Small Farm Future by Chris Smaje

Reading Chris Smaje’s Small Farm Future again, the first time I had just finished Feeding Britain by Tim Lang and the change in styles was a bit of a shock to the system. I found Small Farm Futures too flowery in language, pretentious, lecturing and frankly a bit too much if the ‘what an academic muses about while weeding his tomato patch’ for my taste.

All of which is a bit unfair, especially as I actually agree with a lot of what Chris writes about. It chimes with my own farming experience, and the changes in the world immediately around me and my understanding of the wider world. As a small scale agriculture project in a marginal; isolated area, unconnected to the grid a lot of what Chris talks about is a constant factor in our daily lives.

In short Small Farm Future is a look at the world as it is and trying to outline an alternative vision of what a sustainable future could look like. From climate change to soil depletion, economic and political systems to culture, maritime pollution and rising sea levels, to water stress the list of stresses and crisis is both comprehensive and not a little terrifying. It also runs the risk of being over powering. The progressive liberal discourses of the advantages of modernity to raise human productive capacity and concordantly human well being are beginning to sound increasingly hollow. The rise of the super rich, alongside the super poor gives a lie to the myth of a rising tide raising all boats, as we see that some have a super yacht and others have to resort to dangerously over crowded dingies to try and escape conflict.

Clearing the present system is unable to manage the multiple crisis that are manifesting themselves all over the world. The Russian renewed invasion of Ukraine has highlighted once again the inter connectivity of the world food system, with a war in the Black Sea causing cereal shortages across Northern Africa and the Middle East, an energy crisis in Germany, fertiliser hyper inflation and chip manufacturers from Texas to Taiwan scrambling for supplies of crucial minerals. A globalised just in time delivery system is a finely balanced juggling act, a ship stuck in the Suez canal, a nuclear power plant maintenance cycle in France let alone a war in Europe is enough to throw it all out of kilter. With crisis management in full flow the underlying issues of climate change, let alone humble but crucial issue of soil health, tend to get nailed on at the end when the debate is providing energy to German industry, cereals to the Sudan and hand held ground to air missiles to Ukraine.

But the underlying issues of sustainability, economic development, and the future of the natural environment and us humans that depend on it does not go away.

The responses fall into three not exclusive broad categories, adapt the present system, reject it and build something different, or to hell with it enjoy yourself and to hell with the future it will look after itself, or not.

The first category essentially outlines the liberal position, build renewable energy, off set carbon emissions, change diet and cycle to work.

The second spans a wide variety of looking to some imaginary past of greatness, however you define that, for inspiration. Or alternatively blasting off from the world to some imaginary better existence amongst the frozen rocks of space.

The third is a resigned acceptance of powerlessness in the face of overwhelming odds and a nose to the grindstone approach of getting through as best you can.

The reality is that most of use hope for a technology fix, while dream of a simpler life but are stuck in the day to day grind of just getting by most of the time.

So it very refreshing to see read a strong alternative vision that places the rural economy at the hear of a sustainable future.

The simple fact is that the future is looking a tad bleak for the standard modernist agenda based on economic growth. The basic limitations of living on a fixed sized planet, with finite resources of fossil fuels and minerals, means that the idea of constant economic growth to fuel human, well being will;or already has, reached it’s limit. Not of course that general human well being is actually it’s objective,selective human well being is more accurate. Historically, and presently it is a lottery of where you were born that determines how much you actually benefit , and even if you were born in the right place a lot also depends on who your parents are. The geographical, gender and class divisions are still a major factor in determining human access to resources. In the global North, ie rich capitalist centres, the social advances since the turn of the twentieth century, and particularly post the Second World War did enhance the access of the poorer sections of society to resources, education, health, work, whereas the early 21st Century has seen the constant erosion of much of those gains.

So how do we plan our way out of this mess. For the technologists, there are, surprisingly enough, technology solutions, from electric cars, ground heating pumps, renewable energy, nuclear, geo engineering, from carbon capture to solar radiation management. This list is endless, the headlines breathless. The new solution always just round the corner. When they have got the model to work.

In Small Farm Future Chris takes a completely different approach, instead of the high energy, high technology, urban concentration of the EcoModernists; and tech fans he looks at low density, low energy rural solution. Many small holding, highly intensive, farming as a role model, skimming the land for energy, food and textile needs; an outline model for a future sustainable society.

Without going into the details, you can read them yourself, Chris shows that a small farm future can provide enough food, on existing land use in the UK for an enlarged population, Chris’s model assume that the UK has embraced climate change refugees. Also, as opposed to the vegan future model, farm animals, and their consumption also figure, albeit on a reduced scale from present meat per capita pasterns in rich countries.

It is not an easy model, particularly for those looking forward to a sci fi model where work is taken over by automatons, where human beings are left to think of needs they haven’t thought of and clever ways for machines to provide them. Work on the farm is physical, demanding; and constant. It is also rewarding, satisfying and intellectually challenging. It is also cooperative, both in the “family” unit what ever that might be, and involving the wider community. Something I feel Chris needs to explore more widely. Physical infrastructure that is shared needs maintenance, whether it be roads and bridges or markets, schools and hospitals.

Knowledge is a key aspect that I also think needs more exploring. Research does not stop because more carrots are sown, indeed dealing with climate change requires a lot more investigation, into new crops, mainly adopting existing ones but grown in new places, renewable energy, again mainly it’s storage, but also building it with more locally available materials are two that spring to mind. But the list goes on and on.

A key part of a small farm future alongside local production is localised decision making. So how would decisions about shared projects be made? Massive projects, such as nuclear power stations with their vast material demands, defence and maintenance would have to be big no nos, but regional agricultural research, medical facilities and education, let alone contraception all need a decree of forward planning, and resources.

One of the things I have found as a farmer on marginal land in a marginal community, and I mean that in the sense of living on the side of a mountain that was devastated by deforestation and subsequent grazing, and a community degraded by rural flight in the 6Os to the turn of the century and second homes in the 21^st, it is hard to just make a living from farming. Subsistence yes, up to a point. But even then there is vehicle maintenance, health, taxes, that to often stretch the household budget and too,often break it.

Lots small holders around here have had to find other sources of income, from working part time for the post office, nursing, harvesting in vineyards on the plains, wood cutting for heating, growing cannabis, cleaning in schools, the list of secondary jobs is as wide as the imagination.

The future may be different but I doubt it, bringing inputs from outside is key to making it work. Multi skills are an integral part of small holding, part farmer, part mechanic, part forester, part sales person, doctor and vet, cook, cloths repairer, electrician, plumber, builder, scholar and psychiatrist, child raiser, cleaner, organiser and negotiator, the skills required are wide and we have them all to a different level every day. It seems to me that one of theses skills needs honed above the day to day living needs to be traded in the community market place to be exchanged for skills or goods we my otherwise be lacking. Combined with involvement in local decision making and cultural activities it ensures we remain in touch with the wider community.

But enough day dreaming. Buying into a small farm future is not for all, indeed it is probably in this day and age for a small nut slowly growing minority. As urban life gets more difficult the rural life may win over more people. Certainly the flimsiness of the global food web, as highlighted recently both by Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought home the issue of food security to many countries. Which in turn has generated a re looking at supply chains and local production.

The responses to this have been mixed and often contradictory, for some it is an increase in sustainable agriculture, others factory farming, and engineering “meat like” stuff.

Environmentalists are no less confused, or have clear but totally opposed ideas of what to do. Turn vegan and rewild the countryside, or buy a plot of land and grow carrots, both have their lobbies. Meanwhile billionaires are buying up land as an investment, they are not making it any more, cutting down trees in remote corners of the world and dreaming of space flight. While the majority are working out how to pay the bills, feed their families and get more followers on social media.

To conclude, because I could go on for days, Small Farm Future is worth a read and some thought. It is the life we have chosen for ourselves, which despite the downsides brings us plenty of pleasure.

Chris Smaje’s Small Farm Future blog