Wong Sound Cloud Clip
Farmers such as Poul Christensen (Farmers Weekly image above) and Ian Howie engaged enthusiastically in on-farm nature conservation schemes and competitions:
Poul Christensen and Ian Howie Sound Cloud Clip
Some zoologists – such as David Macdonald whose early research on foxes brought him in contact with farmers – actively collaborated with farmers in designing conservation experiments:
David Macdonald Sound Cloud Clip
Other nature conservation ecologists found that they had much in common with agricultural scientists:
Sound Cloud Clip
And conventional farmers discovered for themselves the limitations and dangers of reliance on agrochemicals. Nicholas Watts altered his farming practices in the 1990s when he discovered, through careful mapping (see image above), effects on wild birds:
Nicholas Watts Sound Cloud Clip
And Jim Orson tells the story of the emergence of agrochemical resistance from the 1980s which has prompted many arable farmers to rediscover ‘cultural’ control methods including wider rotations:
Jim Orson Sound Cloud Clip
3. Hints at a way forward for real farming!
Stories of the state funded agricultural advisory service (called NAAS and later ADAS) in the 1950s, 60s and 70s remind us that farmers are excited and motivated by evidence of effective practice, delivered in sociable, collaborative settings:
Sound Cloud Clip
Farmers tell us – not always directly – that they admire ecological and natural history expertise, regarding it as different but comparable to their own:
Sound Cloud Clip
Perhaps – as Colin Tudge suggests – there is a need for a new agricultural advisory service, but this time an advisory service for regenerative and agroecological farming? Perhaps even a Young Organic Farmers’ Club that would be as exciting as Poul Christensen found his Young Farmers’ Club in Sussex in the 1960s:
Poul Christensen Sound Cloud Clip
But perhaps you have your own ideas…
We are fostering conversations across agriculture and conservation, between the past and the present, to shape future policy and practice. Share your thoughts here!
Links to other resources:
-Many more clips from the interviews in a playlist on the British Library’s SoundCloud
-RENEW Programme website: https://renewbiodiversity.org.uk/
-Paper ‘Life-stories of agricultural-environmental change’ and transcript of discussion ‘The value of life stories of the environment’ (featuring historians of science Jon Agar and Sally Horrocks and Guardian environment correspondent Fiona Harvey) both available open access here
-Blog ‘Oral histories of places, plants and people’ on Plants, People and Places Archive website, University of Reading
Paul Merchant (National Life Stories (NLS), The British Library) with Mary Stewart (NLS)
Angela Cassidy, Susan Molyneux-Hodgson, Eleanor Hadley Kershaw, Rebecca Edgerley, Ryan Shum, (RENEW, University of Exeter)