Among the rural professions, we hedgelayers get an easier time of it than most. Not in a physical sense, of course. Laying hedges is skilled hard graft. By the end of the season, which runs from the first day of …
Britain’s farmers need to revolt
In The Shepherd’s Life, his memoir about following the family tradition of Cumbrian hill farming, James Rebanks highlights the obsession of “modern industrial communities” with the importance of “going somewhere”. “The implication,” he observes, “is an idea I have come …
Black panthers are roaming Britain
Last summer, I was driving along a country road at dusk when a great, black cat appeared in front of me. Far longer than any Labrador, it slunk demurely across the path and into a hedgerow. I turned at once …
Rural America has lost its soul
Pity the poor American farmer. Since the 18th century, he has been freighted not simply with growing crops or raising animals, but with carrying the virtue of the American republic. Thomas Jefferson said so himself, writing that: “Those who labor …
Are the Dutch farmers heading for power?
“Sweet Caroline…” bellows the crowd. “Good times never seemed so good!”
Times are indeed pretty good for Caroline van der Plas. Surrounded by the thousands of blooms that adorn the Royal FloraHolland Trade Fair, the leader of the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB), …
History Repeating: The War on the Kulaks
A hundred years ago, Joseph Stalin was plotting how to destroy the kulaks and confiscate their land and property for the glory of the Soviet empire. Today, Gates and Schwab are plotting how to destroy small farmers and take over …
The countryside revolt against the Tories
When George Orwell tried to define Englishness in his 1941 essay “England Your England”, written under the sound of Nazi bombers, he resorted to a list of images: “The clatter of clogs in the Lancashire mill towns, the to-and-fro of …
Will we end up eating insects?
The thrum of thousands of black soldier flies reverberates around the laboratory. Stacked in rows nearby are boxes containing larvae at various stages of development. Some, just hatched, are so small as to be almost invisible. Others, kept a couple …
Wolves are at war with France
The wolf is at the door. My local newspaper Sud-Ouest has informed me that I and the rest of the inhabitants of Charente Maritime “must prepare for the return of wolves”. I howled, in anguish. There are already wolves to …
How egg politics failed Britain
We’re still eating a glut of chocolate from the Easter egg-hunt. But we also have a glut of real eggs: over two dozen, from our six back-garden chickens. As my house struggles with an egg surfeit, though, Britain’s shops have …
Christopher Lasch’s forgotten utopia
When discussion turns to Christopher Lasch and his diagnosis of Western narcissism, his later work is often neglected. And this is a shame, for it is here that he offers an antidote: a physical community designed to combat the malaise …
The Great Food Reset has begun
France is in flames. Israel is erupting. America is facing a second January 6. In the Netherlands, however, the political establishment is reeling from an entirely different type of protest — one that, perhaps more than any other raging today, …
Who killed the river Wye?
For 30 accumulated years, the River Wye flowed alongside my life. I cannot quite say I grew up on its banks, but from the gates of my first childhood home I could throw a stone, across a road and an …
Why food should be more expensive
Jeremy Clarkson has finally said the unsayable. Ahead of the launch of the second series of Clarkson’s Farm last week, Britain’s most famous farmer declared: “Food is far too cheap. I know you can’t say that, but it’s far too …
The cruelty behind white gold
As crimes go, it took balls. Just before Christmas, thieves stole 60 containers of bull sperm from a farm in Olfen, a small town near Cologne, Germany. You might wonder what you do with litres of bovine ejaculate. Well, bull …
