The Source
Beautiful writing about delicious British food. Articles, comments and musings from our contributors.
Joe Stanley has been an Ambassador for Love British Food for many years. He is one of the leading voices promoting all that is best about British food and farming. Here he writes about his new book, which is published the week before British Food Fortnight.
Food and farming have rarely been more prominent in our national discourse than in recent years. Brexit, covid and climate change have raised the issue of how – and where – our food is produced to a level scarcely seen in peace time, as the complacency western society has felt towards its food over recent decades has begun to feel less assured. Hardly a week passes without a major news story with farming at its heart, while audiences continue to grow for programmes such as Clarkson’s Farm and Countryfile or books such as English Pastoral and Field Work.
Yet despite this, it still feels like we have never been more disconnected from the reality of where our food comes from. Less than 1.5 per cent of us now work the land, and urbanisation and the rise of the supermarket has in many cases reduced the countryside to an abstraction and food to a shrink-wrapped, foil-covered convenience to which we pay little mind. Yet if we do not understand something, how can we truly care about it? How can we differentiate between food produced in a sustainable and fair fashion, and that which fuels the fires of global deforestation or social inequality if we delve no further than its price or convenience? Moreover, in the age of social media the ‘truth’ many often seek about our food and farming systems can often come from those who are themselves least well informed as to the reality, with damaging results.
It was with this in mind that I decided to write Farm to Fork: The Challenge of Sustainable Farming in 21st Century Britain. I wanted to tell the story of the average lowland mixed farm, taking the reader on a journey through the seasons of my own family farm on which I have spent the last twelve years. I aim to explain to the non-farming reader what I do to produce the food they eat (and why), and the journey it takes to get to their plate, focussing on my own experience of arable, beef, dairy and sheep. But, of course, farming is about more than the food produced: farmers manage more than 70 per cent of the British landscape; we are quite literally stewards of our shared national inheritance, and I wanted to explain the mistakes that have been made in the past, the improvements that we are making and our hopes for an even brighter future.
On the way, I hoped also to explain some of the challenges facing British farmers today. Climate change; our exit from the European Union; poorly-negotiated trade deals; the dominance of big retailers. All these and more are applying unprecedented pressure to farm finances, farmer welfare and our national food security. But there are also opportunities, as presented by the potential for climate-friendly food and the passion that the British people have for high quality domestic produce.
I’m proud to be a British farmer; in this country we grow some of the most sustainable food in the world with some of the highest welfare standards to be found anywhere. That pride is reflected in Farm to Fork, and also in the Love British Food campaign which I’m delighted to be associated with, especially during British Food Fortnight. I hope that my book will help to illuminate the everyday workings of farms up and down the country, and point the way towards a greener and more sustainable farming future for us all.
Joe Stanley is a farmer, conservationist and writer and a passionate advocate for sustainability and high standards in food and farming. He is rarely to be found more than ten feet away from his trusty Jack Russel terriers, Ted & Toby.
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