Gone To Earth

Long ago a character in a radio programme, "Beyond Our Ken", called Arthur Fallowfield, a farmer, played by Kenneth Williams who was an unlikely tiller of the earth, had as his catch phrase "the answer lies in the soil" when asked a question about anything.

Michael Gove, at present, at least for a few weeks, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has stated that if we go on as at present then we might have only thirty to forty more crops from our fields.

The Guardian reports this as "Eradication of soil fertility" down among UK items and rated below the management of Everton FC, the Harvey Weinstein grope latest and the question of which boxers deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. But at least they carry the story, you will not find much said elsewhere.

It is possible to imagine the news rooms, "Michael Gove, what? Oh dump it, it might do if there is a slow New Year." What all forget and what most historians know little about it that we have been here before once or twice. "The tragedy of the commons" is covered in Wikipedia and other sites.

Essentially, it means that the ideal of common land shared among the community by reason of individual selfishness and concern only with the very short term can result in the destruction of a resource, notably the land. When England once had many commons this happened and hunger followed. A basic reason for the waves of enclosure was to rescue the situation and allow better fertility.

This is not the case at present, albeit indirectly. What is the case now is that we have a population which wants its food but is ignorant of land use; and governments which subsidise and encourage extreme intensive use. It suits the landowners pockets and even more the fertiliser firms and other interested parties.

As ever, the short term trumps the long term, buying votes now is cheaper than ensuring long term productivity and care of the soil and the environment required for that care to be maintained. In many cases the actual farmer, in effect, is a middle man who does what is needed to get by from year to year.

If we look at our social structure and ask which generation is the one that knows least about where the food etc. comes from, is most concerned with the media as it is, has ideas about the self that preclude much co-operation or sacrifice and is unready either to deal with or understand the problems, it is the one who will first feel the impact of the mounting failure of food supplies.

As the UK is not alone in this situation then it will not be possible to source the food needed from elsewhere and England is one of the most intensively populated places on the planet. The emigration of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries from Europe was massive. It will be as nothing compared to that to come.

Perhaps Arthur Fallowfield will turn out to be right if only a century ahead of his time.