The Source

Food is never just food. To mark Love British Food’s 25th anniversary, Love British Food and Future Countryside have commissioned a collection of essays exploring the role of food in Britain today. Bringing together diverse perspectives from across the food supply chain and beyond, the collection provides a snapshot of British food and society in 2026 – designed to inspire fresh thinking, worthwhile debate and positive action for the future. 

Food is the Landscape

The British countryside is one of our nation's greatest treasures. We celebrate it in paintings, poetry and politics. We flock to it at weekends. We defend it passionately whenever it is under threat. But we rarely stop to ask the most important question.

Who created the countryside we love?

The answer is not simply nature. It is generations of farmers working alongside nature. The hedgerows, hay meadows, grazing marshes, chalk downland and patchwork fields that define Britain did not appear by chance. They are the result of centuries of food production, shaped by people who understood that their future depended on the health of the land.

Take farming away, and much of the countryside people cherish disappears with it.

Yet today's debate often presents farming and nature as though they are opponents in a contest for land. Produce food or restore wildlife. Grow crops or store carbon. Feed people or protect biodiversity. It is a false choice.

There will always be places where nature must come first. Ancient woodlands, peatlands, species-rich wetlands and our rarest habitats deserve protection above all else. Equally, there will always be our best and most productive farmland, where growing food must remain the priority. But these are the exceptions, not the rule. Across most of Britain's countryside, the greatest opportunity lies between the two. The future is not about choosing between food and nature. It is about putting each in the place where it can flourish—and, across most of our countryside, ensuring they flourish together.

Modern agriculture has undoubtedly contributed to the decline of wildlife. We should never shy away from that. But it is equally wrong to suggest that the answer is simply less farming. The future of nature will not be secured by turning our backs on food production. It will be secured by producing food differently.

The future of nature depends on the future of farming.

The best farmers have always understood that productivity begins beneath their feet. Healthy soils grow resilient crops. Hedgerows are not wasted space; they shelter livestock, support pollinators and connect wildlife across the landscape. Well-managed grasslands can produce food while providing habitat for birds, insects and wildflowers. Water, trees and wildlife are not obstacles to profitable farming. They are part of the farming system itself.

Nature is not an optional extra. It is farming's greatest asset.

Throughout my career I have seen what happens when farming works with nature rather than against it. Skylarks have returned because cultivation moved by only a few meters. Grey partridge have recovered because insects were given space to thrive. Lapwing have bred successfully because water was managed more intelligently and predators controlled responsibly. None of these successes required abandoning food production. They required better farming.

That is the conversation we should be having.

Too often we argue over whether land should produce food, restore nature, capture carbon, reduce flooding or generate income. The reality is that the best landscapes do all of those things at once.

One field. Many outcomes. That is what modern land management should aspire to deliver.

Farmers are sometimes portrayed as part of the environmental problem. I see something very different. I see people who understand the land better than almost anyone else. They notice when soils lose their structure. They see rivers dry before anyone else does. They know when the swallows arrive and when the harvest must wait. Every decision they make carries economic risk, but also ecological consequences.

Nobody has a greater stake in the health of nature than the people whose livelihoods depend upon it.

If we are serious about restoring Britain's wildlife, farmers cannot simply be consulted. They must be trusted. Conservation does not happen in conference centers or government offices. It happens in fields, every single day, through millions of decisions made by the people managing the land.

Government has an important role, but it should reward outcomes rather than bureaucracy. Reward healthier soils. Cleaner rivers. More wildlife. More resilient farms. These are public goods, and society has every reason to support the people who deliver them.

Climate change, food security and biodiversity loss will reshape the countryside over the coming decades. The temptation will be to divide the landscape into competing priorities. We should resist that temptation. Britain does not need landscapes dedicated solely to food or solely to nature. It needs landscapes that do both.

The countryside is not a museum. It is a working landscape. If we forget that, we risk preserving a postcard while losing the living countryside itself.

Because food is not separate from the countryside. It has shaped it for centuries and will continue to shape it for generations to come.

And perhaps that is the simplest truth of all. The best farmers have never simply grown crops. They have grown landscapes.