Hello again!

Here's a few thoughts I'd like to share with you this week...

Less, but better.

Is this an article about choosing when and where to fly?

Or about choosing quality clothing over fast fashion?

It's a slogan that would work well for those topics, but actually today I'm writing about meat.

Another slogan then: it's not the cow, it's the how.

I wrote recently about what seems (to me) like the unacceptably vast amount of land needed to produce beef and dairy. Francesca, a farmer and land agent, got in touch to say that she disagreed. She grew up on a smallholding, went vegan for similar environmental reasons to me, found it impacted her health, went back to eating meat, started regenerative farming on 120 acres, and now is grazing cattle on 1200 acres on the Isle of Wight!

And so I went for a walk with Francesca to hear her perspective and learn about her life as a farmer.

The first thing I learned was that she knows a LOT about a lot of things! Here's a summary of some of the things we chatted about...

The Health and Environmental Impacts of Beef

• Both Francesca and her farming partner Hollie's health improved when they moved away from vegan diets to one that incorporates the whole cow (bone broth, collagen, etc.) that provides more, and more diverse, nutrients than just eating muscle meat. 
• She strongly believes regenerative farming is the way forward: raising fewer animals but producing better quality  grass-fed meat rather than grain-fed. Grass-fed beef is better for your health and less bad for the planet than grain-fed beef. (I also love regenerative farming to heal the soil and boost nature, whilst also producing food.) 
• Industrial animal farming is gross and cruel.
• Large herbivores like cows are really important for healthy, diverse ecosystems. Greater species diversity within grassland ecosystems enhances overall productivity, resilience, and ecological stability.
• One of my biggest beefs about beef is how much land is required to produce a calorie of food (100x more than potatoes). But Francesca points out that there is a global surplus of calories, so this isn't the best measure in her opinion, particularly with 64% of our population overweight.
• She was surprisingly ambivalent about the health importance of dairy product, eggs, or chicken meat.
• A1 protein in milk (Friesians and Holsteins) can cause health issues, and some people who think they are lactose-intolerant are actually just reacting to this protein. A2 protein milk (from Jerseys and other traditional breeds) is superior and more easily tolerated.
• Large-scale upland sheep farming is pretty unsustainable, doesn't make money for farmers, and the public aren't even that bothered about eating much lamb.
• The overall message: eat less meat, but go for top-quality Pasture for Life beef when you do eat it.

The Economics of Farming

• It's safe to summarise that Francesca was hugely frustrated about the government's role in farming: claiming to be prioritising environmentally-focussed farming and supporting farmers' businesses, whilst constantly messing around with plans or cancelling vital programmes without warning. There were a lot of acronyms involved in what she told me, but the summary is clear: farmers are really struggling, and the government is not helping them or the planet effectively.

Rewilding and Regeneration

• Francesca, like me, is a big fan of rewilding. But she explained how unpopular it is in much of the farming community. There's a generational notion that farmland ought to be producing food and that rewilded land looks offensively scruffy. Many object to farmland being converted to rewilded land, even when it is being paid for, although (not surprisingly) this stance often softens when they themselves are being the ones paid. 😃
• I really loved hearing of the different ways farmers are combining rewilding, woodland pastures, and regenerative agriculture.
• I was relieved to learn that even massive businesses like McDonalds and Unilever are committed to shifting to regenerative agriculture. They know that if they do not then their businesses will suffer in the years to come as soils deteriorate and the climate changes. 

Right to Roam

• Francesca doubts increased countryside access (a right to roam) would boost public engagement with farming or food production. Society is generally disconnected from and indifferent to food origins. But she points out that people in the town by her farm rarely even use the existing footpaths, so allowing people to roam everywhere wouldn't get more people out into nature.
• Cows with young calves are currently restricted from fields with footpaths for safety reasons. Expanding a right to roam would make it more complicated to keep people safe (and to keep lambing sheep safe from people's dogs.)

Thanks so much to Francesca for taking the time to give me a different, knowledgable, and balanced viewpoint.

I headed home thinking a few things:

• I still feel a vegan diet for most people most of the time is better for the planet than our current systems. I've never had any health implications myself. But I'd be happy to occasionally eat beef from regenerative, mob-grazing, nature-friendly farms. (A simple way to buy that beef: Pasture for Life.)
• It's really hopeful to talk to farmers like Francesca who know so much and who also genuinely care about nature. We need a government who helps these people do good work.
• I sent Francesca a WhatsApp that evening about something that had been puzzling me. Statistics such as these astounded me so much when I learned them that I felt compelled to change my diet: if everyone shifted to a plant-based diet, we would reduce global land use for agriculture by 75%; Food production is responsible for 1/4 of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and much of that is due to farming animals. Why did they not have the same impact on her?
  Francesca's reply was fascinating as I try to figure out how best to nudge people towards change and action: 'Hmm... I suppose my problem is that statistics aren't sexy and are unlikely to change people's hearts and minds (and therefore how they live and vote!) and, secondly, was it Disraeli who said, "lies, damned lies, and statistics!"...? I've seen both 'sides' of the argument pitching figures against each other.'
  For Francesca, the most powerful persuasion comes from the way she feels, and from the stories before her eyes. Story-telling and lived experiences are more impactful for her than a cold statistic is to me. That's really interesting for me to remember as I try to improve how I communicate. 
• It's all really complicated! Everything is tangled – all the problems, all the solutions – and fixing one thing often causes a problem somewhere else. All we can do is keep trying to improve things, keep moving forward, and keep communicating with each other.

Find out more about Francesca:

• @thatladyfarmer
• @nunwellhomefarm
• Farm website

I don't yet know if all this is going to form the basis of a new book, but I sort of hope it might.

And I'd love to collect a wide range of perspectives, anecdotes, experiences, criticisms and suggestions about the different themes covered. 

Please do let me know what's on your mind!

Thank you...