Pastoral Song: A Farmer's Journey

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This was a brilliant book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. James Rebanks is a farmer in Cumbria. He comes from generations of farmers on the same land and muses over the changes that have taken place on the same land and within farming in general within the UK.

History, anthropology, ecology nature, farming and memoirs are all in here- a must read for everyone! James Rebanks combines the descriptive powers of a great novelist with the pragmatic wisdom of a farmer who has watched his world transformed. English Pastoral is a profound and beautiful book about the land, and how we should live off it.”— Ed Caesar,contributing writer, The New YorkerThis was a great follow-up to other books I’ve been reading recently about environmentalism and long-term thinking, such as Losing Eden (which, similarly, took inspiration from Silent Spring) and The Good Ancestor, and should attract readers of Wilding by Isabella Tree. I hope it will go far in next year’s Wainwright Prize race. The New York Timesbestselling author of The Shepherd’s Lifeprofiles his family’s farm across three generations, revealing through this intimate lens the profound global transformation of agriculture and of the human relationship to the land. Superbly written and deeply insightful, the book captivates the reader until the journey’s end.” — Wall Street Journal The name of the game became productivity. Ancient field systems were broken up, traditional crop rotation abandoned. Breeds of plants and animals re-engineered to produce greater yields on massive farms. Through the eyes of James Rebanks as a grandson, son, and then father, we witness the tragic decline of traditional agriculture, and glimpse what we must do now to make it right again.”

English Pastoral is the story of an inheritance: one that affects us all. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world were brought close to collapse, and the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community and wild things were lost. And yet this elegy from the northern fells is also a song of hope: of how, guided by the past, one farmer began to salvage a tiny corner of England that was now his, doing his best to restore the life that had vanished and to leave a legacy for the future. Nostalgia (which broadly is the author’s reflections on his Grandfather’s more traditional approach to farming around 40 years ago in an already changing era – his Grandfather a late resister to the changes around him) Rebanks explores the changes of farming methods from small family farms, to larger farms that focused on machinery, genetics and businesses to now looking at a striking a balance between two- allowing ecosystems to flourish which in turn makes the land better and richer through returning to older methods, rewilding projects etc. What is good is he does so without a ros The main thrust I think of the author’s arguments is captured in this compromise. At its worse this seems to be rather resentful of both sides: he seems to share equal dislike for the world of neo-liberal free-trade and globalised economics (economists in particular seem to be his rather odd bête noire) and for left-wing extremists (George Monbiot is not named in the book but the two seem to have a history of opposition). But more commonly he argues against entrenched positions (that farmers are either all bad or all good) and bifurcation (for example colleges which turn out either economics focused MBA farmers or nature loving ecologists but without ever bringing the two into dialogue). It was sad reading about the demise of the family farm. How in the good old days there were harvest festivals that brought the farming community together every year, and now it’s a thing of the past. I think we are taught that progress is a good thing with no ands, ifs, or buts. I think this book is a cautionary tale…Thank the gods of agriculture for James Rebanks. … A lyrical narrative of experience, tracing 40 years and three generations of farming on his family’s land as it is buffeted by the incredible shifts in scale, market, methods and trade rules that have changed farming all over the world.… We experience that esoteric life through Rebanks’s evocative storytelling, learning with him to appreciate not only the sheep and crops he’s learning to tend, but the wild plants and animals that live among and around them.”— New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Choice Hailed as “a brilliant, beautiful book” by the Sunday Times(London), Pastoral Songis the story of an inheritance: one that affects us all. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world were brought close to collapse, and the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community, and wild things were lost. And yet this elegy from the northern fells is also a song of hope: of how, guided by the past, one farmer began to salvage a tiny corner of England that was now his, doing his best to restore the life that had vanished and to leave a legacy for the future. James Rebanks writes with insight, honesty and a deeply entrenched love for the land. English Pastoral is thought-provoking, often challenging and at its heart is a beautifully-written story of a family, a home and a changing landscape.”— Nigel Slater,chef and author of Greenfeast The New York Times bestselling author of The Shepherd's Life profiles his family's farm across three generations, revealing through this intimate lens the profound global transformation of agriculture and of the human relationship to the land.