Rooted: Stories of Life, Land and a Farming Revolution

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The highly-experienced authors cover a lot of interesting topics, including the potential of using ancient DNA to recreate extinct species, and even dry subjects are livened up with colourful stories of people and places. A gamekeeper for many years, after a short, successful stint in the London club scene, he’s not someone you would expect to be at the forefront of rewilding. If you’re wondering about how to manage the community response to a rewilding project, then the discussion of Patagonia’s rewilding experiment in S America is very informative. He tells Tom Sutcliffe that new ideas and technologies from soil ecology to laboratory-grown food could change the way people eat while regenerating the landscape.

Sarah Langford - Penguin Books UK Sarah Langford - Penguin Books UK

In her memoir, Unearthed: On Race and Roots and How the Soil Taught Me I Belong, Claire Ratinon, explores how she grew up feeling disconnected with the natural world and with family stories of slave ancestors forced to work the land. The author condenses the science of rewilding and presents her practical ideas for how to tackle the major crises of our age. Rooted charts a quiet revolution taking place in our fields, barns and hedgerows, led by a new generation of farmers on a path of powerful change. Sarah has the knowledge and skill to help people better understand where their food comes from and why we should all care.Through learning to grow her own vegetables and especially the food of Mauritius, she has finally felt able to put down roots. Since my childhood in the 1980s, the curlews have declined in number and the arctic tern colony disappeared completely. The book itself is deeply steeped in science, with plenty of interesting and useful insights into the ways in which wild landscapes function, from fungi to Oak trees. Yet as Sarah learned how to farm and grew closer to the land, she discovered a new generation on a path of regenerative change.

Rooted by Sarah Langford; Regenesis by George Monbiot reviews

It is not an easy way to make a living, but through Langford's personal story - and those of who she meets - we appreciate how it offers a connection with the land, and a firmer sense of our place in the world. Emergent– I’ve been slowly reviewing this for a while now and have enjoyed its holistic approach to the idea of rewilding. Social media has also been really powerful in the regenerative farming movement because it has made young farmers feel they’re not islands of change. This should be compulsory reading for anyone that benefits from everything that British farmers do, which as it turns out, is us all.

An interesting and provocative book, Jake talks passionately about the poor results of conservationists, contrasting them with the abundant biodiversity on his own land. Having the advantage of both a rural background as well as a life in the city, how do you think people in towns and cities can be better exposed to the realities of farming and the countryside? When I suggested it to her, she being an urbanite said, “Absolutely no way, farming is incredibly boring – no one is going to read that. The authors also make sure to cover the most common case studies, so you’re not left feeling embarrassed when someone brings up the Oostvaardersplassen in casual conversation.