Chapter 11 of A Small Farm Future is predominantly a number-crunching exercise showing that Britain could feed a population of 83 million people using organic farming methods with locally generated fertility when yields are generally assumed to be 10% lower than the lowest bound of current organic crop yields, and with minimal fossil fuel use on-farm. The kind of analysis I did will be familiar to readers of this blog who followed my posts about feeding the Peasants’ Republic of Wessex, but in this case I applied the analysis to the whole country. I didn’t apply it to the whole world, however, and this is where I need your help (see below).
The basic take-home message of the analysis as I see it is that it’s possible for Britain to feed itself even with these stringent assumptions about population, yield and energy. So barring major climate tipping points or socio-political meltdown (both of which are possible, of course), I don’t believe that our food supply problems are ones of basic ecological carrying capacity. This is consistent with various mainstream studies, though not with the narrative that only capital-intensive, hi-tech, output-maximizing agricultures are capable of feeding us. Other organisms, if they’re capable of such thought, might take the view that their food supply problems are one of basic ecological carrying capacity as a result of human encroachment, but that’s another issue that I address elsewhere in the book – and, in passing, below.
I chose the population figure of 83 million – around 17 million more than the present UK population – on the assumption that Britain will be a destination for climate refugees in the near future. I plan to write more on this topic soon, but for now I’ll just underline my previous observation: even with a considerably enlarged population, Britain can feed itself with low impact and low yield methods. At the enlarged population of 83 million, this would involve a land take of 0.4 acres per person, with some slack in the system but with more land than presently devoted to cropping rather than grass. It’s tight. It involves potatoes. But it’s doable.
In the course of my analysis in Chapter 11, I mentioned that the agriculture I was proposing would require something like 15% of the working-age population to work directly as farmers (and more to serve the farm workforce indirectly). This number got picked up by various readers and reviewers and – as generally seems to be the way with bold quantification – prompted a certain amount of comment.
I think 15% is defensible, but to some degree I plucked it from the air on the basis of various assumptions that could be questioned, so I certainly wouldn’t defend it to the hilt. Arguably, the true number might be more. Conceivably, it could be less – though I doubt it. But what are the implications? What’s in a number?
One implication, I think, is that my analysis is sociologically plausible in the grand scheme of things. If it had turned out that the ratio of workers to consumers was close to or greater than one, then I would have had to conclude it’s impossible to feed ourselves with low impact methods, but I don’t believe this to be the case. As I mention on p.161 of my book, the 15% figure would put Britain in the company of countries such as Tunisia, Mexico and Ukraine today. There’s no strict comparability between what’s happening in these countries now and the kind of future scenario I’m describing. I make the comparison really just to suggest that 15% is not some outlandishly implausible figure.
People often point to the low proportion of the British labour force employed in agriculture (around 1%, currently) as if it’s an impressive historical achievement, rather than a source of past and probably future pain. But it does need noting that the true labour force involved in producing the country’s food and fibre is much higher, because we export the responsibility to grow labour-intensive products abroad, or else import from abroad temporary labour in those sectors, and this isn’t captured in the 1% figure. If you throw in all the processing, logistics and retail jobs that exist in the present food system but probably wouldn’t in a more self-reliant small farm future, then the 15% figure might start looking quite run of the mill. Indeed, as I mentioned in a recent post, it’s likely we’ll soon be in a situation where a lot of people will be looking for work to feed themselves at a time when many of the employment sectors that people have come to rely upon in modern society to provide for their needs will be contracting. So a plausible response to my analysis in Chapter 11 might be – “Just 15%? Couldn’t it be more?” The good news is, yes it could.
If 15% of people worked as farmers, that means on average that around one in six adult workers you know would farm, and the majority of families would probably have a personal connection to agriculture. It’s interesting to speculate how that might affect the standing of agriculture in society. One suggestion that’s come my way is that its standing would remain low, and the 15% would be dominated by the other 85%. It’s certainly possible, but I’m not sure it’s a matter of the simple numbers. There have been many societies historically with much higher proportions of people working directly in farming where the social standing and political opportunities of the farmers are low. But an interesting aspect of the epoch of modernity – manifested especially in the politics of populism – has been the idea that as citizens, individuals or humans, we are all of equal standing. It will be interesting to see how that issue plays out in the turbulent politics that are upon us.
One criticism I’ve received concerning this analysis is that showing how Britain can feed itself – even with numbers swelled by climate migration – is all very well, but it doesn’t prove that we can feed ourselves with local low-impact methods worldwide. On page 153 of my book, I give some reasons why the British case may not be wildly unrepresentative of the global one, but the criticism is a reasonable one all the same. I took the view that it was hard enough – and the assumptions were heroic enough – even to do a Britain-wide analysis. Trying to do a worldwide one would have been a step too far.
But maybe I can call on some external help in this regard. Greg Reynolds recently jotted some thoughts here about farm productivity from his US experience, and it looks like Jan Steinman might have some Canadian data up his sleeve. The main spirit of Chapter 11 was not fundamentally about me showing that the world could feed itself sustainably but about inviting people to think about their localities or regions and address their food sustainability for themselves. So … if anybody would care to do that – in whatever way they deem appropriate – I’d be delighted for them to send me their results via the Contact Form. I can’t promise that I will publish them or necessarily do anything with them, but if some sufficiently interesting analyses come my way I will try to make something of it.
When I’ve raised this issue in the past, I’ve received some semi-aggressive feedback along the lines of “It’s absurd for you to think my locality could be food self-reliant. I live in a city/desert”. Aside from noting that interesting final conjunction of words, my first blush response to this has usually been something along the lines of “Well, I’m sorry to hear that but, er … that’s not fundamentally my problem”. Ultimately, though, it is my problem as much as it’s anyone’s, and this is why I built a margin for climate migrants into my modelling for Britain. To be blunt, if your own modelling suggests your present local population couldn’t easily sustain itself from local resources, then don’t assume people will still be living in your locality long-term in their present high numbers. If, on the other hand, your modelling suggests your present local population could easily sustain itself from local resources, then don’t assume people will still be living in your locality long-term in their present low numbers.
A final observation. I’m writing this post on a sunny late May evening in the first spell of dry weather we’ve had after three cold, wet weeks. For two days, all day long and well into the night I’ve heard the distant whine of tractors in neighbouring fields busy playing catchup making silage. When they’re done, I know what the fields will look like – shaved bare as a skinhead’s pate from boundary fence to boundary fence.
When I think about my own site, with its mix of woodland, rather underused grassland, its small extent of heavily cropped gardens, its houses and outbuildings, I’ve sometimes felt guilty that we’re not maxing out the productivity like our neighbours. On the other hand, when you step from those fields into ours, the first thing you notice at this time of year is the sudden birdsong and the buzz of insects. You notice the large number of people living, working or playing on the site. You might notice the large diversity of its products – in addition to the meat and wheat furnished in such quantity by the surrounding fields, there’s wood for building or burning, fruit and nuts, a proliferation of vegetables, and quite a bit of wild food too. We could, if necessary, ramp up the per acre food productivity a little, especially if we brought more people onto the site to live and work. And we could probably do it without compromising too much on the birds and insects. But I don’t feel too guilty because, as I said above, I think Britain can feed itself well with low impact, low energy and low yield methods. The main problems lie elsewhere.
