The forgotten value of rest

Finding common ground in fallow land

The Alt+Land development model advocates for a more holistic approach to land use, resource management and environmental responsibility. Decades of exploitative farming practices have failed to recognise the importance of soil health and account for the long term sustainability of the agricultural industry. In response to pressures faced in UK housing provision, the framework suggests a rural development alternative: fallow farmland. Vacant, recovering land becomes occupied by non-invasive housing, migrating to adjacent fields on a triennial basis. Farmer and community are engaged in a co-op which finds mutual benefit in fields left un-sown, providing healthier crops, environmental sustainability and an alternative housing solution.

“The ground, the soil, in this sense, cannot be appropriated. One belongs to it; it belongs to no one.” ¹ -Bruno Latour.

Land value or value in land?

As implausible as it may seem, there is the potential for an unlikely partnership between rural farmer, city resident and soil microbes. Land is understood drastically differently from each perspective, from romanticised appreciation of the countryside to the unsentimental assessment of acres to be ‘worked’. The usefulness of land, however, is often gauged by parameters determined by capitalist understandings of value and economic investment. Indeed, from an architectural standing, land — the ground upon which we build — holds worth in relation to its context, its potential for development, in filling. In this judgement of worth, the substance of the material below is of little consequence, provided it is stable enough for foundations.

Similarly, 21st century agriculture has long witnessed a slowly-surrendered tradeoff between the health and vitality of soil in exchange for high-yield production. Farmland finds value in high-productivity, battling smaller and smaller profit margins with the large-scale harvest of cash-crops. If land is not filled, then it is not making money. In environmental science, there is a distinct difference between soil quality and soil health.² The differentiation is made between the location-determined quality characteristics (sand, silt, clay makeup) and the living, biological system which determines its health.

When we value land — or more aptly space — solely through its ability to stage the production of profit, it is the health of the soil that is neglected. Unlike economic appetite for faster profit, soil health requires time, care and, most importantly, rest to regenerate. Leaving cover-cropped land fallow for periods of time allows for the reformation of a vibrant microbial ecosystem, nurturing a careful carbon/nitrate balance within the soil.

By recognising the failings across multiple sectors (housing, agriculture, food, ecology) the potential for a more holistic approach to community, food production and environmental responsibility is possible. It is no longer sufficient to isolate our separate crises and propose individual short term solutions to each. In the case of fallow land there is a rare opportunity to redirect resource to mutual benefit. Alt+Land proposes a cross-industry reform to the way we separate rural and developed land, to generate value where current modes of operation prevent change. It is through the forgotten process of agricultural recovery that the interests of land worker, land settler and land contents may just coalesce.

High-intensity agriculture: substituting long-term health for short-term yield.

The ways in which we farm in the UK have changed drastically since the turn of the 20th century. Modern agriculture, characterised by mechanisation, monocropping, heavy tillage and chemical usage, has simplified and intensified farms to an efficiency previously inconceivable.³ One of the most detrimental modifications has been the ability to replace the practice of natural replenishment (fallow rotation) with chemical alternatives.

Cereal crops (wheat, barley, oats, rye), though lucrative, deplete the ground of nitrogen, a vital component for plant growth. Traditionally, in order to restore nitrogen to the soil, nitrogen-fixing crops such as legumes or clover were planted the following year. These plants would transfer unreactive N₂ from the air to their roots where it could be broken down into nitrates by bacteria in the soil. Whilst historically essential to maintaining crop fertility, this practice of rest and rotation has been widely reduced across the industry.⁴ Instead, ammonium fertilisers, initially promoted for efficiency, have worked to expedite the process, supplying the earth with nitrogen without sacrificing the time required for fallowing. The resulting consequences we are now beginning to comprehend.

“My father called synthetic nitrogen ‘sugar’, and it’s a good analogy. Just as sugar gives energy, but no nutrition, likewise with ‘bag’ nitrogen.” ⁵ -Helen Browning, CEO of the Soil Association.

The environmental damage that synthetic fertiliser and chemical pesticides does to the health of the soil stretches beyond an imbalance in nutrients. Given an active microbial ecosystem, topsoil can sequester carbon. Reducing the organic matter in the ground has the opposite effect: “when we damage soils […] carbon goes back to the atmosphere”.⁶ The scale of humanity’s current carbon legacy requires a drawback of greenhouse gases in order to revert climate breakdown. Of the potential methods, repairing damaged soil is the most effective solution; healthy soil has the capacity to hold twice the amount of carbon as both plants and the atmosphere combined.⁷

Fig. 2: The extensive soil microbial ecosystem shows the interaction between bacteria (including the nitrogen fixing) within healthy soil.

The drive for industrial productivity in agriculture has created a reliance on high-intensity practices which are hard to reverse, even with a global climatic incentive. Farms have become reliant on remedying prior damage with chemical sustenance, requiring greater and greater quantities of synthetic nitrogen in order to maintain yield.⁸

As of 2018, around 58% of land in England was designated a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone with a large quantity at risk of soil erosion.⁹ Destructive to water sources, local habitats and public health alike, the scale of nitrate vulnerability is symptomatic of a nation-wide practice of excessive fertiliser use. In a closed, natural system, the same nitrogen that is absorbed into the soil is recycled through plant growth, animal manure and rotational fixing-crop, adding little to no excess burden to the surrounding environment and atmosphere. The use of synthetic nitrogen, paired with a decrease in soil micro-organisms, increases this load, leaching into water systems, destroying habitats and resulting in a significant increase in reactive nitrogen (nitrogen dioxide) in the atmosphere.¹⁰

Fig. 3: Nitrate Vulnerable Zones, England.

“The body can handle acute stresses, but it cannot handle chronic stresses. The soil ecosystem is the same way.” ¹¹ -Ray Archuleta, soil scientist.

In the UK, government incentives are currently being trialed to recognise an urgent requirement to prioritise environmental sustainability in agriculture. DEFRA (Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs) is working to implement the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme, whereby land owners may be paid for delivering ‘public goods’ such as clean air, protection of wildlife, unpolluted water and adaption to climate change.¹² Whilst the scheme recognises the impact chemical usage has on soil vitality, the suggested modifications are a move to ‘efficient’ application at ‘appropriate’ times to ‘limit’ damage.¹³

This is echoed in their Code of Good Agricultural Practice (COGAP) which issues guidance on maximum usage and concentrates mainly on responsible storage and handling of nitrogen-enriched manure and silage.¹⁴ In short, efforts to minimise leaching without drastic changes to the scale of use is an ineffective solution. It addresses excess damage to surrounding environments without accounting for the long-term sustainability of the soil itself.

A farmer’s perspective.

The current government guidance assumes a requirement for farms to continue to produce at the scale to which they have become accustomed. This is by no means a matter of low importance; UK agriculture already relies heavily on government subsidies to deliver necessary food and feed the economy in exports.¹⁵ There is little financial flexibility available to provide time and space for fields to recover.

I spoke to George Harris, a fifth generation farmer who manages approximately 1300 acres of land in Tendring, Essex. “There’s no financial sense in agriculture. I make virtually no money from the crops I grow, that’s why I have to rely on subsidies to make it worthwhile. In my opinion, we’re growing the wrong stuff, and too much of it — a lot gets shipped off to Europe and we import a lot of what we could actually grow here. Without subsidies, you take a chance on something new, what if it fails, or too much of it is grown and the price goes down. You’d struggle to find anyone round here that doesn’t rely on grants or other forms of income”

On the use of synthetic fertilisers, George talks about the quality of the soil on his land. It’s typically sandy and, without locking the nitrogen into the soil with cover-cropping, the nutrients can wash out with rain: “We do use a fair amount, but we have to. It isn’t viable without it.”

Fig. 4: George’s leftover synthetic fertiliser.

Given the existing stresses in economic feasibility, there is little incentive for change. Often, profit margins are too small to warrant risking yield. It is unrealistic to expect farmers to prioritise the health of their soil over their own livelihoods, despite the two being intimately linked in the long-term. So how can value be generated for landowners to incentivise leaving fields vacant and economically ‘unproductive’?

The crisis of land development.

With rising house prices, overcrowding and a generational divide in homeownership and rental, the UK is facing a national housing crisis. “Declining public investment, less support through the planning system, and rising land and development costs”¹⁶ have all contributed to a severe lack of affordable housing. As demand has increased, so too has the inflation on house prices. Many people have lost faith in the possibility of owning their own home. In addition to shortage, regulation has meant a difficulty in obtaining planing permission to build, resulting in the practice of ‘land-banking’.¹⁷ It is more lucrative for landowners to hold onto their asset than to develop it.

Whilst the value of land for residential use increases, the long-term economic security for farmland is under threat. Perhaps it is time to reimagine our attitude towards the separation of rural and residential. Fallow agricultural land provides an opportunity for a new, dynamic solution, one which works to promote soil health, provide housing space and support the long-term sustainability of UK agriculture.

The Alt+Land model proposes a partnership between farmer and residents, with soil fertility at its centre. Returning to a rest-and rotation farming practice (with longer fallow periods) would enable empty, recovering fields to house a new rural community. Taking the form of a co-operative shareholder model, the traditional ownership of distinct, static portions of land is replaced by proportional shares in the farmland as a whole. With each soil regeneration cycle, the community migrates to a neighbouring, nutrient-depleted field, and the previously-occupied, replenished field is returned to the use of the farmer. The additional income provided by the residents generates enough value for the farmer to leave fields fallow and eliminate the requirement for synthetic fertiliser. Value is created from vacancy.

I described the framework of the co-op to George to get his thoughts on sharing his land. His response was simple: “If you could get services up here, and it wouldn’t slow down work on the farm, then yes. Anything that can give me more freedom [from subsidies] — make it more sustainable in the long-term — is worth considering.” The greatest obstacles would be in the supporting infrastructure and the attraction of an un-conventional, nomadic lifestyle. There is precedent in alternative means of habitation, especially in more environmentally-conscious younger generations.

Intrinsically linked.

Prioritisation of environmental and resource preservation are imperative if we are to build new, more sustainable worlds. One of the greatest, fundamental challenges is to embrace a non human-centric approach, recognising that our survival depends on the survival of a network of other living systems. Anthropologist Anna Tsing writes on multi-species dependancies, of which humans are within, not outside of activities. “As sites for more-than-human dramas, landscapes are radical tools for decentering human hubris.”¹⁸ This is the ethos that the Alt+Land model adopts, that we must design reciprocal relationships, and recognise our place within, if we are to survive.

In agriculture, at least amongst younger farmers, there is increased appetite for innovation and change. Farmer George Young, also from Essex, is part of a growing movement towards regenerative, or ‘agroecological’, farming methods. Sustainable practice and ecological sensitivity is central: George’s farm is zero-till and minimal input.¹⁹ He grows a mixed variety of wheat, which is more resistant to disease and adverse conditions than standard ‘cloned’ species. An assortment of flowering crops are also grown for the bees. Recently, he has begun to introduce wildlife corridors and agroforestry seams, planting over 6000 trees by springtime.²⁰ He is vocal on social media and hopes to inspire a new generation of farmers to consider their land as more than just commercial. Although the EU subsidy scheme will continue throughout the Brexit transition,²¹ many landowners are aware that if they are to remain without support, many of their previous practices will have to change.

“It is perhaps time, in order to stress this point, to stop speaking about humans and to refer instead to terrestrials (the Earthbound), thus insisting on humus and, yes, the compost included in the etymology of the word “human.”” ²² -Bruno Latour.

As we navigate a new climate paradigm, it is imperative that we value natural systems with the same importance as we do economic concerns. Ultimately, a more equitable society relies on models which recognise the link between environmental sustainability and human longevity. Forum for the future sets out ‘The Five Capitals Model’, a “basis for understanding sustainability in terms of the economic concept of wealth creation or ‘capital’”.²³ Manufactured, financial, social, human and natural capital are connected, and must be managed in an integrated way. The Alt+Land model attempts to balance these differing, but interlinked concerns, setting out a holistic approach to exchange value between parties.

Fig. 5: Mutually beneficial: the value and potential generated by resource exchange. 1. Money is provided by the tenant to the farmer in exchange for 2. space, which sits as fallow farmland whilst it is utilised for housing. With rent replacing previously necessary subsidies, the farmer is able to provide the recovering soil with 3. time, which before would have been impossible. With an extended period for replenishment of microbes and carbon/nitrate balance, the farmer is repaid in the 4. health of the soil and quality of produce grown within it.

Housing is facing a social challenge, soil health represents an environmental crisis, and agriculture is threatened by economic sustainability. Providing farmland with time to recover generates an opportunity to addresses all three. With the Alt+Land model, space is exchanged for money, whilst time enables the health of the soil to recover (see fig. 5). The value return is mutual, and appropriate to the concerns of each. If we are to take issues of sustainability seriously, it will require radical new propositions such as this to bring about change.

1. Bruno Latour, Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime (Cambridge: Polity, 2018), p. 92.
2. Joyalata Laishram and others, ‘Soil Quality and Soil Health: A Review.’, International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, 38 (2012) <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232237296_Soil_quality_and_soil_health_A_review> [accessed 5 January 2021].
3. Robert A. Robinson and William J. Sutherland, ‘Post-War Changes in Arable Farming and Biodiversity in Great Britain’, Journal of Applied Ecology, 39.1 (2002), 157–76 <https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2664.2002.00695.x> [accessed 2 January 2021].
4. Fixing Nitrogen: The Challenge for Climate, Nature and Health (Soil Association, 2020 <https://www.soilassociation.org/media/21286/fixing_nitrogen_soil_association_report.pdf> [accessed 5 January 2021].
5. Ibid, p. 4.
6. Allan Savory, How to Fight Desertification and Reverse Climate Change, TED Talk, 2013 <https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_fight_desertification_and_reverse_climate_change> [accessed 5 January 2021].
7. Paul Hawken, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming (New York: Penguin Books, 2017).
8. Richard Schiffman, ‘Why It’s Time to Stop Punishing Our Soils with Fertilizers’, Yale E360, 2017 <https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-its-time-to-stop-punishing-our-soils-with-fertilizers-and-chemicals> [accessed 7 January 2021].
9. Agriculture and Nitrogen Pollution (UK Parliament, 2018) <https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmenvaud/656/65607.htm> [accessed 7 January 2021].
10. Fixing Nitrogen: The Challenge for Climate, Nature and Health (Soil Association, 2020) <https://www.soilassociation.org/media/21286/fixing_nitrogen_soil_association_report.pdf> [accessed 5 January 2021].
11. Rebecca Harrell Tickell and Josh Tickell, Kiss the Ground (Netflix, 2020) [accessed 5 January 2021], 18:12.
12. ‘Environmental Land Management Tests and Trials’ (DEFRA, 2020) <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/925522/elm-tt-july20.pdf> [accessed 5 January 2020].
13. Ibid, p. 24.
14. ‘Code of Good Agricultural Practice (COGAP) for Reducing Ammonia Emissions’ (DEFRA, 2018) <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-good-agricultural-practice-for-reducing-ammonia-emissions/code-of-good-agricultural-practice-cogap-for-reducing-ammonia-emissions> [accessed 5 January 2020].
15. Incidentally, feeding Europe at its current rate of population growth is possible with an elimination of synthetic nitrogen. As with any future farming scenario, it will require a significant change in diet from the quantities currently consumed. Xavier Poux and Pierre-Marie Aubert, An Agroecological Europe in 2050: Multifunctional Agriculture for Healthy Eating (IDDRI, 2018), p. 74 <https://www.soilassociation.org/media/18074/iddri-study-tyfa.pdf> [accessed 5 January 2020].
16. ‘The Story of Social Housing’, Shelter, 2019 <https://england.shelter.org.uk/support_us/campaigns/story_of_social_housing> [accessed 9 January 2020].
17. Ben Southwood, ‘Yes, the Current Planning System Really Is at the Root of Britain’s Housing Crisis’, Policy Exchange, 2020 <https://policyexchange.org.uk/yes-the-current-planning-system-really-is-at-the-root-of-britains-housing-crisis/> [accessed 9 January 2021].
18. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2017), p. 152.
19. George Young, ‘Farming George’s Farming Blog’ <http://farminggeorge.blogspot.com/> [accessed 6 January 2021].
20. Ibid.
21. Natasha Foote, ‘New UK Farming Bill Guarantees Subsidies for 2020’, Euractiv, 2020 <https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/new-uk-farming-bill-guarantees-subsidies-for-2020/> [accessed 7 January 2021].
22. Bruno Latour, Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime (Cambridge: Polity, 2018), p. 86.
23. ‘The Five Capitals — A Framework for Sustainability’, Forum for the Future <https://www.forumforthefuture.org/the-five-capitals> [accessed 5 January 2021].