On a very wet and miserable Monday evening, 120 people descended on Perins School in Alresford for a screening of the film ‘Six Inches of Soil’, hosted by local charity New Leaf. The event was part of this year’s Winchester Green Week activities.
The audience included four panellists who agreed to take part in the post-film question and answer session, Perins’ Geography teachers and pupils, local MP Danny Chambers, and interested members of the community. Guests were able to able to enjoy a glass of delicious (very local) English fizz provided by Candover Brook.
The film began by highlighting that just the top six inches of soil nearest the surface nourishes and supports us, providing the food that we need to survive. We have increasingly taken this for granted and if we continue with our current practices, we have only enough fertile soil left for approximately 45 to 60 years of agriculture.
Intensive farming methods, including overuse of heavy machinery, monocropping and the use of pesticides and herbicides, have damaged and depleted the quality of the soil. The film showed how heavy machinery can compact the earth making it difficult for plant roots, worms and water to penetrate. This leads to lower resilience of crops during drought because roots do not penetrate as deeply, and during downpours the water runs off the land instead of being absorbed into the ground. The knock-on effect is flash flooding, which communities are increasingly suffering from.
The film follows three producers in their first year using regenerative farming methods, including a market gardener in Cambridge, an arable and sheep farmer in Lincolnshire and a pasture-fed beef farmer in Cornwall. The stories were inspiring and the dedication and drive of the individuals to be better custodians of their land and animals, and to produce food which is healthier, tastier and better for our planet, shone through.
Many of the changes are relatively simple, including ploughing less frequently and more shallowly, crop rotations, introducing more diversity – including longer rooted varieties of plants which help break up compacted ground – and using animals on arable land to restore nutrients. The film also covered the challenges producers face when adopting regenerative farming techniques, in particular the devaluation of food achieved by supermarkets who often sell fresh produce at a loss and make up their profits in other areas. This is tough for the farmers, who receive a very small percentage of the price consumers pay for the product.
Following the film we benefitted from a lively discussion with questions and view points put forward by the audience to the panellists. The panel included Samuel Philippot, Vineyard Manager at Candover Brook; Jamie Butler, a dairy and arable farmer from Whitewool Farm in Meon Springs; Peter Moss from Downforce Technologies, who pioneer science-led, data-driven land management solutions; and Tom from Frensham Market Farm, a small scale chemical free vegetable grower.
The audience were keen to know what they could do to help, where they can source good produce and how they might support local regenerative farming. Questions were asked about what changes government could make. The balance of using land for food production versus providing habitat was also discussed. Supermarkets weren’t the only suppliers to come under the spotlight, with one audience member raising concerns over fast-food outlets and convenience food manufacturers who use cheaply imported, poor quality meat.
The last word of the evening fell to Danny Chambers MP, who drew on his experience of growing up on a farm and his previous career as a vet. Bringing together many of the threads of the discussion, Danny spoke about the important role farming can play in tackling climate change and how standards adopted by British farmers already exceed those in many parts of the world, which our farmers now find themselves in competition with. Danny concluded that we can affect change through the choices we make when we shop, and reminded the audience that there are a number of accreditations which indicate higher standards of animal welfare, and this was met with spontaneous applause.
New Leaf thanks the wonderful panellists and our collaborators Perins School for providing the venue. The impressive turn-out on this gloomy and wet late September evening demonstrates the level of interest members of the public have in how we manage our land and produce food, and the growing enthusiasm for a revival of regenerative farming practices, working with nature rather than against it.
(For those who missed the screening and would like to watch the film, visit https://sixinchesofsoil.vhx.tv/ to stream the film at home).