Mate, this channel and yourself are among the most intellectual I’ve seen here in recent times, with genuinely intriguing subjects and the sources to back it up. You’re doing a great job.
As a general supporter of the rewilding movement it's been interesting to listen to your criticisms of the origins of the movement. It's definitely opened me up to some of the nuances. However I would still be an advocate for rewilding on the principal that I think there should be land left aside at a scale that can sustain complex tiered ecosystems. Share the planet with its other inhabitants. Although I have always considered this a national project that should take place within the national parks. The aristocratic land hold in the country is definitely an issue and I would hate to see them using the rewilding movement as a mechanism to sustain their wealth. I would recommend reaching out to youtubers within the rewilding space in the UK for a collaborative discussion. I'd value seeing you in conversion with someone like Leave Curious.
Leave Curious is mostly a propaganda movement in that it's about PERSUASION for Rewilding excessively than it is for the Science of Rewilding and Education of that within a complex policy frame-work. For sure drumming up interest is part of the job but I think they play the emotional card too much... for that populism approach. What you said above basically is what is needed: Rewilding of say the National Parks and probably the Riparian zones also of Major River Systems in conjunction with significant Afforestation and Wet-Land Restoration. As for farming, there's a dilemma here: The old small, mixed family run farms worked best for people and for nature on farms (being inefficient but ecological and human scale so good for people) but that clashes with the modern problem of sheer scale of masses of populations in cities/urban areas compounded by mass migration over past 30 years policy which is equivalent to new Oxford, Bristol, Reading, Nottingham, Birmingham and more etc to give a visual of that calamity! So how to square that circle? Which requires Industrial sized farms and probably factories producing food as opposed to farms which seems the direction the UK Gov is going for... Namely there's no solutions with such high population and consumption: There's only trade-offs.
I’m envious of your ability to put your thoughts together and explain them. The few videos I’ve watched on your channel so far are fascinating. I will be watching more. -a small landowning farmer using modern methods to support myself in South Dakota, USA. PS, the aristocracy in Britain favoring rewilding sounds like wealthy people in America using the Conservation Reserve Program.
Probably the most informative and intellectually stimulating discussion of the British countryside. The British countryside is an almost uniquely beautiful and accessible natural resource. Farms, and farmers, are an integral part of that landscape. But how best to balance our needs for a clean environment, a sustainable water system, safe, nutritious and delicious food, while allowing for farmers and landowners to earn a decent living and decent return on their investments? Difficult. Not impossible.
hey love your videos could you do a pdf of your reading materials, I need to have a look and add to my library, otherwise, these videos have been bloody brilliant mate
Thanks for your comment! I've got a busy couple weeks with harvest but I'll put together a reading list afterwards! In the meantime most (but not all admittedly) of the videos have sources in the description
People would ask me where I'd come up with 'all these crazy ideas', and I'd tell them "after your 1000th lap of the same field, you start thinking on things...." 😂😁😉
This is my favorite channel on youtube. I wanted to ask, have you heard of Duncan Pickard, or his book "Lie Of The Land?" It sounds right up your alley. You might not agree with everything he says, but in terms of it representing yet another school of thought that aims to resolve the conflict between working farmer and aristocracy, it is at least interesting. It's a very short book, and he is a farmer himself, from Scotland. Cheers from across the pond.
Do a video on modern British Farming Policy from current Governments. Looks to me like a big squeeze on small family farms to knock them out of the scene?
This history has variations and slight parallels across Europe. However historically different - Our part of the world (EU, Brexit, EEA, former iron curtain countries…) still share a surprisingly common predicament; We don’t or can’t produce enough food within Europe. We (corporate entities) monetise ecologically sound measures, and literally force farmers to be “businesses” to buy in - in a time where “the market spreadsheet” can’t add up. Through modernity we have a belief in solving everything through economics. That’s a recipe for externalising what we can’t fit into said spreadsheet - or to create new assets from nature to sustain economic growth. Sorry, a growing GDP can’t feed us, it only feeds finance, property, intangible assets and rentism at this stage. Not what we need farmers, their fields, expenses and their knowledge for. Aren’t we inflating the wrong part of our ill-defined economy…?
This isn't just a farmer thing. The entire concept of a "middle class" is a historical anomaly that arose as we entered the 20th century. The historical norm is a powerful and small elite ruling over the powerless and poor masses. The middle class disrupted this norm and gave many of the proletariat the means to own property and to have optiins outside of what the elite classes allowed. I believe we are now witnessing the return to the historical norm.
We are pretty lucky down here in Oz. In the early days there where forms of sqataristocricy, but they did not get a hold of things in general. The rural community down here are very inventive and usually give most gubermints the 2 finger salute, and get on with it.
Its interesting how these ideas and movements changed when crossing the pond. In North America, probably because of the nature of the colonies and the seeming abundance of land has resulted in a very interesting approach to farming. So the organic push here is more an effort to remove the sheer amount of carcinogenic chenicals and pollutants being used in farming. But the ecofacism runs true over here too.
10:47 quote is unhinged. European monarchies have been scapegoating financiers (it was often the figure of the Jew - who were intentionally prohibited from any other profession for this reason) for thousands of years as a means to retain power during financial crises caused by said monarchies. David Graeber's Debt: First 5000 years is an excellent book for anyone who want to read into it. Almost all religions try to address the issues of debt spiralling out of control since the Bronze Age. If you really want to, then why not call everyone from the Hammurabi to Edward I progressive environmentalists. *edit typo.
Scapegoating? I think you misunderstand the level of impact financiers have always had. Hence why every religion tries to deal with this issue. My favorite example is the Dutch revolt in England (mislabeled the glorious revolution). Monarchs of course had influence over the countries finance but they were warriors not merchants. The lords they required for armies and money were often persuaded by the worse aspects of their nature like all humans are. In short no, fianciers are definetly the main culprit for financial crisis.
@@franlaris8553 The quote referenced in the time stamp essentially equates nazi ideology with environmentalism because of the mutual critiques of a corrupt financial system. It's a tenuous connection which you can make of pretty much every system of government and religion. That's my point. The only reason you'd do this is that you have vested interests - you want to keep things like they are - and are willing to say anything to support it. It's lazy, and or sophism.
I have a few questions and thoughts I want to put your way. If you're willing. My comment is a bit longwinded, apologies. I appreciate the time you take making your videos, they've taught me quite a bit. For instance in my back garden, it's a hobby for my enjoyment. I don't use any chemicals (everything is more like a Huw Richards and Charles Dowding combination of no dig or self sufficiency garden) and was against chemical fertilisers, then a video of yours showed that the product is actually natural. It was an eye opener. Thanks for these videos. 1. With all of the knowledge you've amassed from these studies, where do you stand, what is in your best interest as a farmer? What do you consider the better ideology to follow? (I'm sure down the road you would come to this point) I am also aware that what is good for you as a small scale farmer won't be good for mass scale farming. Personally, I want what is best for the environment, but I'm also not an extreme nature conservationist. I also know that society and farmers cannot survive with food forests nor organically. It's also very impractical and expensive to farm like that. 2. What development has their been in recent years in regard to the use of poisons? I am against GMO plants. I have always been against any form of poison. I had ants in my house, instead of poisoning them, I made a feeding spot outside to lead them out of the house and blocked their route in the house using vinegar, eventually they moved outside and away. Come to the pesticides/ fungicides / herbicides, it goes against my grain to use them, even if they are considered safe, it's still a form of poison and either personal or environmental health is still at risk, or the balance of nature. I am not against farmers from using poisons, I understand it's necessary. 3. With the Labour party winning in UK, what does this mean for you, a small scale farmer? Also for farming as a whole? Who were you supporting and why? 4. What does the leading party mean to seasonal workers from other countries? Where do you stand on this topic? I'm not a UK citizen and would like very much to work on UK farms, more as an immigrant than a seasonal worker. Now don't worry about what I might think of you, personally it's better for citizens if no foreigners worked on home soil, it's best for the economy. As such if you're against foreigners working your land, I would commend you for that stance. Besides not every forienger cares about England and wants to do their best to preserve the country. 5. What are your plans and goals for the future? Do you want to remain in farming? Small scale? any experimental crops or farming you want to try?
Thanks for the comment! Some of this stuff has been covered in previous videos but briefly - 1. Personally I lean towards Stapledon's beliefs and the post war settlement - its a good mix of science and beauty and strikes the balance between them very well. 2. I covered glyphosate a little a while back, I'll read more on this in the future! 3. Honestly not very much - will have to wait and see if they change anything but their manifesto was quite short on farming. 4. I think you should be able to get visas to do farm work because we have labour shortages in the industry, we used to employ Poles and Romanians when we milked cows. 5. I've just got some sheep! I'll keep farming but it's only really a part time job on my scale which is why I have time for stuff like this. Hope that answers your questions somewhat!
@@farmingexplained Thanks for the response. You are right, it's been mentioned before. Unfortunately a lot of this goes over my head, in addition to all the characters from history that enter the conversation. Recieving a brief answer is exactly what I needd to further understand and do follow up research. You portray unbiased views well. The glyphosate video was the first video of yours I saw. "Are sprays killing our insects?" In time I hope some scientific breakthroughs can be made to improve sprays even more. I recall the topic of the manifesto, you mentioned that government parties aren't that concerned about farmers because their votes are so small, and therefore the manifestos hardly touching on farming. Curious how this will turn out in the years to come for farmers. Indeed, the sheep. I'm a bit besotted with sheep. Here in South Africa we are spoilt with choice with the variety if climates. The Damara being the more preffered choice due to it's higher illness resistance. Good luck with the sheep! Thanks again for the reply, you've answered the questions that I kept asking myself. As for the governance, time would tell. No need to reply and will catch you in the next upload. I do have ahandful of videos of yours I haven't watched and possibly some indepth answers could be there too. All the best!
Other people in this comment section have responded to your opinions on rewilding more eloquently that I could, but I do want to give an Irish perspective. In Ireland we don't have the farmer-aristocrat class conflict because, after the War of Independence and Trade War with Britain, we don't have aristocrats. All the land owned by the (British) aristocrats was given to the (Irish) farmers. So Ireland doesn't have aristocrats yet still has a rewilding movement, so aristocratic influence cannot be the whole motivation behind the movement. In Ireland, our bogs have been destroyed by peat extraction. Bogs are a carbon sink and host to huge amounts of insects, so rewilding our peatlands is going to be vital to combat climate change and to restore biodiversity. Also the focus on wolves is because of the impact that wolves had on Yellowstone National Park in the US, where reintroducing wolves improved the ecological situation.
Can you please edit your video on the History of Organic Food and add the clarification that (parts of) the Nazis came from the left, but either went over to the right or (erm...) left the movement later on. Without it, it really can't be recommended; but with it, it's absolutely great! Also, "The Origin of Blood and Soil" (or even using the German "Blut und Boden") would be a much better title in some ways, because this was such a central concept for everything that happened in WWII. (Obviously only if you can or want to deal with the audience this inevitably attracts ...)
@@farmingexplained It would be great if you could make it part of the video itself. (I'm not sure if youtube allows this and I am sure it takes work. But if possible, it's really worth doing.) But in any case, thanks for your work. This really was enlightening.
"audience this inevitably attracts" ? The kind that thinks 'statism'' and 'socialism' are leftist ideologies? If a NGO buddy's up with the state and the inherent monopoly of force that it provides, then it is only a NGO in name and not in fact.
I can’t really understand why you seem to obsess about the short comings of organic farming,only 3% as you said .To say, organic farming will never feed the world whilst conventional agriculture, adopts, organic practices or rediscovers traditional practices to correct many of the mistakes made during the last 50 years,would suggest it has something to offer. If organic agriculture had had the level of investment and research that conventional agriculture has had, output would be at a very similar level,without many of the downsides.
'Organic Agriculture' is crippled by demands for a near theological belief in irrational ideas, with an ability to 'change' that makes the College of Cardinals look live a rave.
@@floydblandston108 The organic standards at least mean there are some standards. Can sometimes be frustrating but ultimately makes you a better farmer rather than a technician.
You use the term pre-modern several times in this video. As I understand it, modern started with Descartes, included Kant, and spread as The Enlightenment, but was followed by Husserl, Heidegger etc.and the post-modern era. This is not to say that no one today can be modern or pre-modern in their outlook. I expect most people are. But are you using the terms in this way? If not, what?
The Chemist Haber was a 'city pretend farmer' (being born in Bresslau city Poland) and yet was a well known German Nationalist and ''the father of chemical warfare'' in WW1. Some dissonance going on here alright. I suppose the maths works in his favour though over time. Fertiliser lives gained against Chlorine gas deaths. The problem again is mitigating fertiliser run off. Slow release pellets buried relatively deep rather than spread by hopper would appreciably increase nitrogen utilisation efficiency.
Another great video, I liked your clarification on the point of Nazis and the left. I assumed this is what you meant from the original video, but it could be seen as “Nazis are left wing”, which is a common misconception pushed by, well neo Nazis and fascists today. Fascists form coalitions with whoever they can to get to power, a massive group of suppressed working class people is perfect. These people would want progressive policies to make their lives better, fascists and/or populists will promise them that
Nazis are left wing, they’re inherently revolutionary socialists, but they want to socialise the people. Remove all tradition. And make the stock market work in social interest. Fascists are centrists. Trying to fix class conflict by assuming them all under the state. They’re interventionists on steroids. Literally Keynesians. But terms left and right break down under scrutiny. Politics doesn’t have 1 axis.
Farmers have conservative social values but socialist economic values and vote for centre right/right wing parties that have neo-liberal economic values and progressive social ideals.
There’s probably a smarter answer but, I would say that most people inherit their political views and these only change and develop as, or if, you challenge these views yourself. I will speak in broad terms, farming tends to be a relatively closed society and people tend not to like challenging their own views and certainly do not like to be challenged by “outsiders”. Anecdotally I would say that farming centres around the nuclear family and tends to have multiple generations and family members working (even living) together. This generally is led by a patriarch, usually the eldest male family member. Farmers often have a strong sense of community, although not always amicable. I would say that farmers tend to see themselves as this final bastion of tradition that is under threat from an onslaught of technology/environmentalism/wokeism etc. etc. This is truly what it means to be a conservative. To look back to what was, and try to rehabilitate the “old ways” or attempt to simply sustain them. Rather than accepting that time has past or is no longer relevant. This is threatening to some as, consciously or unconsciously, accepting that would mean by definition they are no longer relevant. There is room for middle ground however and I would not tar every farmer with the same dark blue brush. There always needs to be room for nuance and thought. Else we descend into tribalism. Us vs them. That serves nobody.
@@anyoneatall3488 I think what we should really ask is why are urban people less conservative Allow me to explain what I mean. Liberal/progressive ideas tend to first develop and thrive within urban centers, especially among the wealthy, the college educated, the merchants and such. These people usually have had enough time for themselves to philosophy and develop these types of ideas or are immersed in an environment that were said ideas are hegemonic. In the case of merchants their job often leads them to interact with people with very different backgrounds. Because of their condition these people will often develop a stronger sense of individuality and personal freedom which they make into one of the core tenets of their political alignments. The "self-made man" is one of the most admired figures of classical liberal thinking Just look at the intellectuals that inspired or became protagonists of the French revolution, most of them came from high Parisian society, essentially the bourgeoisie. On the contrary, farmers and rural people in general are often part of smaller but more intertwined communities, most of the times based on family ties. Farmers also inherit their parents occupation which not only strengthtens their attachment to their family but also to the land they work and live in, while cities have a constant influx of new comers. Rural life can be more, I wouldn't say stale because that would have a negative connotation, but things don't change that much so it can also be why people there tend to be more conservative. In short I'd say rural people are more conservative because their life rotates around family ties and a sense of continuation through the generations, and as I already said, people in rural environments are more attached to their land as they lived there for generations cities are more progressive because the very development of the city is based on social and technological progress and while more populous this can lead the people in urban environments to be more disconnected from one another and thus have a mentality more open to personal liberty. Cities have a more cosmopolitan mentality due to the constant influx of people moving there which can be seen as the norm. I think my answer is not perfect, but as a conservative minder person who lives in a city I believe these are the main causes of the divergent ideologies
No, we are too few on the one hand (sociologically), and too many and disparate on the other (economically). As long as governments pursue 'Bread and Circus' policies, we are usually marginalized into a hereditary caste, bound to the soil by one means or another.
it is so weird to hear the British idea of rural urban divide expressed as country vs town. 100,000 people would have been a preeminent city of the world 200 years ago and even today its still a small city and you can't even find a city that small in the top 55 by population. Buddy you live in a town and to pretend otherwise is trying to ignorer what century you live in.
seconding this, especially as large dense towns/small cities that developed due to topographic, water, and security requirements are common in some regions of Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America*. Some of these regions are heavily agricultural and had until 100 years ago a large part of population of the dense towns working in surrounding fields * North America has the Ancestral Puelo/Anasazi dense cliff towns and varying oases and water sources in the desert, but to the best of my knowledge not the same extensive agriculture with dense towns.
Do you seriousely think that you cant rewild without aristocrates, or that wanting some well developed ecosystems on the land implies you must want mas starvation? I recognise the link you point out between rewilding and fascism, but I think you take it much too far.
Brilliant at 18.25: 'Charlie Burrell' who always appears as the hardworking husband of Isabella Tree in rewilding propaganda is actually the 14th Baronet. They live in a naffing castle. This is the future of the countryside? Really? On class I'd have to disagree again. There were 3 rural classes from the 17C onwards. Feudal landowners, capitalist farmers and landless labourers - the rural working class. Over the last 100 years the third of these has been almost eliminated through the development of labour saving technology. Farmers remain as petty-capitalists though. That many are not in it for the money doesn't alter the fact they are capitalists. Just like other petit bourgeois occupations farmers are squeezed, threatened with elmination by the grindstones of big capital (chiefly food processors and distributors), the old feudal aristocracy, and unsympathetic neoliberal govts which want to please big cap (most recently by allowing imports of cheap poor quality agri-products) while pandering to naive notions of environmentalism.
Me: what is he talking about "aristocrats. That must be a very british thing, not relevant anywhere else". Also me: looks up "land ownership by fromer aristocrats in Germany" (my country)
You really have it in for organics farming, don't you? I'm a working class country boy from Somerset. I hate the aristocracy and would abolish them in a heartbeat given half a chance. However, I see the damage intensive farming is having around here. I see the stream at the bottom of my field devoid of nature because of the run off from surrounding farms. I see soil erosion because of bad farming practice. I see fewer and fewer insects, birds and mammals in my lifetime due to spraying. Organics would reduce our food supply but perhaps the solution is to reduce the population in the UK to more manageable levels. 10 million more people in the country in less than 30 years is unsustainable. And just because an idea originates from an unpopular ideology doesn't make that idea void. Yes, fascism is awful, as it the aristocracy, but the idea of soil protection and working with nature instead of against nature is in itself apart from the ideology it may have sprung from. You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about organic farming and are using its tenuous link to fascism with which to beat it.
A 'guide' to British rural ideology that does not even glance at colonialism, empire, enslavement, what emancipation means? Primogeniture had other outcomes than organic farming and rewilding ideology.
