Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
A fossil-fuel dependent economy not only uses livestock to move nutrients to the wrong
place, creating a pollution problem, but also, through its requirement for cut-price factory
farmed meat, undermines the economics of the grazing animals that we could be using to
move nutrients to the right place. When lamb is cheap, wool worth nothing, and mutton un-
heard of, hill farmers can afford to do little more than leave sheep on the moor and see how
many get through the year without dying. Ranging sheep in this manner is a labour-saving
method of farming developed by English enclosers, which has spread to the conveniently
(or deliberately) depopulated colonies. It was not the method employed in pre-enclosure
days when sheep were folded overnight on cropland; and it is not the method employed in
many parts of Europe where sheep are herded by shepherds, and brought back to the farm
at night to pay their rent in manure. Occitan shepherds call '
Ven, véçi, ven!
' ('come, come
this way!') and their sheep follow; English sheep farmers drive their panicking flocks into
the corner of a field with dogs or quad bikes. Was this what Thomas More was thinking of
when he noted that our once tame sheep had grown wild?
In a ruralized agricultural economy, where less meat is produced, the value of farm an-
imals is enhanced, and so, therefore, is the amount of attention that can be devoted to them.
We might see a return to the folding of flocks at night, and even their shepherding by day,
which would allow more care to be devoted to the welfare of animals, and reduce or elim-
inate losses from predators. It would bring surplus nutrients, generated from the rocks, the
atmosphere and the passage of wildlife, down the ancient hollow lanes leading from the
hill pastures, to deposit them on arable land where they serve a human purpose.
A second advantage of shepherding is that it allows more watchful management of pas-
ture land. The indolent air of the farmer leaning on his gate with a straw in his mouth belies
the fact that he is busy observing his animals - and that is what professional shepherds do
as a matter of course. Any shepherd, goatherd or cowherd, working for a number of years
in the same pastures, is likely to have a much deeper understanding of what is happening
to that particular area of land than can be gained from any number of ecological surveys.
Finally, on unfenced land, a shepherd can target the flocks' grazing patterns more effect-
ively than can be achieved by leaving stock to wander at will. This is not simply a matter
of steering the flock or herd away from vulnerable areas such as river banks; it can involve
a sophisticated rotation of grazing areas based on knowledge and understanding of local
conditions. Whether or not we agree with the theories of Voisin and Savory about pulse
promiscuous access to pastures tends to weaken the grass because animals will always head
for the tender bite; better to allow flocks intensive access to restricted areas in a timed se-
quence, allowing grass to grow back. In pastures too wild and extensive for a network of
fences, this can only be achieved by shepherding.
