Farming, food & nature: a recipe for bringing landscapes to life

Compassion in World Farming are on a mission to end factory farming. They, like us, want to educate people on the importance of choosing your food carefully. It’s so important to know where your meat has come from and how it’s been produced, not only for the sake of your health and animal welfare, but for the British countryside too. CEO of Compassion in World Farming and animal welfare advocate Philip Lymbery explains why this is…

"For the last twenty-five years, I have seen the effects of industrial farming first-hand. It was a chance meeting with a former dairy farmer that changed my life.

"Peter Roberts was founder of the organisation I now run: Compassion in World Farming, the world’s leading farm animal welfare charity. Before then, he and his wife Anna milked cows and kept chickens on his mixed farm in Hampshire. During the 1960s he watched the rise of factory farming and didn’t like what he saw. Factory farms started springing up where hens, pigs and veal calves spent their whole lives in cages or narrow crates. He became disturbed by what he saw as the pervading notion that animals were biological machines to be churned out as quickly as possible, just another product on an assembly line.

"Peter became a leading voice calling for animals to be treated with compassion and respect. He believed farm animals should at least be given lives worth living before they died. In 1990 I became so moved by what he was doing that I upped sticks from my life as a packaging designer in Bedfordshire to work with him in a small office in Petersfield, Hampshire. Before long I was travelling and seeing industrial farming for myself.

"I have crossed continents discovering the worst – and best – ways of producing dairy products and meat. The devastating impacts of factory farming on farm animal welfare are now well-documented. From mother pigs kept in crates so narrow they can’t turn around to hens confined to cages for most of their lives, awareness is growing that this is a cruel and outdated way of farming that needs to be consigned to the history books.

"What is less well-known is the impact intensive farming has on the environment and in particular, the wildlife that we share this planet with. I have spent years researching these negative effects, and have exposed them through my books, Farmageddon, and Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were. In the last 40 years the total number of wild mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish worldwide has halved. It’s a shocking statistic and even more shocking to realise that it’s the food on our plates that is responsible for two thirds of wildlife loss.

"Huge swathes of wildlife habitat is being destroyed to make way for crops to feed intensively farmed animals. From jaguars in Brazil to elephants in Sumatra and penguins in South Africa, wildlife is suffering immensely. Staggeringly, a third or more of the entire global cereal harvest, and nearly all of the world’s soya is devoted to feeding animals – this is enough food for more than 4 billion people.

"The UK is one of the most heavily farmed nations in the world: farms cover more than 70 per cent of the country’s land surface. That might sound appealing – many people would prefer it to housing – but when farms are being run like factories, using machinery and chemicals to eliminate anything that does not support the main product, they’re just another ugly industry. They bear no relation to the benign images of farms displayed in children’s books. There is simply no room for nature in such places. That is why I believe farms should be much more than food factories.

"During my travels I’ve met many, many farmers, who have rejected cruelty and waste. They are working to mend our broken food systems by restoring animals to the land – in well-managed, mixed rotational farms. By restoring animals to pasture landscapes start coming back to life. There can be a cascade of positive benefits for farmers, consumers, the local environment, forests both near and far, and for animal welfare too.

"The animals can run, and jump, flap their wings, or wallow in the mud; and in the case of pigs and poultry, be restored to their natural role as foragers and recyclers of food waste. Without the chemicals, wildflowers start coming back, along with seeds and insects, and with them, the birds, bats, bees. And what’s really special about all of this is that it takes the pressure off hard-pressed forests. So they can do under-rated things, like taking carbon out of the atmosphere, and giving us oxygen to breathe. And at the same time we gain healthier, more nutritious food. Animals fed on grass – the fruit of a timeless interaction between sun, rain and soil – provide meat lower in saturated fats and higher in health-giving nutrients like omega-3s.

"Helping to revive a living countryside can be as easy as choosing less and better meat, milk and eggs from pasture-fed, free-range or organic animals. Through our food choices three times a day, we can support the best animal welfare and bring landscapes to life."

Learn more about Philip Lymbery and his new book, Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were here.