Intervention and Renewal

2024

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Older man in cap and wellies carries wooden fence posts across a field
Wooden fence posts receding across a rough meadow, rolling hills beyondRed tractor raking cut hay into rows on a field
Older man in yellow hi-vis jacket repairs a dry stone wall
Young woman and young man refilling machinery using a large orange funnel in a farmyard
Man and woman seated at a round wooden kitchen table talking
A man repairing a dry stone wall on a green hillside in overcast weather
Dense green hedgerow vegetation growing above a muddy bankTwisted bare roots and branches of a hedgerow above a stony bankDense hedgerow shrubs forming an arch over a gap above a stony bank
Farmer walking alongside a brown and white cow on a muddy tree-lined track
Waterlogged wetland with tall reeds and a lone bare tree, hills behind
Woman wading in a stream carrying electrofishing equipment, second person beside her
Three men working around a red tractor with a post-driver attachment in a field
Three people seated around a kitchen table with mugs, engaged in conversation
Young man in white shirt and tie adjusting his collar inside a livestock show tent
Sparse hedgerow with bare stems and mixed vegetation beside a pathMixed hedgerow shrubs with green and reddish foliage beside a pathFull dense hedgerow of green-leaved shrubs and ferns beside a path
Three people cutting and trimming bare-branched trees along a hedgerow in winter
Freshly laid hedge branches with red berries resting on a mossy stone wall
Hedge laid along a moss-covered stone wall, lone tree against blue skyRegrown hedgerow with ferns and wildflowers beside a wire fence, windswept tree behind
Young woman carrying a bucket walks along a new wire fence with tree guards in a field
Young trees and dense undergrowth inside a fenced woodland, farmland in the valley below
Man in checked shirt leans against an oak tree trunk in dappled woodland light

Statement

Humans intervene to influence outcomes. Early agrarian societies grew crops in fertile floodplains to increase their harvests. Their actions were just that: interventions. Since the industrial era, it is this same tendency that has led to maximising agricultural yields through techno-scientific interventions. Characterised by intensive animal farming, monoculture, pesticides, and synthetic fertilisers, this approach has also impoverished soil, increased pollutants, and contributed to a rapid decline in biodiversity.

It is impossible to imagine a society where humans do not alter their environment. The question is therefore not whether to intervene, but how and to what extent? In Getting Along with Nature, Wendell Berry writes that if humans “choose to make too great a difference, they diminish nature, and narrow their subsequent choices; ultimately, they diminish or destroy themselves”.

Forward-thinking farmers recognise this danger and work with nature to provide for their and our livelihoods. Three generations of the Robinson family work at Strickley, their organic dairy farm in Cumbria. There they also manage kilometres of species-rich hedgerows and are actively rewilding woodlands and wetlands. The habitats they create increase biodiversity by sustaining interdependent communities of microorganisms, plants, and animals. This is aided by the absence of pesticides and inorganic fertilisers as surveys of the stream that runs through the farm show. Its clean water supports growing numbers of arthropods, crustaceans, fish, and mammals.

By balancing intervention and renewal, the Robinsons embrace a new sensibility that reconciles economic viability and environmental sustainability. Their family farm has a long history (they have been exhibiting at the local agricultural show for 150 years), so this proactive approach is a credible example to their peers. It can also serve as a model to society at large.

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