By promoting more diverse farming, we can provide nutritious food without devasting our climate, says Wildfarmed cofounder Andy Cato
Back in France during last month’s heatwaves, the effect on the landscape was devastating. Spring-sown crops, hanging on after very little rainfall and unrelenting sun, will, for many, not be worth harvesting. Looking over the parched valley, veiled in wildfire smoke drifting up from the coast, I made a throwaway remark to some farming friends about planting olive trees to cope with increasingly regular episodes of intense, dry heat.
Done differently, farming has the potential to store carbon, house diverse wildlife and provide ample, nutritious food. Yet since the mid-20th century, western policy has pushed farmers in the opposite direction. Government-funded research, education and subsidies have been used to drive chemically intensive production over ever-larger acreages.
During the first 10,000 years of agriculture, humans produced food from polycultures, diverse groups of plants growing together, for almost all that time. Modern-day monocultures are an anomaly. Around the world, innovative farmers are finding ways to bring diversity back into our fields. A diversity of plants means a diversity of habitats, allowing wildlife to return. Different plant families growing together feed a diversity of soil life.
The relentless pressure applied to farmers has led many into huge financial stress. As a result, there is an understandable aversion to new farming ideas that come with perceived risk. Logistically, our storage and distribution infrastructure has been designed around the monoculture. Culturally, the aesthetic of what a “successful” farm field looks like runs deep: perfect rows of one type of plant, and nothing else.
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