Land Reform AA Landscape Urbanism Thesis 2020-21 by AA Landscape Urbanism MArch/MSc

Land reform: Re-creating the Commons

AA MSc Landscape Urbanism Enrico Luo + Nelly Wat 1

Architectural Association School of Architecture MSc Landscape Urbanism 2020-21 Enrico Luo Nelly Wat

Directors: Jose Alfredo Ramirez Galindo Eduardo Rico-Carranza Studio Master: Clara Oloriz Tutor: Liam Mouritz History and Theory Seminar Tutors: Clara Oloriz Teresa Stoppani Technical Tutors: Claudio Campanile Daniel Kiss

Acknowledgements We would like to extend our gratitude to Clara, Alfredo, and Eduardo for their thoughtful guidance, feedback, and patience through an exceptionally challenging year, and for shaping our development as landscape designers. We would also like to thank our technical tutors, Daniel and Claudio, for lending their expertise to inform our projects. We are grateful to all our guest lecturers, jurors, and HTS tutors for their valuable feedback and comments throughout the development of our projects. We would also like to credit Martin Hole, Mary from Plaw Hatch Farm, Lutfi and Ruby Radwan, Joe Standly, Mark Tufnell, George Young for generously lending their time and expertise, and for sharing their experiences and perceptive ideas with us. A special thank you to Mariam and her immense contributions to this project - we look forward to seeing her take our research further next year. Lastly, we would like to thank our fellow AALU students, friends, and family for their continuous support.

Land reform: Re-creating the Commons Architectural Association School of Architecture MSc Landscape Urbanism Enrico Luo Nelly Wat 2020-2021

II.

III.

ABSTRACT

LAND OWNERSHIP

THE CONCEPTION OF LAND

HISTORICAL REFORMS

POPULATION SHIFT

ACCESS + FOOD PRODUCTION

PRIVATISATION AND NEOLIBERALISM

POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

FARMING AND THE GREEN NEW DEAL

COUNTY FARMS

LAND FOR THE MANY

TECHNICAL REPORT I: WEB SCRAPING

ESSAY: OWNERSHIP, EQUALITY AND JUSTICE

FARMER CLUSTERS

SITE STRATEGIES

SAMPLING SUSTAINABLE FARMS

OXFORDSHIRE REGION

TECHNICAL REPORT II: CONNECTIVITY

WILLOWBROOK FARM

SITE VISITS

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

CASE STUDIES

ESSAY: SUSTAINABLE FARMING AS A FUTURE

TRANSITION STAGES

FUNDING

112

VISUALIZATION TOOL

114

TECHNICAL REPORT III: GANS

118

LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION

121

CROP DIVERSIFICATION

122

PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

134

ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGIES

144

CLUSTER

146

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

156

ESSAY: LAND AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY POST-BREXIT

162

SUPERCLUSTER

166

COMMONS

168

CONCLUSION

172

VI. APPENDIX

175

FARMER INTERVIEWS

176

LIST OF FIGURES

180

ENDNOTES

182

BIBLIOGRAPHY

184

ABSTRACT

Fig 1. Percentage of home ownership, by country by Enrico Luo

Abstract As the UK transitions away from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy over the next 6 years, smaller farms will be the most impacted, particularly as the Basic Payment Scheme in the CAP is annually scaled down and ultimately eliminated in 2027. In its place, a new Environmental Land Management Scheme will pay farmers “public money for public goods”1 – the public goods being clean water, soil, air, and environmental protection and restoration. Smaller farms will be more vulnerable to this transition, given their limited ability to undertake new environmental projects, smaller agricultural output, and the substantial reduction to their income.2 To reconfigure England’s historically-accumulated landscape towards a green economy, transforming how we approach agriculture itself is necessary. This dissertation recognizes the unequal distribution of land in England as the consequence of the ideology of private property and its development throughout the history of English land reform. Specifically, we address the need for a more ecologically and socially sustainable distribution of land in line with a Green New Deal for the UK - one that promotes agroecology and land sovereignty – “the right of working peoples to have effective access to, use of, and control over land and the benefits of its use and occupation”3 – rather than land ownership. We examined the agricultural reforms proposed for a Green New Deal alongside historical agrarian legislative changes to understand the strategies and outcomes of these reforms in relation to their stakeholders and class struggles. The proposed reforms for the UK were mainly drawn from Land for the Many, an independent report commissioned by the Labour Party.4 Our design thesis focuses on agrarian land reform in the UK to support farmers and to change the way land is managed and farmed. We propose a framework of local collaboration to support agro-ecological, small-scale farming and the resilience of farming communities. This framework is scaled up over time to support a transition towards recreating the commons – more accessible and community-owned land, and increased support for new entrants into farming.

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

This chapter outlines the historical policies and political events that transformed the system of land management and ownership through time, and culminated in the English landscape we recognize today. The first section understands landscape as a human construct, shaped by the continuously evolving social and economic order, and draws from Denis Cosgrove’s examination of the conception of landscape within English landscape paintings. The next section traces the land system back to the medieval (feudal) period and follows its development to the modern day. The third section is a critical examination of neoliberalism and its impacts on the land, and an overview of the contemporary issues faced by farmers in the UK today.

THE CONCEPTION OF LAND

Fig. 2. Wivenhoe Park, John Constable, 1816

The current distribution of land in England can be understood by addressing how historical land reforms fragmented and consolidated the English landscape over time, often reflecting social stratification, with continuously increasing privatization during the enclosure period. The following set of English landscape paintings illustrates the conception of land in relation to the changing political and social order.

Fig. 5. Land workers by Mariam Zelimger

An idyllic, “measured and scenic landscape” is created by manipulating the land to produce an image of productivity and abundance.

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

Fig. 3. Haymaker, George Stubbs, 1780

Fig. 4. Cornard Wood, Thomas Gainsborough, 1748

Fig. 6. Land workers

Fig. 7. Land workers

by Mariam Zelimger

Over time, the construction of landscape in paintings increasingly appealed to the tastes of the wealthy and the nouveau riche, who affixed aesthetics of power, control, and capital to their land.5

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

Over the enclosure periods, the disappearance of the commons accompanied the rise of capitalist individualism and the notion of private land ownership. With the loss of the possession of common land brought along a disintegrating social construct with a diminishing sense of communality.

HISTORICAL REFORMS

To understand Britain’s land issues, we shall firstly look at historical political interventions that transformed the land into the system we recognise today. Access, control, and ownership of the land was restructured throughout history, moving from a dispersed to centralised form of land management, then to enclosure, and capitalist accumulation, with continuously increasing privatisation in the process.

FEUDAL The 11th century Domesday Book recorded detailed statistics of ownership and resources beyond the mapping of the land. The survey became a form of territorialisation to ‘visualise’ the extent of conquered lands, with an imposed social construct consisting of lords, smallholders, villagers and slaves.6

ENCLOSURE The underlying inequality under this land system soon exacerbated further social divisions. Triggered by the enclosure acts from the 15th century, peasants were gradually depopulated through the process of enclosing communally-owned lands into privately-owned properties for resource extraction and leisure activities.

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

Figs. 8-11. History of land ownership by Enrico Luo

CAPITALISM Enclosure’s social eviction showed capitalist characteristics through the emergence of an individualist landscape that is centrally owned, controlled and profited from. The enclosure ideology was shaped upon prioritising economic developments, which gradually evolved into the capitalist mindset that is still apparent today.

NEOLIBERALISM An era of obsession with property ownership: perceiving competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It views citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling.7 Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which ostensibly trickles down to enrich everyone. Neoliberal policies were imposed on much of the world, shaping a globalised economy driven from the use, and the exploitation of land.

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

POPULATION SHIFT

Through the enclosure periods, the English landscape underwent severe privatisation. As illustrated in brown, previous common lands were swollen by the lord’s enclosures. This resulted in a drastic population shift away from the countryside.

The Common Acts 1236 Impacts: Allowed Lords to enclose land that was previously common Purpose of this act: The King owned all land Peasants were bound by law to labour on their lord’s estate An agricultural estate was operated by the lord and worked by the peasants who sustained the land and drove the economy

Enclosure Act 1640 Impacts of this act was: Private holdings which were managed by the lord of the manor and purposed for private uses such as hunting, agriculture, fishing or resource extraction.8 Purpose of this act was : Change land [that had formerly been owned in common by all members of a village] to privately owned land, usually with walls, fences or hedges around it

Fig. 12. Enclosure acts by Mariam Zelimger and Nelly Wat

Displaced farmers and peasants to utilise the land for timber and grazing Result: Accelerated production of food and increased population growth

Private land

Tenants

Woodlands

Cultivation

Wasteland

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

Population 1.2 million

[eleventh to fifteenth century]

serfs

Population 3 million

[fifteenth to seventeenth century]

peasants

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

ACCESS + FOOD PRODUCTION

Fig. 13. farming in the Middle Ages, illustration in Queen Mary’s Psalter (c.1320)

This set of drawings shows how access to land for resource extraction evolved over time; in the feudal period, independent peasants could use wastelands for grazing, agriculture, hunting, and other forms of subsistence. Common lands owned by an individual or individuals gave a certain community, or commoners, right to use that land freely for grazing or extracting resources. Enclosure acts once again allowed landowners to close their land from public use, driving peasants off the land, and privatization continuously led to the seizure of common lands and wastelands.9 This leads to today’s system: the public cannot extract resources from the land unless they are the owner, they have permission from the owner, or they have rights of common. The Housing Act of 1980 granted individuals the right to purchase previously state-owned properties from their local authority, leading to a decline in social housing.10 After the 1980s, housing and property were transformed into profitable assets. Consequently, our current system of land ownership favours large landowners, corporations, and commercial agriculture.

Fig. 14. Changing access to land through history by Nelly Wat

Commercial farmland

Private/tenants only

Common land

Open land

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

Feudalism 11th-15th century

Enclosure Acts 15th-18th century

Industrial capitalism/ Estate Acts 1800-1850

20th century capitalism 1900-1980

Neoliberalism/Thatcherism 1980s-90s

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

CULTIVATION

PRIVATISATION

EXPLOITATION

URBANISATION

Agricultural

Industrial

Residential

Population

Farms

Migrations

1100s - 1600s

1600s - 1800s

1700s - 1900s

1900s - 2000s

Individually owned small parcels

Communally owned lands enclosed by lords

Capitalist accumulation: urbanised displacement

Housing speculation

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

LAND PRIVATISATION AND NEOLIBERALISM

Human Intervention

Fig. 15. Consequential landscape by Enrico Luo Fig. 16. Land privatisation throughout history by Enrico Luo

CULTIVATION Population accumulation

Urbanisation

Landscape Consequences

During the feudal period, peasants were bound by law to work on the land, while land was owned by lords. It maintained a mutualistic relationship between humans and the landscape.

PRIVATISATION Enclosure acts resulted in increasingly partitioned land, which were consolidated into large holdings, and disappearing common land – land that is privately owned, but open to a certain community of “commoners.”11 The creation of private enclosures and the forced removal of peasants from the land allowed landowners to profit from intensified grazing and agriculture; land generally increased in value post-enclosure without becoming more agriculturally productive, and thus, in the 19th century, many landowners either sold their estates post-enclosure, which then became consolidated by large landowners, or cleared the productive lands of their estates for more profitable activities, such as raising sheep or hunting.12

Industrial exploitation

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

Housing construction

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

LAND PRIVATISATION AND NEOLIBERALISM

EXPLOITATION With industrialisation, while the emerging middle class increasingly sought to display their wealth and control over the landscape to uphold their status within the changing social and economic order, new mechanized agricultural technologies allowed for the expansion of monoculture farming, increasing crop productivity at the expense of plant and soil health.13 The landscape was exploited for resource extractions.

URBANISATION Neoliberalism further intensified the individualist mindset, as the landscape became rapidly urbanised and exploited for profits.14 Individual ownership became more fragmented and partitioned. With the precedents of historical land destruction, the resulted capitalism has obtained an environmentally and socially destructive dynamics beyond its capability to contain.15 Any changes to such state of affairs would require challenging the land system. In recent years, the issue of privatisation has re-emerged in the news and public awareness in Britain.

retrieved from the Guardian

Margaret Thatcher wrote that privatisation must be “at the centre of any programme of reclaiming territory for freedom”. Thatcher used territory in a metaphorical sense, but it was also true literally: the privatisation of land is the biggest, and least well-known, selloff of the state’s assets. As professor Brett Christophers points out, almost 10% of land has been transferred from public into private ownership since Thatcher.16

Fig. 19. The Guardian view on the biggest

The Guardian view on the biggest privatisation: the land beneath our feet

Fig.`17. Consequential landscape by Enrico Luo Fig. 18. Who Owns England? by Guy Shrubsole review - why this isn’t your land

privatisation: the land beneath our feet retrieved from the Guardian Fig. 20. The biggest privatisation you’ve never heard of: land by Brett Christophers retrieved from the Guardian

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

In “The New Enclosure,” Christophers suggests that almost 2 million ha of land, which is 10 % of Britain, has vanished from public access, the main part of which has passed into corporate, rather than charitable or public ownership.17

The Neoliberal policies were imposed on much of the world, shaping a globalised economy driven from the use, and the exploitation of land. As a result, the UK currently suffers from one of Europe's most unequal wealth distributions. One of the most common exploitation of land happens in the form of land speculation, with many oversea investors and large corporate tax havens owning a large portion of Britain’s land.18 Britain’s growing economic dependence on rising land values caused by privatisation has developed into an unsustainable economy.

20 highest corporate tax haven indices (Tax Justice Network, 2019) British Virgin Islands Bermuda

2653 2534

Cayman Islands Netherlands

2391

Switzerland

As a mode of capitalist production which is entirely based upon private ownership, land speculation unveils the capitalist emphasis on value as ‘exchange’.19 It is fundamentally problematic that a significant portion of Britain’s economic output is delivered by such a ‘non-productive’ sector. We examined the agricultural reforms proposed for a Green New Deal alongside historical agrarian land reforms that took place in other countries, including that of Mexico, South Korea, and Cuba, to understand the strategies and outcomes of these reforms in relation to their stakeholders and class struggles. The proposed reforms for the UK were mainly drawn from Land for the Many, an independent report commissioned by the Labour Party.20 This report highlighted the unequal distribution of land in the UK, and the status of land as tax havens for the wealthy.

2769

1875

Luxembourg

1795

Jersey

1541

Singapore

1489

Bahamas

1378

Hong Kong

1372

Fig. 21. UK land owned by overseas companies: titles held by Nelly Wat

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

Fig. 22. Overseas-owned UK land by Enrico Luo

I. LAND OWNERSHIP

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

The following section outlines the challenges faced by small farmers under a period of transition from the EU Common Agricultural Policy to the new Environmental Land Management Scheme. We analyze a set of policies proposed in Land for the Many, a report commissioned by the Labour Party, that aim to transform the current system of land ownership to promote an equitable and sustainable transition, in line with the Green New Deal. This section also discusses a precedent case study of farmer clusters, which our transition model builds upon.

FARMING AND THE GREEN NEW DEAL

What is the Green New Deal? In response to the growing climatic and social crisis occurring across the globe, the Green New Deal (GND) undertakes initiatives to address the emergency. With regard to the US New Deal conducted by Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, GND suggests a systemic approach to current affairs in similar manners, to propose a fundamental transformation. In addition to the ecological and climatic emergency, GND places social equalities at the centre, where some demographic groups are significantly impacted in a colonising and extractive manner through the process of capitalisation.21 Our proposal adopts a systemic approach to address such systemic issues, which structurally transforms the land system to pursue a just and green transition in line with the GND. Today, 1% of farmers own 17% of the farmland in England. The majority of the farms are too small (under 5ha) to receive subsidies under the current policy. As farmland covers 70% of England,22 we intend to address the land issue by tackling the agricultural sector.

Fig. 23. Map of farmlands in England by Enrico Luo

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

Small Farms <10ha All Farmlands Large Farms >750ha

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

FARMING AND THE GREEN NEW DEAL

Landowners with large agricultural land holdings occupy the most fertile agricultural areas (grade 1-2). Large farms often achieve outstanding economic productivity by using environmentally destructive farming methods that have remained prevalent since WWII.23 The industrial food system remained prevalent throughout the 20th century to the present day; food shortages during WWII demanded higher crop productivity to meet demand, resulting in larger farm sizes and production capacity.24 The agricultural sector much reflects the inequality within England’s land ownership.

Fig. 24. Map of large farms and agricultural land classification in England by Nelly Wat

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Non-agricultural Large Farms >750ha

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

Hill Farming Dairy Livestock Arable Fishing Non-agricultural Large Farms >750ha

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

LIVESTOCK CROPS DAIRY

FRUIT & VEG

FARMING AND THE

Percentage of national output (%)

GREEN NEW DEAL Percentage subsidied LIVESTOCK

CROPS

DAIRY

Price

FRUIT & VEG

25 M

ke tD em

an Percentage d subsidied Ma

20 DAIRY

The production and su

CROPS

600

Agricultural profit by region (£/ha) 700

EAST MIDLANDS

WEST MIDLANDS

SOUTH EAST

SOUTH WEST

NORTH WEST

NORTH EAST

EAST OF ENGLAND EAST OF ENGLAND

EAST MIDLANDS

WEST MIDLANDS

500

M The production and su

CROPS

LIVESTOCK CROPS

400

ke tD em

LIVESTOCK CROPS

LIVESTOCK

500 SOUTH EAST

300

AND THE HUMBER YORKSHIRE AND THE YORKSHIRE HUMBER

200

CROPS

400 SOUTH WEST

DAIRY

NORTH WEST

NORTH EAST

100

LIVESTOCK

300

CROPS

200

CROPS

100 LIVESTOCK

DAIRY

LIVESTOCK

CROPS LIVESTOCK

LIVESTOCK

DAIRY CROPS

LIVESTOCK

10 15

Price

LIVESTOCK

Agricultural profit by region (£/ha) Arable

90%

Livestock

80%

Dairy

40%

Hill Farming

10%

700

Percentage Subsidised by CAP

Fig. 26. Agricultural profit by region by Enrico Luo

Fig. 25. Map of large farms and agricultural outputs in England by Enrico Luo

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

England’s agricultural production is predominately dedicated to arable crops and livestocks.25 In addition to the post war cereal production demands, the current Common Agricultural Policy significantly shaped the production; arable and livestocks related practices are heavily subsidised, resulting in the tendency of the most productive agricultural regions adopting such practices due to its profitability.

FARMING AND THE GREEN NEW DEAL

INDUSTRIAL MONOCROP

Industrial agricultural monoculture upsets the natural balance of soils, given that too many of the same plant species concentrated in one field area will rob the soil of its nutrients, resulting in decreasing varieties of bacteria and microorganisms that are needed to maintain fertility of the soil.26 Moreover, monoculture farms tend to intensify the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, as some pests survive the use of chemicals by developing resistance to them. Later, these parasites pass this newly acquired immunity to their offspring which, in turn, will reproduce on the crop even more, as their main source of food keeps staying in one place.27 Transitioning away from monoculture farming is necessary to support a more sustainable and local food supply within the UK. This involves a shift to more diverse polyculture crop types, crop rotations, moderate use of fertilizers and pesticides, and more efficient water use due to better water retention in soil.28

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

SUSTAINABLE MIXED CROP

Figs. 27 & 28. Industrial vs. sustainable farming by Mariam Zelimger

Conventional agricultural practices, including large-scale and monoculture farming, have been proven to be environmentally destructive, and the land system itself allows, even encourages these practices to take place. A fairer redistribution of land and support for regional collaboration between small-scale sustainable farms can help promote agroforestry, better farming practices, and a more sustainable method of increasing domestic food production. This involves decentralizing the nation’s food supply while recognizing the cultural value of food products from certain regions; we only need to increase domestic production by about 20% to scale down cheap imports and meet the UK’s demand for fruits and vegetables.29 Rather than increasing the scale of production on a few large farms, the Landworkers’ Alliance believes that a dramatic increase in the number of smallscale, agroecological producers growing fruit and vegetables close to the point of sale would help address the issue of food production. This can also promote the cultural value of locally- and ethically-sourced food.

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

FARMING AND THE GREEN NEW DEAL

INDUSTRIAL MONOCROP

Fig. 29. Industrial farming section by Mariam Zelimger

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

SUSTAINABLE MIXED CROP

Fig. 30. Sustainable farming section by Mariam Zelimger

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

COUNTY FARMS

County farm emerged during the late

Around the 1760s, some members of

In the mid-19th century over half of all the

Victorian agricultural drought, with over-

the landed gentry commenced

a long

farms in England and Wales were under 50

converted to large-scaled cereal crop fields

the

post-war

era,

farmlands

were

populated urban centres, to encourage

struggle to provide land for the poor

acres. The Small Holdings Act offered county

for mass production. With Neoliberal land

young generation to start farming in the

and unemployed by means of individual

councils the opportunity to create small farms

privatisation, industrial farming became

countryside to supply food for the nation.

allotment initiatives, the petitioning of other

The distribution of large and small farms of

common practice with small-scaled farms

landowners, and lobbying for legislation.

the present day has been inherited from the

gradually swallowed up by large landowners.

early nineteenth century.

Fig. 31. Farm typology by Mariam Zelimger and Enrico Luo

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

County farms in 1926 Remaining county farms Urban areas

Fig. 32 . County farms in Norfolk by Enrico Luo Fig. 33. Future generations at risk of losing benefit of our county farms retrieved from Sustain Fig. 34. Reviving country farms in England retrieved from Access to Land

The Selloffs of County Farms Traditionally, county farms often provide access and training to land for young generation starter farmers. With the drastic land privatisation in recent decades, county farms were being rapidly sold off.30 The illustration shows the remaining county farms in 2016 (in red) since 1926 (in blue). It has become increasingly more difficult for new entrants to enter farming with such diminishing training programmes and access to land. urban -oriented investments and subsequent developments further exacerbate this issue. We aim to reconfigure the English countryside; to provide more opportunity for new farming entrants to inhabit the countryside in a sustainable manner.

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

Market Incentives

Exclusivity

Inclusivity

Distributive Productions

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

LAND FOR THE MANY

Conservation Model Agricultural performance fundamentally determined by market incentives. A minority of privileged peasants in the reform sector with economic success tied to the interests of capitalist farming.

Radical Model A radical interpretation of the crisis of nonagrarian agriculture from feudalism. Farmers are rapidly being dispossessed and transformed from their status as producers.

Liberal Model Antifeudal reforms, economic equality over profits. Creating a class of farmers instead of capitalist landed elites.

Populist Model Superior social efficiency of small farms under conditions of surplus labours. Efficiency gains are, of course, also accompanied by equity gains.

Fig. 35. Analysis of global land reform models by Enrico Luo

Egypt South Korea Mexico Colombia UK Policies

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

By looking at precedents of land reform across the globe, we were able to map the four main models onto an economic and social equality scale. The historical examples of Egypt, South Korea, Mexico and Colombia guide us to investigate the viability of reform in promoting sufficient social equality with a stabilised economy. Land For The Many and the Agricultural Bill (ELM) lie within the liberal model, with a modest economic approach and emphasis on equality for all. Instead of a radical transformation which often result in further social division,31 we propose the liberal approach to gradually transition the landscape.

LAND FOR THE MANY

Fig. 36. How small farms are leading the way towards sustainable agriculture, by Zareen Pervez Bharucha Retrieved from Independent UK Fig. 37. Farmland Tax Breaks Revealed Retrieved from ARC 2020 Fig. 38. Green Britain: UK countryside can flourish now free of the EU’s common agricultural policy Retrieved from Daily Express

The transition away from the CAP, however, poses challenges for smaller farmers. The heavily-criticized CAP area-based basic payments will be abolished gradually; despite constituting a large proportion of farmers’ income.32 BPS and the Countryside Stewardship scheme, which provides grants to protect and restore farming environments, will be replaced by the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELM). However, the amount of money farmers will receive from the ELM is not comparable to the amount of BPS, and smaller farmers will likely suffer the most.33 However, as the Landworkers’ Alliance argues, “without a robust mechanism or set of criteria, any new land will be consolidated under existing large landowners who have the capital and resources to out compete new entrants and land-based social enterprises.”34

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

LAND FOR THE MANY

This means a new entrants support scheme and priority support for small farms is necessary. We will closely examine how farmers are currently navigating this transition to the ELM, and ultimately propose a collaborative transition strategy that draws from existing strategies: the campaign for a New Entrants Agroecological Startup Scheme, the establishment of Community Land Trusts (CLTs), and the Farmer Cluster model. Our design thesis focuses on the reform of the agricultural land system in the UK to support farmers in line with the Green New Deal. Alongside policies that aim to change the way land is managed and farmed, we propose a new framework of local spatial collaboration to support environmental and rewilding initiatives while increasing food production, crop diversity, and the resilience of rural farming communities. This cooperative framework would facilitate the transition from traditional methods of farming to more sustainable, agro-ecological, smallscale farming, hence increasing domestic food production, shortening food supply chains, reducing emissions, and supporting the livelihoods of land workers. Currently, farmers face challenges to transitioning to sustainable farming, including labour shortages, economic barriers, and inequities produced by the current system of agricultural subsidies that favour large landowners rather than smallscale farmers. In this current land system, small-scale farmers cannot compete with corporations and large landowners, and are less capable of undertaking major rewilding or regenerative farming initiatives.

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

LAND FOR THE MANY

SHARED ASSETS

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH

Fig. 39. (top) Analysis of media coverage of policy proposals

Fig. 40. (bottom) Policy analysis

by Mariam Zelimger

PEOPLE’S LAND POLICY

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

LAND FOR THE MANY

In Land for the Many, an independent report commissioned by the Labour Party, Monbiot et al. summarize a myriad of issues with the way land is managed and owned, and how this land system underlies a number of inequalities and social exclusion in the UK: from soaring housing prices, to financial crises, to ecological collapse and the climate crisis, to lack of public amenities.35 Land for the Many suggests several policy recommendations to address this critical issue of land management, including transparency of land ownership data, land price stabilisation, tax reform, encouraging community ownership, and agrarian land reform. While we focus primarily on agrarian land reform in this dissertation, we researched three key policy reforms proposed in this report and the consequences of these policies on the rural English landscape: (1) reforming the existing inheritance tax; (2) abolishing area-based payments under the EU CAP; and (3) taxing overseas ownership. In line with the recommendations put forth in Land for the Many, we aim to encourage community acquisition and ownership of agricultural land through the formation of CLTs. This transition to a more equitable model of land stewardship involves the redistribution of farmland in England to new entrants, supporting small farmers, and promoting agroforestry – and consequently opening up more land for public amenities, including open access land in line with the Scottish principle of Right to Roam.36 Fig. 41. Text network analysis on webscraped comments by Nelly Wat

By researching and analyzing various articles written on the issue of land reform, we identified policy proposals supported by activists and academics. Looking in conjunction with LFTM, which we used as a guidance to understand the subject of land reform, we further narrowed down key policies that are crucial for this transformation. Reconstructing the agricultural sector in the post CAP period is one of the most concerning issues. Based on a text and sentiment analysis of over 3000 public comments that we webscraped from six Guardian articles on UK’s land reformation, we found that negative and neutral comments brought up concerns about how the working class and the middle class will be impacted by taxation. In line with the history, previous large scale land transformations had often failed to deliver social equality in the reform process.37 We shall therefore investigate means of reform in a just and equitable manner.

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

TECHNICAL REPORT I: WEB SCRAPING

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Fig. 42. Python script for web scraping Guardian comments by Nelly Wat

To identify stakeholders, necessary policy interventions, and public perception of these policies, we relied on web scraping, using Python, to extract comments from several articles written on policies proposed in Land for the Many, a report to the Labour Party. The following script was used to iterate through pages of comments and their respective authors and responses. After extracting over 3000 comments from 6 articles published in the Guardian, a text analysis was undertaken on these comments to determine commonly used words and specific concerns or sentiments expressed by commenters. This analysis was executed using Infranodus,38 an open-source text network analysis and visualization tool, to map the networks between these commonly used words. Separate network analyses were additionally executed for comments with negative, neutral, and positive sentiments. This allowed us to identify common points by both supporters and those in opposition to these policy reforms, and make suggestions accordingly.

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup import urllib def getHTML(url): html = urllib.urlopen(url).read() return BeautifulSoup(html)

def scrapeComments(url): articleSoup = getHTML(url) articleTitle = articleSoup.find('h1', class_="content__headline").getText().strip().encode('utf-8') 11 commentUrl = articleSoup.find(class_='discussion__heading').find('a')['href'] 12 print 'Finding comments for [{0}]({1})\n'.format(articleTitle, url) 13 14 commentSoup = getHTML(commentUrl) 15 16 paginationBtns = commentSoup.find_all('a', class_='pagination__action') 17 LastPaginationBtn = commentSoup.find('a', class_='pagination__action--last') 18 19 20 if LastPaginationBtn is not None: totalPages = int(LastPaginationBtn['data-page']) 21 22 elif paginationBtns: totalPages = int(paginationBtns[-1]['data-page']) 23 24 else: totalPages = 1 25 26 def getComments(url): 27 soup = getHTML(url) 28 print 'Fetching {0}'.format(url) 29 commentArray = [] 30 for comment in soup.select('li.d-comment'): 31 commentObj = {} 32 commentObj['id'] = comment['data-comment-id'] 33 commentObj['timestamp'] = comment['data-comment-timestamp'] 34 commentObj['author'] = comment['data-comment-author'].encode('utf-8') 35 36 commentObj['author-id'] = comment['data-comment-author-id'] # commentObj['reccomend-count'] = comment.find(class_='d37 comment__recommend')['data-recommend-count'] 38 39 body = comment.find(class_='d-comment__body') 40 if body.blockquote is not None: body.blockquote.clear() 41 commentObj['text'] = body.getText().strip().encode('utf-8') 42 43 replyTo = comment.find(class_='d-comment__reply-to-author') 44 if replyTo is not None: 45 link = replyTo.parent['href'].replace('#comment-', '') 46 commentObj['reply-to'] = link 47 48 else: 49 commentObj['reply-to'] = '' 50 51 commentArray.append(commentObj) 52 commentArray = commentArray[::-1] 53 return commentArray 54 55 allComments = [] 56 57 for i in range(totalPages, 0, -1): 58 params = urllib.urlencode({'page': i}) 59 url = '{0}?={1}'.format(commentUrl, params) 60 pageComments = getComments(url) 61 allComments = allComments + pageComments

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Positive

Negative

Figs. 43 & 44. Text sentiment and network analysis by Nelly Wat

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OWNERSHIP, EQUALITY AND JUSTICE: REVIVING CAPITALIST LAND

Land Reform with the Green New Deal

Written by Enrico Luo

INTRODUCTION

THE QUESTION OF LAND

In respond to the growing climatic and social crisis emerging across the globe, the Green New Deal (GND) undertakes initiatives to address the occurrence. With regard to the US New Deal conducted by Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, GND suggests a systemic organisation approach to current affairs in similar manners, to propose fundamentally structural transformation. In addition to the ecological and climatic emergency, the GND places social equalities at the centre of the present-day global relations, where some democratic groups are significantly impacted in a colonising and extractive manner through the process of capitalisation. This paper primarily uses guidance from the Common-Wealth to contextualise the GND in UK’s socioeconomic backdrop. Based on Britain’s historical landscape transformations, predominantly focusing on the consequences of the capitalist social constitution in relation to land, we look to identify a viable approach for a more sustainable future. Examples such as the soaring housing prices due to land privatisation were resulted by the historically accumulated conceptions of perceiving land as an asset. The investigation aims to untangle land inequality by evaluating past conceptions and legislations as the origin of the issue that shaped Britain’s social construct today, to pursue a just and green transformation in line with the emerging issues addressed by the GND.

To understand the contemporary issue with land, we shall first investigate its common perception. The literary definition for the term ‘land’ is often associated with the resources it possesses. There is often a sense of human dominance imposed upon such natural entity simultaneously, specifically with some implications referring to the area of ground used for farming or buildings. By marking the land as a property instead of a natural entity, Britain’s land issue today lies within the severe socioeconomic inequality emerged from land occupation; with 50% of the ground owned by 1% of the population, the majority of the country now suffers from undermining public amenities due to the growing rate of land privatisation.

from the 17th century, the following centuries gradually depopulated peasants through the process of enclosing communally owned lands into privately owned property for resource extraction and exclusive leisure activities. The social eviction showed capitalist characteristics through the emergence of such individualist landscape that is centrally owned, controlled and profited from. In fact, the enclosure ideology was shaped upon prioritising economic developments, which gradually evolved into the capitalist mindset still apparent today.

Such uneven wealth distribution reflected upon the land is deeply embedded in the historical development of Britain’s land system. The feudal system since the 12th century established a hierarchical socioeconomic order, (figure 2.2) with clearly distinguished class orders according to one’s social status. Serfs without lands were bound to servitude for the privileged landowners. Despite being able to collectively work on communal lands known as the ‘commons’ to sustain a living, the close association between land and wealth is directly reflected upon the disproportionate population-land ratio. (figure 2.2) The underlying inequality under such land system soon exacerbated in further social division. Triggered by the enclosure acts

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CHALLENGING THE CAPITALIST LAND SYSTEM The unequal distribution of capitalist wealth, which was initiated from the enclosure periods, worsened through the neoliberal land speculations. The process of the present-day land privatisation continues to neglect the less privileged, with wealth extracted from land remains accumulating in the privileged ones. Brett Christophers refers to this profound social phenomenon as the ‘New Enclosure’; with the shift of public benefits away from local communities as the enclosure’s land privatisation. Controversially, such capitalist land revitalisation claims to make productive of ‘wastelands’, whereas the status quo demonstrates the result of dewilded environments, derelict agricultural lands and empty houses formed by such reputed reinvigoration process. As precedented in the historical events, the pursuit of capitalism has resulted in a catastrophic state of affairs. In addition to inequalities caused by enclosure’s social displacement, theorist Kai Heron argues that capitalism today has obtained an environmentally destructive dynamics beyond its capability to contain, such as inflicting species extinctions at the highest recorded rate in human development history. Aside from being detrimental to the environment, Britain’s growing economic dependence on rising land values caused

II. POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

by privatisation has developed into an unsustainable economy. Karl Marx argued that the core of capitalist economy relies on consistent productive outputs. As a mode of capitalist production which is entirely based upon private ownership, land speculation unveils the capitalist emphasis on value as ‘exchange.’ Therefore, it becomes problematic that a significant portion of Britain’s economic output is delivered by such ‘non-productive’ sector. The controversy reiterates Heron’s capitalist catastrophism as the current land economy is originated but concurrently distanced itself from capitalist mode.

in a state of ‘capitalist realism’, as Mark Fisher describes, where capitalist mode of socioeconomic development is perceived as the only viable systemic approach without any coherent alternative method. With the realisation of the land catastrophe, such mindset should be reformulated in the context of contemporary emergencies, with a constitutional change extending beyond the existing system and implemented upon the application of the GND.

As land is a finite resource which is inseparable to the wellbeing of its inhabitants, the strategy should therefore rethink the historically accumulated measures of land productivity in profitmaking exploitations terms, to incorporate social and environmental factors in line with the GND. As Jane Hutton suggests, such capitalist commodification process has caused alienation of people and land. Our thesis places the question of land at the centre of the subject, to re-engage communities with the land against the capitalist entanglement with natural and social degradation. This capitalist land system we inherited from the past has often been recognised

A JUST LAND TRANSITION As Heron suggested, the continuation of capitalist destruction has exceeded beyond its capacity to restore itself. The GND looks towards providing alternatives beyond the capitalist land perception. As landscape urbanists, we should design by identifying opportunities within existing policies to accommodate and sustain objectives that are just to both humans and non-humans. A needed target for social regeneration with considerations of ecological factors, as they could inflict significant environmental destruction without full acknowledgements. Industries should prioritise life-sustainment over profit-making. Instead of a small, onetime funding that targets the already benefited bodies, the land strategy should incorporate foreseeing constitutional policies to gradually incorporate an incremental transition. To suggest alternative approaches to the capitalist land system, we incorporated the 2019 Labour Party’s manifesto, Land for the Many (LFTM). In line with Labour’s slogan ‘for the many, not the few’, the future of land development should aim for private sufficiency and public luxury, as the LFTM identifies. Land, should reconnect with the people without further exploitations as historical evidence such as the enclosure has shown. Our thesis identifies policy proposals from LFTM in conjunction with aspects addressed in the GND. With numerous

large-scaled landowners profiting from land speculation, we focused on revitalising derelict farms and unsustainable industrial farms into community county farms to restore the social and environmental destructions. Over recent decades, Britain’s county farms halved in due to rapid land privatisation. The implementation of county farms would fulfil multiple objectives of the GND illustrated below (figure 4.2); not only would the proposed scheme contribute towards the overall economic transition by reducing carbon footprints created in the construction industry from housing speculations, it would also form a more reliable economic output in agricultural productions to pursue a greater self-sufficiency in post Brexit era, whilst lessening the need for food transportation would further reduce its carbon output.

or controlled organisation, the public can benefit from greater engagement in participation and management. Being a third-party establishment, this formation would offer insulations form potential political vulnerabilities. As an example, the revival of county farms could provide an opening strategy to address UK’s land emergency; in transforming into a resilient socioeconomic construct serving justice to the people and the environment.

On an environmental ethics level, the revival of county farms would serve justice to humans and non-humans; providing jobs for local farming new entrants and rewild the land through less monocultural farming practices adopted by industrial farms. Through the transition of a greener agriculture that is less dependent on fossil fuels, studies have shown such sustainable approach would achieve higher productivity with the incorporation of diverse cropping. To avoid the threat of further privatisation, such developments should be owned by forms of community land trusts existing independently but supported by the government. With a collectively owned

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REFERENCES Bank of England. ‘How Does the Housing Market Affect the Economy?’ Bank of England. Accessed 25 April 2021. http:// www.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/how-does-thehousing-market-affect-the-economy. Cambridge Dictionary, ‘Land’. Cambridge Dictionary. accessed 20 April 2021. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/ dictionary/english/land. Christophers, Brett. The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain. New York: Verso, 2018. Common-Wealth, ‘Green New Deal’, Common-Wealth 2019, Accessed 25 April 2021. https://www.common-wealth.co.uk/ project-streams/green-new-deal. Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? Winchester: O Books, 2013. Heron, Kai. ‘Averting Capitalist Catastrophism’, Design and the Green New Deal. class lecture, The Architectural Association, London, 8 March 2021. Hutton, Jane. ‘Reciprocal Landscape: Stories of Material Movements’, Design and the Green New Deal. Class lecture, The Architectural Association, London, 15 Feb 2021. Marx, Karl. Capital A Critique of Political Economy, trans. Samuel Moore. Moscow: Progress Publisher 1887. McDonald, Samuel M. ‘The Green New Deal Can’t Be Anything Like the New Deal’. The New Republic, 31 May 2019. https://newrepublic.com/article/153996/green-newdeal-cant-anything-like-new-deal. Merriam-Webster. ‘Definition of LAND’. Merriam-Webster. Accessed 20 April 2021. https://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/land. Monbiot, George et al, ‘Land For the Many’, the Labour Party. Shrubsole, Guy. Who Owns England? How We Lost Our Green & Pleasant Land & How to Take It Back. London: William Collins, 2019. The Labour Party, ‘For the many not the few’, The Labour Party Manifesto 2017.

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FARMER CLUSTERS

Farmer cluster

Fig. 45. Map of farmer clusters in England by Nelly Wat Northern Flood Management Groups

Farmer cluster

Northern Flood Management Groups

122 Our proposed transition towards a collaborative model of land stewardship builds upon the existing precedent of farmer clusters – a farmer-led, bottom-up initiative that responds to inequalities and challenges produced by an unjust system of land ownership that spans centuries. This successful approach to landscape conservation set the precedent for our proposed model of local collaboration. As a case study, we examined the Martin Down Farmer Cluster, formed in 2016. Martin Down is among the 122 clusters formed across England since the first pilots of farmer clusters in 2014.39 These are all small farmer-led initiatives funded by their own community trusts, private donors, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, and the Natural England Facilitation Fund – this fund in particular led to the creation of the first pilot farmer clusters and later to the establishment of over a hundred more clusters throughout England. The Facilitation Fund requires a minimum area of 2000 hectares to encourage the formation of clusters.40

Total clusters

Funding Community trusts/shared bank accounts Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust Private/charitable funding Natural England Facilitation Fund* 122 Total clusters *Requires a minimum farmland area of 2,000ha, though areas below this may be considered where holdings are Funding smaller than average Community trusts/shared bank accounts

FocusGame + flood management strategies & Wildlife Conservation Trust

Private/charitable funding + Increase riparian and wet woodland Natural England Facilitation Fund*

+ Connect habitats through woodland *Requires a minimum farmland area of and hedgerow planting 2,000ha, though areas below this may + Reduce sediment movement into be considered where holdings are waterways smaller than average + Improve water quality + Improve flood management through Focus + flood management natural flood management strategies techniques + Increase riparian and wet woodland

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+ Connect habitats through woodland

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FARMER CLUSTERS

Fig. 46. (top) Martin Down Supercluster Original image retrieved from Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, drawing by Nelly Wat Fig. 47. (right) Martin Down Farmer Cluster by Nelly Wat

Martin Down is one of three farmer clusters in the region that constitute the Martin Down Supercluster, with a total boundary area of 5500 hectares. This Supercluster is centered around the Martin Down Nature Reserve.

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Cluster boundary

Farm boundary

Water body

Open Access (CROW)

Ancient forest

Woodland

Pasture

Countryside Stewardship

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Cluster boundary

Farm boundary

Water body

Open Access (CROW)

Ancient forest

Woodland

Pasture

Countryside Stewardship

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FARMER CLUSTERS

Fig. 48. Martin Down Farmer Cluster: environmental strategies by Nelly Wat Fig. 49. West Woodyates Partnership: environmental strategies by Nelly Wat

Woodlands/ hedgerows

Environmental strategies

Monitor

Private woodland/ new arable reversion

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These clusters work together to increase woodland, reduce agricultural pollution, connect habitats through woodland and hedgerow planting, reduce sediment movement into waterways, improve water quality, and implement natural flood management techniques. This model of collaboration can join small farms together, forming a network that is more economically and ecologically resilient than individual farms operating alone. We brought this strategy to the site we identified as having a high potential for successful and regenerative collaboration.

III. SITE STRATEGIES

This chapter discusses the methodology used to select and study our selected site - Willowbrook Farm and the larger Oxfordshire region. We conduct a series of analyses to determine the environmental and demographic status, as well as the connectivity of Willowbrook and the surrounding region. We also provide notes from site visits to three farms: Willowbrook, Allerton Research and Educational Trust, and Calmsden Farm. Discussions with farmers at these three farms provided us with insight into the challenges faced by small farmers who are already managing the land sustainably, and the strategies they implemented to promote agroecology, environmental restoration, and community building. We drew from these strategies to inform our proposed transition model.

Selected Site Sample Farms Large Farms >750ha

III. SITE STRATEGIES

SAMPLING SUSTAINABLE FARMS

DEMOGRAPHIC: LABOUR SKILLS

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

Fig. 50. (left) Map of sample sustainable farms

NETWORKS

by Mariam Zelimger Fig. 51. (top) Local analysis of labour skills and environmental health across sample sustainable farms by Enrico Luo

By assessing a set of small-scaled farms listed as sample farms from various sustainable farming networks, we were able to identify the most suitable ones to implement further sustainable design strategies upon, according to size, environmental qualities and demographic status,

III. SITE STRATEGIES

Selected Site Sample Farms Large Farms >750ha

III. SITE STRATEGIES

LOCAL ANALYSIS

SAMPLING SUSTAINABLE FARMS

Fig. 52. (left) Map of sample sustainable farms by Mariam Zelimger Fig. 53. (top) Local analysis of sample sustainable farms by Mariam Zelimger

Using examples farms to undertake environmental initiatives through a local collaborative community scheme of farmer clusters Willowbrook can be a good example in acting as an anchor farm to transition its local area, as its located in a high-potential neighbourhood.

III. SITE STRATEGIES

OXFORDSHIRE REGION REGIONAL SCALE

Fig. 54. Map of farmer clusters in Oxfordshire by Nelly Wat

25,000 25,000 HAHA County Farms Woodlands Urban Areas Existing Clusters

2250 HA 2,250 HA

Site: Proposed Cluster

Located in Oxfordshire, Willowbrook lies in the centre of seven existing farmer superclusters, which are located within nature reserves. The proposed cluster could be a move towards a regional scale connection between the currently isolated Happy Valley, Thames and Central Chiltens clusters; by joining woodland areas to form environmental corridors. Furthermore, county farms could be integrated in the scheme to support the training of new farming entrants. Together, with each supercluster acting as anchor points for the surrounding countryside, this regional network could accommodate exchange of knowledge and communications to deliver environmental interventions at a landscape scale.

9250 HA 9,250 HA

III. SITE STRATEGIES

2340 HA

2500 HA 5500 HA

2,100 HA

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OXFORDSHIRE REGION

Fig. 55. Map of Willowbrook site in Oxfordshire region by Enrico Luo Fig. 56. Map of farmer clusters in Oxfordshire by Nelly Wat

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OXFORDSHIRE REGION

CATCHMENT SCALE

At a more zoomed-in scale, the cluster could connect existing woodlands to enable species to travel across. As sustainable agricultural organisation the Countryside Charity (CPRE) promotes a localised food supply within 30 miles of the retail,41 we envision a local network for the agricultural produce in the cluster to predominately supply for the surrounding towns and villages.

Fig. 57. Map of Willowbrook site and surrounding clusters, catchment scale by Enrico Luo

III. SITE STRATEGIES

Moreover, the catchment-scaled network also surveys demographic issues; the percentage in each geographic square indicates the percentage of the population aged sixteen to thirty-five, assessing potential available labours for such a supplying network, promoting the development and inhabitation of rural areas.

TECHNICAL REPORT II: CONNECTIVITY

Figs. 58-63. Connectivity analysis of Willowbrook and surrounding region by Enrico Luo

Overview: In order to understand the site and the potential need for proposing changes, it is crucial to survey the existing infrastructural and demographic qualities of the site. Through analysing the current market, we discovered that nation-wide chained supermarkets take up the majority local supply chain, with sporadic local businesses such as butcheries and farmers markets. To effectively shorten the current transportation distance, we aimed to expand the market of local farms, to produce a decentralised and decarbonised supply chain. The proposed Willowbrook Cluster lies in a rural setting, its connections to nearby settlements would determine the feasibility of supplying the cluster’s agricultural produce for the local region.

Site Roads Urban Areas

GIS preparation: Road classifications are filtered and visualised in a thickness hierarchy according to traffic flow. The analysis predominately assesses Motorways and A Roads, with sporadic inclusion of B Roads at necessary key connection nodes, The connectivity analysis is based on the remapping of population distribution against nearby settlements, as well as using a geographic grid system to assess the percentage population aged 16-35 who are potentially suitable to meet the increase labour demand in the proposed cluster.

Population Density X%

Age 16-35 Population Percentage

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Grasshopper Analysis: The connectivity analysis simulates the number of times each section of the road experiences traffic in order to connect each of the defined nodes with each other using the shortest routes. By composing two sets of points with one reflecting the central locations of the region’s population distribution according to the aforementioned dots, and the second set representing existing food suppliers, the analysis demonstrates the traffic flow. With our proposed localised supply network, the new additions of supplier points in the Willowbrook Cluster enable us to envision the new connections, which provide a basis to suggest infrastructural changes and improvements to accommodate the new network. Connectivity Density Supplier points Population points

Farm Boundaries Entrance

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Furthermore, the result can be investigated further as the simulation model produces the number of times each section of the road is used to connect the overall network. At a cluster scale, the model provides detailed indication of the traffic flow, as the cluster gradually increases in scale, its infrastructural improvement can be planned out in accordance with the analysis.

WILLOWBROOK FARM

Oxfordshire, South East England, Averaged Farm Size: 47ha The area is populated with small-scaled farms, as indicated in the national map. With such scattered ownership condition, each farm not only faces competition with large industrial productions typically located in the east of England, but also competing with each other for the local market.

WILLOWBROOK SITE Fig. 64. National map of farmlands and Willowbrook regional site plan by Enrico Luo

Essex, East of England, Averaged Farm Size: 233ha In comparison, the farm size increases substantially in an agricultural area on the east coast. Averaging over four times of the size in Oxfordshire, these large farms are typically less inclined to deliver agroecology schemes due to their productivity and land resources.

Fig. 65. National map of farmlands and Essex regional site plan by Enrico Luo

III. SITE STRATEGIES

WILLOWBROOK FARM

PROPOSED CLUSTER SUB-CATCHMENT SCALE Fig. 66. Regional site plan of proposed Willowbrook cluster and neighbouring clusters by Enrico Luo

With the formation of clusters, these small-scaled farms can congregate into larger assemblages with comparable sizes to a large farm. We propose these potential clusters in the region, based on shared characteristics. Each cluster obtains individual targets such as infrastructure improvement and environmental restoration. Our design investigates the area centered around Willowbrook Farm.

III. SITE STRATEGIES

WILLOWBROOK FARM

Allotments

Horticulture

Rewilded Woodlands

Rotational Grazing

Goats Enclosure

Rotational Grazing

Figs. 67-73. Photographs of Willowbrook Farm by Enrico Luo

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WILLOWBROOK FARM

Fig. 74. Willowbrook Farm by Enrico Luo

III. SITE STRATEGIES

WILLOWBROOK FARM

As a proposed anchor farm in this cluster, Willowbrook has already implemented sustainable practices, with a wide range of livestocks and diverse farming practices. However, as current farms in the area operate independently, some of the neighbouring farms continue to practice monocropping. The contrasting environmental condition outlines the severity of such lack of collaboration. As a cluster, they could incrementally transition the environmental condition from exchange of knowledge and land at the farm scale, and ultimately to a landscape and territorial scale. Fig. 75. Soil condition at neighbouring Walnut Tree Farm by Enrico Luo

III. SITE STRATEGIES

SITE VISITS

To gain a more in-depth knowledge of sustainable agroecological practices and the site, we carries out three visits including a research and education trust, an existing cluster farm as well as the area of Willowbrook. The three example surveyed are all located in areas predominantly populated with small farms, where the implementation of clusters would be most effective.

Willowbrook Farm As a family-run farm that reaches out to the local ethnic-minority groups, a strong sense of community is embedded in the farm. “Together, we make a family”, aside from agricultural production, Willowbrook engages with the locals, and delivers activities and open visits as a basic form of education and training. Coming from an academic background, owner Lutfi and Ruby passionately exchange their thoughts and experiences with visitors.

Fig. 76. National map of farmlands and site visit locations by Enrico Luo Figs. 77-80. Photographs of WIllowbrook Farm

1. Willowbrook Farm 2. Calmsden Farmer Cluster 3. Allerton Research and Education Trust

by Enrico Luo

III. SITE STRATEGIES

SITE VISITS Figs. 81 & 82. Photographs of Allerton Research and Educational Trust by Enrico Luo Figs. 83-87. Photographs of Calmsden Farm by Enrico Luo

Allerton Research and Educational Trust Allerton Research and Educational Trust experiments with new farming methods beyond the guidance provided by existing environmental policies. As an educational trust, the farm also provides opportunities for young generations to access land. From personal experiences, our contact farmer Joe commented that his previous attempts to access county farms were unsuccessful, as the council is often more in favour of leasing out to fewer tennants, a more structured training programme is missing.

Calmsden Farm Lastly, we visited Calmsden, an anchor farm for an existing cluster. With support from neighbours, the owner Mark was able to gradually instal environmental corridors such as beetle banks and flower margins to connect at a wider scale. The benefits of improving environmental health reflected in the increased crop production and quality, as he demonstrated an example of a nutritious soil. Furthermore, onsite facilities were able to be improved with sustainable farming grants, in this case resulting in more advanced cereal processing machinery.

III. SITE STRATEGIES

SITE VISITS

“Producing for the local market and engaging with the local community”

“It only takes one farm to destroy the enviornment for everyone.”

- Lutfi Radwan, Willowbrook

- Joe Stanley, Allerton

Fig. 88. Photograph of WIllowbrook, Retrieved from Willowbrook Farm website

The three farms that successfully implemented environmental strategies all highlighted the imperative to collaborate with the locals in achieving greater environmental ambitions. We intended to compose a farmers handbook as a guidance to transition to cluster. The uncertainty and lack of vision that constrains the ability of farmers, is what our farmer handbook seeks to address. (* more details of the conversations can be found in the Appendix) We propose four stages of transitions – connection, cluster, stewardship, and commons, incorporating aspects of nature restoration, crop diversity, infrastructure and community.

III. SITE STRATEGIES

SITE VISITS

“What’s in it for me? Farmers are often unwilling to participate in collective effort due to uncertainty and lack of vision” - Mark Tufnell, Calmsden

Figs. 89 & 90. Photographs of Allerton and Calmsden by Enrico Luo

However, such a transition is not only physical, but also ideological; transitioning towards a more collaborative model of agriculture and land stewardship requires an ideological shift – away from the dominant neoliberal ideology of individualism and private ownership, and towards a more collectivist model of land stewardship and mutual support and exchange. This ideological transition would be gradual and require communication and education between landowners, farmers, stakeholders, and designers. Not every landowner will be willing to open up their land or work with their neighbours; many would likely resist any form of land redistribution, particularly those who have invested much of their money, labour, and time into establishing their farm. By providing technical support for farmers – compiling a handbook of resources to start a farmer cluster, and creating a visualization tool using machine learning (GANs) that farmers can use – we can facilitate more efficient communication and collaboration between farmers, and illustrate the potential benefits and trade-offs of participating in this transition, using a ‘commons’ solution for the common issue.42

III. SITE STRATEGIES

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

INCUBATOR FARMS

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

GRAZING GRAZING

cutting costs and reducing stock financial barriers to entry longer term agreements disagree with state land purchase cutting costs and reducing stock longer term agreements financial barriers to entry disagree with state land purchase Plaw Hatch Farm, Sussex: Mary FARMERS FEEDBACK financial barriers to entry disagree FARMERS FEEDBACK Plaw Hatch Farm, Sussex: Marywith state land purchase FARMERS [interview] FEEDBACK [interview] [interview]Mary Plaw Hatch Farm, Sussex: difficult to get biodiversity on the farm

customers not interested in industrial farming customers not interested in industrial farming a local network with a communtity ownership notonhelping farmers whocustomers are already difficult to get biodiversity thefarmers farm not interested innetwork industrial a local withfarming a communtity ownership notfarming helping who are already Willowbrook Farm, Oxfordshire: Lutfi sustainably difficult to get biodiversity on the farm customers not interested in industrial farming Willowbrook Oxfordshire: Lutfi farming sustainably Willowbrook Farm, Farm, a Oxfordshire: Lutfi with a communtity ownership local network not helping farmers who are already a local network with a communtity ownership notfarming helping sustainably farmers who are already loss of Single Farm Payment a lack of participation by neighbours loss of Single Farm Payment a lack participation by farming sustainably loss of Single Farm Payment a lack of of participation by neighbours neighbours cutting costs and reducing stock longer term agreements

Plaw Hatch Farm, Sussex: Maryto get biodiversity on the farm difficult

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no punishment for pesticides, fertilisers no punishment punishment for for pesticides, fertilisers no bias from planning pesticides, fertilisers bias from from planning planning bias

increase taxation of industrial farming increase increase taxation taxation of of industrial industrial farming farming lack of finance lack of finance lack of finance

an ideological environmental engagement needneed an ideological shift shift environmental engagement no training for new entrants of support to transition sustainably no training for new entrants lack lack of support to transition sustainably need an ideological shift environmental engagement an Joe ideological shift environmental engagement Allerton Farm,need Leicester: Allerton Farm, Leicester: Joe Allerton Farm, Leicester: Joe training entrants of support to transition sustainably no no training for for newnew entrants lacklack of support to transition sustainably

Fobbing Farm, Essex: George Fobbing Farm, Essex: George

environmental engagement environmental engagement environmental engagement no training for new entrants no training for new no training for new entrants entrants

Fobbing Farm, Essex: George Fobbing Farm, Essex: George AGROFORESTRY AGROFORESTRY AGROFORESTRY

grants could be costful grants could be costful

PRO PRO PRO

- incr -- LEG incr incr dive dive LEGISLAT dive

Montague Farm, Sussex: Martin Allerton Farm, Leicester: JoeMartin Montague Farm, Sussex: Montague Farm,Joe Sussex: Martin Allerton Farm, Leicester:

Allerton Farm, Leicester: Allerton Farm, Leicester: JoeJoe

AGROFORESTRY AGROFORESTRY

- inc - increase div diversifyin

GRAZING GRAZING GRAZING

increase taxation of industrial farming increase taxation of industrial farming lack of bias fromdifficult planning to get biodiversity on the farm customers notfinance interested in industrial farming lack of finance bias from fertilisers planning increase taxation of industrial farming no punishment for pesticides, difficult to get biodiversity on the farm customers not interested difficult to get biodiversity on the farm customers not interested in in industrial industrial farming farming increase taxation no punishment for pesticides, fertilisers a localfarming network with a communtity ownership not helping farmers who are already of industrial a not farmers who a local local network network with with a a communtity communtity ownership ownership of already finance not helping helping farmerslack who are are already bias from planning farming sustainably lack of finance bias from planning farming sustainably farming sustainably

ARABLE ARABLE ARABLE

ARABLE ARABLE

Montague Farm, Sussex:no Martin Plaw Hatch Sussex: Mary punishment forFarm, pesticides, fertilisers Montague Farm, Sussex:no Martin Plaw Farm, Mary punishment for pesticides, fertilisers Plaw Hatch Hatch Farm, Sussex: Sussex: Mary

longer term agreements longer term disagree withagreements state land purchase disagree disagree with with state state land land purchase purchase

PRO PRODUCT

- ab - a bottom red redistribu

LEG LEG LEG

- ab -- a b a b red red red

need an ideological shift need need an an ideological ideological shift shift lack of support to transition sustainably lack of of support support to to transition transition sustainably sustainably lack

policy guidance not useful policy guidance not useful

Fobbing Farm, Essex: George plenty of funding available agroforestry - biodiversity loss plenty of funding available Fobbing Farm, agroforestry - biodiversity lossGeorge Fobbing Farm, Essex: Essex: George grants could costful policy guidance not useful grants could be be costful policy guidance not useful grants could be costful policy guidance not useful plenty of funding available grants costful policy plenty of funding available grants could could be be costful policy guidance guidance not not useful useful plenty of funding available agroforestry - biodiversity loss plenty agroforestry plenty of of funding funding available available agroforestry -- biodiversity biodiversity loss loss

agroforestry - biodiversity agroforestry - biodiversity lossloss

Legend: Legend:

Fig. 91. (left) Educational incubator farm models

Production Environment Legend: Legend: Legend: production production environment environment landland Land

on ction environment environment landland

production production production

Legislation environment environment environment

by Nelly Wat

legislation legislation land land land

legislation legislation legislation

legislation legislation

PRODUCTIVITY

PARTICIPATION

- increase productivity by diversifying corps

SCALE LEGISLATIVE CHANGES

- a bottom-up reform with redistributed land + ownership

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

EQUALITY

Fig. 92. (top) Feedback from farmers by Enrico Luo

We contacted these sample farms to hear their input on the transition away from the CAP payment scheme to the new Agriculture Bill, issues with farm and land management under the current land system, and the policy changes they would like to see implemented in the future. We concluded that the two major issues related to land reform reiterated by the farmers in contact were 1) increasing productivity while remaining sustainable and 2) the need for a bottom-up reform to redistribute land and ‘level the playing field,’ so to speak. (* more details of the conversations can be found in the Appendix)

CASE STUDIES

Fig. 93. Allerton Research and Educational Trust site plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

ALLERTON RESEARCH & EDUCATIONAL TRUST, LEICESTERSHIRE

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

CASE STUDIES

Figs. 94 & 95. Photographs of Allerton Research and Educational Trust by Enrico Luo

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

CASE STUDIES

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

We looked at two case studies of farms – the Allerton Research Educational Trust in Leicestershire, and the Calmsden Farmer Cluster in Gloucestershire – that are already implementing environmental strategies to gain insight on how they are navigating the post-CAP transition to increase or sustain productivity, manage soil quality, and connect wildlife habitats. A network of trees and environmental corridors interlinks across the farms. arable fields are divided into smaller parcels (7ha) whilst remaining accessible for harvesting machineries. Mixed cropping techniques are applied to improve diversity, productivity and soil quality. As a research and education farm, Allerton has implemented environmental strategies; a naturalised pond as a recreated environment to restore the biodiversity, and an agroforestry orchard planted by the locals with continuous seasonal engagement with the wider community. Due to the loss of foreign labours since Brexit, the agricultural sector has been facing difficulties in finding skilled locals for seasonal harvests. Allerton has subsequently carried out training to equip locals to meet the demand. The installation of a leaky dam in the grazing field improves the flooding issue of water run-offs in extreme weathers, it is especially effective for downstream areas beyond the boundary of the farm. As the overall site plan illustrates, arable fields are divided into small divisions, averaging 8 ha. Mixed cropping techniques are used to grow different crops next to one another, creating a more diverse environment to improve the soil quality. Furthermore, environmental corridors such as beetle banks are installed to partition large crop fields, to allow insects to inhabit the strip. The activities of insects on the crop field would attract their predators, and the overall habitation of these species improves soil fertility and yield.

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

Figs. 96-105. Environmental strategies at Allerton Research and Educational Trust by Enrico Luo

The trust experiments with agroforestry practices, in this case, mixing trees with sheep grazing, integrating environmental restorations with agricultural activities on the farm. This enables higher levels of environmental grants to be met to support such sustainable practices. Various densities are experimented onsite, from a hundred to sixteen hundred trees per hectare, which is similar to a commercial forest, the trust tests the impact on grazing in these conditions.

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

CASE STUDIES

Fig. 106. Calmsden Farm site plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

CALMSDEN FARMER CLUSTER, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

CASE STUDIES

Figs. 107-109. Photographs of Calmsden Farm by Enrico Luo

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

CASE STUDIES

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

CASE STUDIES

Figs. 110-115. Environmental strategies at Calmsden Farm by Enrico Luo

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

CASE STUDIES

Being an anchor farm in the Cotswold cluster, Calmsden leads some of the environmental strategies in the area. Large scale wildflower banks have been put in place across the farm, particularly in areas of steep topography which opposes difficulties to maintain and harvest crops. Despite being an inheritor of the farm from previous generations, the owner welcomes tenant farmers to cultivate the farm instead of having a strong possessive mindset over the land. The willingness to collaborate and communicate with other farmers made Calmsden a suitable coordinator of the local cluster. A “land sparing” approach is taken for the valley between arable fields. Due to the aforementioned topographic constraints, it is more effective to rewild large areas due to its difficulties to integrate with crops. Over its participation in the Countryside Stewardship scheme, arable fields have adapted to the sustainable techniques recommended by organisations such as DEFRA. In this instance, a twometre edge is placed between the hedges and the crop field to provide habitats for species. Similarly, a beetle bank is also placed on the edge of another oats field.

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

SUSTAINABLE FARMING AS A FUTURE: AGROECOLOGY AND PERMACULTURE

Land Reform with the Green New Deal

Written by Mariam Zelimger

PRACTICES

INTRODUCTION Sustainable agriculture is a type of agriculture that produces long-term crops and livestock with a minimal effect on the environment. This type of agriculture develops sustainability based on understanding ecosystem services, studying the relationships between organisms and their environment. Moreover, it seeks to cultivate food in an environmentally responsible way, using methods that improve the quality of the environment and the natural resource base. The aim of sustainable farming methods consists in protecting the environment, expanding the natural resource base of the land, and increasing soil fertility. This paper provides a brief introduction to the science of sustainable agriculture. It examines the role that agroecology and its subsequent form, permaculture, plays in the development of sustainable agriculture and successful implementation. As the UK shifted towards exiting the EU, the role of food security and agriculture grew more significant. At the same time, sustainable development has been gaining traction in light of the increasing environmental considerations associated with climate change. In the past century, farmers’ dependence on pesticides, fertilizers, biotechnology, monocultures, and large government subsidies have made food plentiful and affordable. However, the desire to get affordable food in a short time, regardless of its quality, has led to certain consequences. These implications are apparent: the relevant downfall of the traditional family economy, 92

land erosion, depletion and pollution of soil and water resources, biodiversity loss, deforestation, labor abuse, and the industrial agriculture increase (Vishnu Pillai, 2021). Agriculture contributes to sustainable development as a source of livelihood and as an economic activity, a provider and consumer of environmental services. Therefore, some propose to consider all sectors, including agriculture, from the perspective of three dimensions of sustainability: economic, social, and environmental. Fundamental principles linked to sustainable agriculture are: 1. incorporate biological and environmental processes (such as soil regeneration, nutrient cycling) into food production 2. make efficient use of farmers’ knowledge and skills, thus enhancing their self-sufficiency and replacing costly external resources with human capital 3. make efficient use of the collective potential of people to work together to address common agricultural and natural resource issues, such as pesticide control, watershed, irrigation, or credit management 4. conservation and protection of biodiversity and territories 5. minimize the non-renewable inputs use since they are harmful to the environment as well as farmers’ and consumers’ health 6. improve energy efficiency in food production and allocation, for example, based on the ‘input-output life cycle assessment assumption (Energies, 2020) 7. enhance the use of natural resources

Today, sustainable farming helps people meet the needs of food production without compromising the environment or the capacity of future generations to fulfill their food demands. It includes organic agriculture and different kinds of practices that overlap in some other sustainable principles, thus being relevant in the longer term. One of the sustainable methods, crop rotation, seeks to emulate natural principles to obtain the best possible yields. It is based on planting crops in a pattern, thus supplementing the nutrients and salts from the soil consumed by the previous crop cycle. Furthermore, sustainable farming also benefits from crop rotation fundamentally since the practice helps generate unnecessary synthetic chemicals, such as pesticides and fertilizers. It increases the soil structure condition and enhances the farmer’s resistance to adverse environmental conditions. Polyculture farming is another prevalent practice within sustainable agriculture. It promotes the cultivation of several types of crops on the same territory. In turn, these types supplement each other. Moreover, it provides the opportunity to develop a greater variety of products on a single site with the full use of available resources. One of the most popular practices, agroecology, establishes an effective system that naturally resists plague and pests. It also creates better working conditions for farm labourers by introducing shady trees and, most importantly, eliminating the need for chemical pesticides.

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

AGROECOLOGY Agroecology represents an alternative use of production, which comes from ecological principles like waste recycling, lower energy use, and promoting biological synergies to benefit agriculture or regenerating soil. Moreover, that kind of sustainable practice comprises different systems, including permaculture, organic agriculture, biodynamic methods, and natural farming. Agroecosystems, in turn, are populations of plants and animals interfacing to their physical and chemical environments that individuals have modified to produce food, fiber, fuel, and other products for human consumption and processing (Altieri, 1971).

It is known that agroecology raises ecological resilience, increase health and nutrition condition, maintain biodiversity, conserve natural resources and impacts on climate change mitigation.

Furthermore, agroecology focuses on the form, dynamics, and functions of relationships between the environment elements and humans and the processes in which they are involved. The eventual goal of agroecological design is to integrate components. Thus, to improve overall biological efficiency, preserve biodiversity and the productivity of the agroecosystem and its ability to sustain itself. Agroecology can be used by applying different practices in agriculture. As with other methods, there are poorly integrated and well incorporated agroecological practices. The prior includes natural pesticides, agroforestry, and biofertilizers, while the latter are already in use: organic fertilization, cultivar choice, biological pest control, and split fertilization (Wezel et al., 2014). Despite creating social and environmental benefits, agroecology also supplies ecosystem services, including pollination, natural pest control, nutrient and water cycling, and erosion control (“Agroecology: Resilient & Productive”. n.d.). IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

PERMACULTURE Permaculture is one of the most widely practiced agroecology forms. This practice merely aims to imitate the relationships and patterns found in nature. They are used in all variations of human habitation, for instance, agriculture, suitable technology, ecoconstruction, economics. As PermacultureNews mentions, permaculture mimicking the waste-free closed systems is observed in various natural systems by combines land, resources, people, and the environment through mutually beneficial synergy. It also explores and implements holistic solutions suitable in rural and urban environments at any scale (Chris Rhodes, 2015). It is worth mentioning that permaculture helps humanity move from a dependent consumer model to one of a responsible supplier. Permaculture was produced in 1978 by Bull Mollison and David Holmgren. The primary purpose of it is to develop principles serving as a foundation for discriminative processes. Such processes help diverse design systems suitable for a wide range of cultural and environmental contexts. This creative human process is based on a philosophy that uses ethics and design principles as a guide. Moreover, such principles incorporate sustainable economic and social practices in food production. There are 12 fundamental design principles as the ultimate path to environmental sustainability and a sustainable lifestyle (Chris Rhodes, 2015): 1. Observe and interact 2. Catch and store energy 3. Obtain a yield 94

CONCLUSION 4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback 5. Use and value renewable resources and services 6. Produce no waste 7. Design from patterns to details 8. Integrate rather than segregate 9. Use small and slow solutions 10. Use and value diversity 11. Use edges and value the marginal 12. Creatively use and respond to change In his book, Holmgren discusses each principle individually with detailed design illustrations. For instance, ‘observe and interact’ means taking the time to observe nature in order to get different viewpoints and understand the various components in the system of nature. In turn, “Catch and store energy” is about people developing systems that gather and conserve resources when they are in excess so that they can be used when needed or when resources become scarce. The implementation and combination of these principles require a systematic vision. In this book, permaculture considers as the outcome of a holistic, responsive, and crucial understanding of an area. The form of such an area is scientific knowledge - the only form of support among other aesthetic, spiritual, or moral considerations.

“Agroecological farming can double food production within ten years while mitigating climate change and alleviating poverty.” - Agroecology and the Right to Food, 16th Session of the United Human Rights Council While climate change, loss of biodiversity, and water scarcity are actively progressing, global farming’s rapid and decisive transition to sustainable agriculture is becoming apparent. Much can be done by science, government, and society throughout the farming cycle to help alleviate the pressing issue. For example, they can ensure resources and coordinate platforms to achieve the decentralized management of food systems. Alternatively, they can implement agroecological transitions to reinforce existing new farm policies . In conclusion, farmers and researchers have developed a carefully researched and proven path to sustainable agriculture: agroecological farming systems. While transformational changes across the food and agriculture system are necessary for complete success, the development of an agroecological qualified workforce is assumed to be a crucial and essential step that is often overlooked by policymakers, researchers, and practitioners (Carlisle et al., 2019).

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

TRANSITION STAGES

We propose four stages of transitions – connection, cluster, stewardship, and commons, incorporating aspects of nature restoration, crop diversity, infrastructure and community. This handbook outlines these four transition stages in detail. Farmers start sharing knowledge and tools to diversify their produce at level one. Level two requires 20% of land being shared. Community ownership is reached at level three, with a stronger emphasis on land sharing and environmental strategies, and a portion of common land is dedicated to training for new farming entrants. At level four, a land trust is set up for purchasing new land, so that the collective effort could deliver further development plans. 96

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

TRANSITION STAGES

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

TRANSITION REGIONALSTAGES MAP: OXFORDSHIRE REGIONAL MAP: OXFORDSHIRE

B C B F

D F

E E

A I

Nature Restoration

Crop Diversity

Sustainablity

Infrastructure

Community

COMPLEXITY OF IMPLEMENTATION Crop Diversity

Sustainablity

Infrastructure

Community

Industry

COMPLEXITY OF IMPLEMENTATION

Fig. 116. Map of farms and clusters in the Oxfordshire region by Enrico Luo and Nelly Wat

To understand the four levels with case studies, we contextualised the four-level model with farms in the Oxfordshire region that have already undergone varying degrees of transformation. The amount of land devotion to each of the four factors, environment, crops, infrastructure and community, can be summarised in percentage of the overall land. As the transformation reaches more maturity, not only can the area collectively develop more large scaled environmental strategies, more portion of the land can be dedicated to the public, in forms of access, management and engagement. The level four example at Sylva Woodland (I) demonstrates the creation of a publicly managed woodland and subsequently its engagement with the local community as a new sustainable timber industry was created to provide jobs for the area. 98

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

LEVEL 1 : CONNECTION

A CALCOT

neighbourhood crop diverstiﬁcation

1999

2013

2019

20% crop diversity

B FRIDESWIDE 1999

30% crop diversity

collective reforestation across farms

2007

2018

15% land dedication

LEVEL 2 : CLUSTER

C BAMPTON 2004

10% new woods

reforestation + crop diversiﬁcation

2009

10% crop diversity

2021

5% new woods

8% new woods

15% crop diversity

Fig. 117. Sample sustainable farms and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

collective reforestation + crop diversiﬁcation

2003

2009

2019

5% new woods

RECTORY FARM

2003

10% new woods

2009

2020

40% crop diversity

crops diversiﬁcation+ farming facility improvement

10% crop diversity

100

2000

5% facilities

2007

2018

5% new woods

2005

H WASHP

30% facilities

LEVEL 4 : COMMONS

F WATER EATON

G BLACKL

30% crop diversity

sustainable anchor farm neighbourhood transformation

25% new woods

2003

LEVEL 3 : STEWARDSHIP

LEVEL 2 : CLUSTER

D WOODEATON

I SYLVA W 2003

15% crop diversity

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

019

oods

LEVEL 3 : STEWARDSHIP

estation + crop diversiﬁcation

G BLACKLAND ORGANICS 2005

sustainable anchor farm + sustainable facilities

2010

2019

30% crop diversity 20% crop diversity

ghbourhood transformation

H WASHPOOL LANE

020

2000

% facilities

40% crop diversity

018

30% facilities

2006

I SYLVA WOODLAND 2003

15% crop diversity

40% crop diversity

5% community land

sustainable energy development

15% crop diversity

LEVEL 4 : COMMONS

arming facility improvement

10% facilities

2019

35% green industry

30% crop diversity

community woodlands + timber industry

2009

10% new woods

5% new woods

2021

5% education + industry

8% community land 30% new woods

Figs. 118 & 119. Sample farms and levels of environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

101

LEVEL IV

LEVEL III

LEVEL II

LEVEL I

The spectrum of transformation visualises how a 500 x 500 m extent of conventionally practiced monocrop farm can undergo transition through the four levels. As the y axis indicates increasing natural restoration and the x axis indicates increasing crops diversity, the diagonal line demonstrates the condition at each level. 102

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

LEVEL IV

LEVEL III

LEVEL II

Enviornmental Coverage

LEVEL I

LEVEL 0

Crop Diversity Fig. 120. Levels of environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

103

TRANSITION STAGES

STAGE 1 5%

STAGE 2 5% 10% 5%

COMPLEXITY

Environmental Strategies Nature Restoration

STAGE 3 25% 35%

Crop Diversity Crop Diversification Infrastructure Improvement Infrastructure

Community Public + Community

10% Fig. 121. Land allocation at each transition stage

by Enrico Luo

level 1: local communication sharing of knowledge + tools As more areas are rewilded and more crops are introduced, the model also adds a growing levels of public dedication.

STAGE 4

Tools + knowledge sharing

35%

+5%

Growing same crops near neighbours', 35% diversification 20%

+10%

10%

+5%

level 2: identify common goals 104

sharing of strategies + schemes + grants

This model can be summarised into percentages, with suggested portion of land dedicated to each of the four aspects, serving 5% as a guidance for farmers to plan out their transformation from one stage to another. At stage four, additional land outside the original boundaries of the cluster can be purchased with the establishment of a common land trust. The cluster can be operated as a collective with the achievement of community ownership. By pooling their land and financial resources together, individual farm owners can achieve greater potentials in the long-term development.43

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

EXITY

sharing of knowledge + tools

Tools + knowledge sharing Growing same crops near neighbours', diversification

Land Devotion

level 2: identify common goals

CLUSTER

20%

Community

level 1: local communication

CONNECTION

Land Devotion

Infrastructure

sharing of strategies + schemes + grants

Nature recovery: environmental corridors / pockets

Landscape recovery: flooding / soil improvement

Rotational farming + temporary land swaps

Infrastructure improvement: road + farm facilities

New farming entrants training

level 3: shared ownership

STEWARDSHIP

land trust + sharing land + community engagement

70%

Growing crops across boundaries, diversification

35%

Landscape recovery: flooding / soil improvement

25%

Infrastructure improvement: road + farm facilities

10%

Common land for community + training new entrants

Land Devotion

COMMONS

100% Land Devotion

level 4: cluster expansion purchase new land + redistribute / pool land + development

Re-parcelled / re-distributed land for crop diversification

35%

Landscape recovery: flooding / soil improvement

35%

+5%

Additional lands for community + new entrants

10%

+10%

Infrastructure + tourism

20%

+5%

+20% Land Addition

Engagement with locals + industry Connect with nearby clusters: forming a super-cluster

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

105

TRANSITION STAGES

100 m

I ha

20 m

Crop Diversification At the scale of a farm, environmental techniques can be visualised spatially in these 20 x20m illustrations. Example 1,2 and 3 all result in better soil health and enhanced productivity. However, the feasibility of the “random mixed crop” and the “alternate thin rows mixed crop” ought to be considered; it would pose difficulties to separate each crop species for the latter distribution upon harvesting. Therefore, example four takes into account the operation of machinery on field, whilst still adapting to a mixed cropping strategy. With the suggested examples of changes, information on available environmental grants is also indicated. In the case of the creation of a two-metre beetle bank at a twenty metres interval in example 4, a hectare of such farmland would consist of 1000 square metres of bettlebank coverage, resulting in £57.3 per year. 106

Fig. 122. Alternate crop mixes and agroforestry practices by Enrico Luo

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

TRANSITION STAGES

20 m

Environmental Grants: Countryside Stewardship SW14: Nil Fertiliser Supplement £353 per ha per year

Environmental Grants: Countryside Stewardship AB3: Beetlebanks 2m width, 5 rows £57.3 per ha per year

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

107

TRANSITION STAGES

100 m

I ha

20 m

Reforestation To fully enhance the agroecological transformation, trees should be integrated with agricultural practices. Instead of conventionally growing along the perimeter of the boundary of a field (example 1) or a segregated “land sparing” approach, we suggest combining the activities shown in example 3 and 4. The introduction of trees to crop fields would enrich the soil nutrients for the nearby crops, as well as restoring carbon underground. 108

Fig. 123. Alternate crop mixes and agroforestry practices by Enrico Luo

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

TRANSITION STAGES

20 m

Environmental Grants: Countryside Stewardship TE4: Tree Plantation £960 per hac (750 trees)

Environmental Grants: Countryside Stewardship BE3: New Hedges Plantation, 11 rows £12760 per ha

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

Environmental Grants: Countryside Stewardship OR3: Rotational Grazing Conversion, £175 per ha per year

109

FUNDING

To fund this transition at each stage, we examined public schemes that could benefit smaller farmers if they collaborate – most notably, the Natural England Facilitation Fund. However, this fund, part of the countryside stewardship program, will be phased out and replaced by the ELM. The ELM began its first programs this year and will be scaled up after 2024.44 Depending on the level of engagement, the ELM rewards farmers for managing their land sustainably. Smaller farms, however, have less land and less capital to undertake major rewilding projects. At each stage, we identified a number of actions and their potential grants. The first stage is to form connections between neighbouring farms, and discuss the potential and benefits of forming a cluster. The next stage involves seeking funding, identifying an “anchor” farm, and forming a cluster with a framework of common strategies. The farmers we surveyed expressed concern that the ELM will not provide near enough funding as the BPS and Countryside Stewardship, meaning that they will have to make budget cuts while increasing productivity, and look for alternative sources of funding. To receive more funding from existing grants, farmers will have to work together. At the second stage, forming a cluster will allow small farmers to pool resources and undertake environmental projects collaboratively. Successful projects and more advanced strategies will result in a higher sum of public grants received. At this time, the implementation of a New Entrants Agroecological Startup Scheme is crucial; DEFRA is currently developing this scheme in consultation with farmers and working groups who are campaigning to ensure smaller farms and young entrants are prioritized.45 At this critical stage in the transition, the cluster should begin to consider more resilient strategies, including sharing land for rotational grazing and cropping. The third stage in this transition involves the beginning of the formation of Community Land Trusts. Using the existing cluster as the organizational structure, farmers can transfer their land holdings into a common trust in which all member farms hold shares. This is beneficial for undertaking cluster-wide strategies across farm boundaries. After pooling their land, resources, and funds, the CLT may also find a suitable site that farmers agree would be better managed by the cluster to benefit them and the local community, and purchase this land.46 At the fourth stage, the cluster connects with neighbouring clusters to share common strategies and knowledge, and to potentially form a supercluster. Clusters can develop a joint business plan, expanding their common lands. Clusters can also use existing or newly acquired shared land to support new entrants, and collaborate to create a local farmers market. Ultimately, by the fourth stage of this transition, participating farms will have created networks between conservation areas, shifted from individual ownership to stewardship of the commons, and created more open access land.

110

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

FUNDING

Figs. 124 & 125. Projected grants received during transition period by Nelly Wat

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

111

FUNDING

Fig. 126. Funding and responsibilities through the transition period by Nelly Wat

112

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

FUNDING

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

113

VISUALIZATION TOOL

Sketch Margins

Output Willowbrook

Village Farm

Trees Hedgerows Walnut Tree

Beetle banks

Hampton Gay

Eraser

EXISTING

Figs. 127-130. Visualization tool by Nelly Wat

To accompany the farmers’ handbook, we propose a visualization tool for farmers to visualize opportunity areas and margins running between their land and that of neighbouring farms. This user platform would take as input the user’s drawing of crop margins and trees, and subsequently generate an image. 114

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

VISUALIZATION TOOL

Sketch Margins

Output Willowbrook

Village Farm

Trees Hedgerows Walnut Tree

Beetle banks

Hampton Gay

Eraser

LEVEL 1 Joe (Walnut Tree) I can work with Hampton Gay to plant trees on our shared border.

By identifying opportunity areas for collaboration and green corridors running between neighbouring farms, farmers can better communicate their landscape ideas with neighbours at each transition stage. These farms are hence more capable of working cooperatively on their adjacent plots of land to share tools and machinery, grow similar crops, rewild together, and ultimately acquire community-owned land. Farmers will be equipped with shared resources and strategies to mitigate labour shortages and increase production, while implementing educational models that provide work, training, and access to land to the next generation of farmers. IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

115

VISUALIZATION TOOL

Sketch Margins

Output Willowbrook

Village Farm

Trees Hedgerows Walnut Tree

Beetle banks

Hampton Gay

Eraser

LEVEL 2

Chris (Village Farm) The ‘dead space’ for tractors between my farm, Hampton Gay, and Walnut Tree can be reforested, as well as the border between me, Village Farm, and Walnut Tree

Charlotte (Hampton Gay) Walnut Tree told me about beetle banks...I can plant one with them and between my own crops, and receive more ELM grants.

116

I can receive more ELM grants if I plant trees and create woodland between my farm and Willowbrook.

Joe (Walnut Tree) I want to switch to more diverse, rotational cropping instead of monoculture. Planting a beetle bank with Hampton Gay would improve our soil health.

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

VISUALIZATION TOOL

Sketch Margins

Output Willowbrook

Village Farm

Trees Hedgerows Walnut Tree

Beetle banks

Hampton Gay

Eraser

LEVEL 3-4

Chris (Village Farm) Village Farm and I are sharing land for rewilding and rotational grazing.

Charlotte (Hampton Gay) I can share land with Walnut Tree for rotational cropping, so that we can receive grants and our soil can improve.

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

Willowbrook Farm and I can shared our land for agroforestry and rotational grazing - this will be better for the soil.

Joe (Walnut Tree) With the help with Village Farm and Willowbrook, I can now plant more trees and hedgerows, and grow rotational crops on the north half of the farm.

117

TECHNICAL REPORT III: GANS

Overview Our proposal includes a user platform for farmers to visualize opportunity areas and margins running between their land and that of neighbouring farms. This proposed platform would take as input the user’s drawing of crop margins and trees, and subsequently generate a rendered image depicting crop margins and trees in accordance with these inputs. These output features could potentially visualize new designated spaces to be farmed or managed collaboratively, effectively forming a green network between multiple small-scale farms across the land boundaries. To explore the machine learning component of this tool, we used GANs to train a model to produce an image from a sketch of farm boundaries and trees. While the results were limited by time and technical constraints, the preliminary exploration of this tool yielded results that demonstrated the functionality of our proposed visualization tool, and how this tool has the potential to support small farmers to complement our design thesis.

Python, Google Colaboratory, Pix2Pix Road classifications are filtered and visualised in a thickness hierarchy according to traffic flow. The analysis predominately assesses Motorways and A Roads, with sporadic inclusion of B Roads at necessary key connection nodes, The connectivity analysis is based on the remapping of population distribution against nearby settlements, as well as using a geographic grid system to assess the percentage population aged 16-35 who are potentially suitable to meet the increase labour demand in the proposed cluster. The development of our visualization tool relied upon an image-to-image translation model using generative adversarial networks (GANs), based on the Pix2Pix GANs model developed by Isola et al.47 Using a conditional generative adversarial network (cGAN) in line with the Pix2Pix framework, we trained the model to take an input of a user’s drawing of crop margins and trees, and output a rendered image. Our proposed model was developed in three stages:

118

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

(1) compiling a dataset of aerial imagery of farmlands and the processed versions of those images; (2) training the GAN model; and (3) developing the user interface.

!python train.py --dataroot ./datasets/facades --name crops_pix2pix --model pix2pix --direction AtoB --display_id 0 !python test.py --dataroot ./datasets/crops --direction AtoB --model pix2pix --name crops_pix2pix !python test.py --dataroot ./datasets/testA --model test --name pix2pix --direction AtoB --checkpoints_dir trained_model --netG resnet_9blocks

The stages of the GANs training process are twofold; our model first requires aerial images paired with a sketched version of that image that identifies crop margins and tree crowns. To work within time constraints, we used three existing educational datasets of high-quality RGB aerial drone images of agricultural land from senseFly, covering 396 hectares in total. A dataset of 400 image pairs was compiled by drawing margins and the outlines of tree crowns manually for each aerial image. 250 drawings were produced within a reasonable time frame, but in order to save time, and to reach a total of 400 image pairs to begin training without compromising output quality, 150 of these pairs were “augmented” by rotation or “flipping” them, such that the machine learning mechanism would recognize them as distinct images. The machine-learning procedure was then trained using this dataset of aerial images and their sketched counterpart images.

Results and Limitations The resulting two-directional test images were fairly high-quality and realistic, though a one-directional test yielded slightly lower-quality outputs. The quality of these outputs were likely impacted by time constraints; ideally this model would be trained using aerial images of farms in England, but extracting such images using Python proved to be too time and labour intensive. Moreover, future modifications to this tool could better incorporate the rendering of tree crowns by drawing shapes with fills for the sketched counterparts of the training dataset rather than simple outlines to represent the location of trees. Future implementations could also explore the addition of beetle banks, hedgerows, roads, and other landscape features to this visualization tool. Figs. 131-133. GANs training results by Nelly Wat

IV. A FARMER’S HANDBOOK FOR RE-CREATING THE COMMONS

This model could be incorporated into an interface that allows users to input a drawing of crop margins and tree locations in order to generate a rendered vision as output. The interface could then allow for users to continuously modify their input and constraints, and view the results to inform decisions regarding land management, rewilding, and collaboration with neighbours.

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V. LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION CLUSTER, SUPERCLUSTER, COMMONS

The next chapter outlines the environmental strategies drawn from the expertise of farmers we visited and applies these strategies to the potential Willowbrook cluster. We visualize these landscape transformations and the projected funding farmers can receive through collaboration as a cluster. Next, we address the issue of food in the UK, and the need to transform agriculture as a whole to promote food sovereignty; we argue that the farmer cluster model presents an opportunity for small farmers to establish a local food network in their region, benefitting the farmers themselves while promoting the cultural value of sustainably and locally sourced produce. Additionally, we envision a supercluster corridor across the UK that joins small farmers together to promote resilient farming communities, create more open access land, and collaboratively rewild the UK - ultimately constituting the new commons.

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CROP DIVERSIFICATION

BEFORE

Fig. 134. Crop diversification diagram by Enrico Luo

The four proposed stages of transition will be realized spatially at the Willowbrook site and the landscape transformations at each level – from cluster, to supercluster, to commons. With the sharing of land, new crops can be introduced by growing over boundaries adjacent to neighbours.

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CROP DIVERSIFICATION

BEFORE

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AFTER

123

CROP DIVERSIFICATION

LOCAL AGRICULTURAL OUTPUTS

Fig. 135. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

The existing crop distribution pattern of monocrop practices can be diversified through cross-boundaries collaborations. Farmers can exchange knowledge and facilities to collectively diversify crops over previous boundaries for more efficient management.

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125

CROP DIVERSIFICATION

Fig. 136. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

Adjacent grazing areas can also be shared and managed together to undertake rotational grazing, as well as implementing agroforestry grazing as the collaboration develops, to restore environmental qualities such as soil health. The sharing of crops would reconfigure the original crop divisions, as land parcels become more divided and farm boundaries are blurred.

126

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127

CROP DIVERSIFICATION

Fig. 137. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

128

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129

CROP DIVERSIFICATION

Fig. 138. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

130

V. LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION

131

CROP DIVERSIFICATION

Fig. 139. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

132

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133

PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Figs. 140 & 141. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

Similarly, facilities can be scaled up from grazing sheds to communal centres. With community ownership, new land could be purchased and a portion could be dedicated for new farming entrants, with facilities such as sheds for rotational grazing over shared land.

134

V. LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION

PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

V. LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION

135

PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Fig. 142. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

Public infrastructure and facilities can be gradually improved from local to cluster scale to accommodate a localised agricultural supply. Internal roads can be firstly improved to more easily access the farms. Machinery and storage facilities can be improved between neighbouring farms to pool resources, such as livestock sheds for rotational grazing.

136

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137

PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Fig. 143. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

138

V. LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION

139

PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Fig. 144. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

With the achievement of community ownership, additional land could be purchased and a portion could be dedicated for new farming entrants and training.

140

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141

PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Fig. 145. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

As the model reaches to level four, the cluster could be replanned to obtain a centralised public area dedicated for tourism and education, as well as improving connections to nearby towns with the addition of new roads. The area would thrive with the new developments bringing tourism and educational visits, with an overall increased land value in favour of the farm owners as well as nearby communities.

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143

ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGIES

BEFORE

AFTER

Figs. 146-148. Environmental strategies diagrams by Enrico Luo

The environmental strategies consist of three criteria, topography, flooding and natural networks. Steep topographical areas would be better reforested or adopt forms of agroforestry, as it’s unsuitable for cropping due to the uneven surface. Restoring the environment along riverbanks can contribute to flooding prevention. Scattered existing woodlands, hedges, and corridors can be connected to promote biodiversity and continuity, at a cluster scale as well as joining up with nature reserves beyond the cluster.

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ENVIRONMENTAL STRATEGIES

V. LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

145

CLUSTER

Grants (cluster total) Arable buffer strips (ha) £353/ha Corridors (ha) £556/ha per yr

£2,308.62

£411.44

maintenance for created woodlands (ha) woodland edges (ha) £323/ha

£1,180.00

£682.18

woodland improvement areas

£5,163.00

new plant tree areas (ha) £1.28 / tree

£11,328.00

total hedges £8/ m

£99,672.00

New hedges (m) £11.6/ m

£11,333.20

Rotational Grazing -Management

£278.85

Rotational Grazing -Created (ha) 2yrs

£707.00

£0.00

£25,000.00

£50,000.00

£75,000.00

£100,000.00

Fig. 149. Grants received over the transition period by Nelly Wat Fig. 150. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

With such gradual environmental restoration, farmers can collectively deliver strategies at a landscape scale to receive more grants such as the Countryside Stewardship, and the ELM at a later stage.

146

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147

CLUSTER

Fig. xx. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies

Grants (cluster total) Arable buffer strips (ha) £353/ha

£2,499.24

Corridors (ha) £556/ha per yr

£1,784.76

maintanace for created woodlands (ha) woodland edges (ha) £323/ha

by Enrico Luo

£2,322.00

£736.76

woodland improvement areas

£5,841.00

new plant tree areas (ha) £1.28 / tree

£10,963.20

total hedges £8/ m

£113,240.00

New hedges (m) £11.6/ m Rotational Grazing -Management

£12,400,40

£541.45

Rotational Grazing -Created (ha) 2yrs £0.00

£1,359.75

£25,000.00

£50,000.00

£75,000.00

£100,000.00

Fig. 151. Grants received over the transition period by Nelly Wat Fig. 152. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

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149

CLUSTER

Fig. xx. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies

Grants (cluster total) Arable buffer strips (ha) £353/ha

£2,506.30

Corridors (ha) £556/ha per yr

£3,914.24

maintanace for created woodlands (ha) woodland edges (ha) £323/ha woodland improvement areas

by Enrico Luo

£7,144.00

£888.25

£9,131.00

new plant tree areas (ha) £1.28 / tree

£46,291.20

total hedges £8/ m New hedges (m) £11.6/ m Rotational Grazing -Management Rotational Grazing -Created (ha) 2yrs £0.00

£121,792.00

£3,294.40

£1,046.50

£2,899.75

£25,000.00

£50,000.00

£75,000.00

£100,000.00

Fig. 153. Grants received over the transition period by Nelly Wat Fig. 154. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

150

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151

CLUSTER

Level 4

Fig. xx. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

Arable buffer strips (ha) £353/ha

£2,506.30

Corridors (ha) £556/ha per yr

£3,914.24

maintanace for created woodlands (ha) woodland edges (ha) £323/ha woodland improvement areas

£14,916.00

£1,097.23

£11,540.00

new plant tree areas (ha) £1.28 / tree

£74,611.20

total hedges £8/ m New hedges (m) £11.6/ m Rotational Grazing -Management Rotational Grazing -Created (ha) 2yrs £0.00

£124,064.00

£7,690.80

£1,563.25

£6,993.00

£25,000.00

£50,000.00

£75,000.00

£100,000.00

Fig. 155. Grants received over the transition period by Nelly Wat Fig. 156-158. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

By building on the cluster model, the Willowbrook site and Oxfordshire can form a more resilient farming community during the post-CAP transition, protecting smaller farms from being sold off to large landowners while creating the new commons – land that is managed collectively, regardless of ownership, such that the local community can benefit from its resources.

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153

154

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155

Global mileage

18390 km

National mileage

791 km

Local mileage

140 km

Proposed mileage

7 km

Local food supply

Willowbrook

Woodstock

10%

Local butchers Co-operative food

40%

An enterprise owned and managed by consumers 6.6% of UK grocery market

156

Tesco

15%

Sainsbury’s

15%

Iceland

10%

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Fig. 159. Willowbrook food mileage analysis by Enrico Luo

By promoting the development of the cluster, the Willowbrook area could supply a larger portion of the local market. With increased production of local food, imported food from global supermarket chains can be reduced, which would substantially reduce the carbon output caused by long travelling millage. For the nearby towns such as Kiddington, residents can choose to purchase from the Willowbrook cluster instead of existing supermarket chains. In the case of meat products, the distance travelled by a piece of meat from Willowbrook can be several thousand times shorter compared to an imported one from Australasia.

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157

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

Fig. 160. National food imports by Enrico Luo

Employing agroforestry practices and cross-boundary initiatives such as beetle banks can enable farmers to produce better food more sustainably, while maintaining productivity and protecting soil quality. The UK imports 45% of its vegetables as well as 84% of its fruits from overseas, primarily from European countries with a similar climate to the UK.48 In line with a Green New Deal for the UK, the Land Workers’ Alliance argues that increasing domestic production by 20% will be enough to substantially reduce emissions from transporting food from other countries.49 Currently, large farms (over 750ha) contribute to 81% of the national food production, congregated in the four main output areas. In addition, much food consumed within the UK is imported, undergoing long mileage and obtaining a high carbon footprint. The recent postBrexit trade deals signed by the government to import Australian beef further outlined the need for a domestic food supply.50

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Major sources of food Farms

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159

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

Major sources of food Farms Farmer clusters

Figs. 161 & 162. National food network by Enrico Luo and Mariam Zelimger

As the Land Workers Alliance urges the need to increase domestic food production up to 20%, a portion of the food supply can be decentralised with a locally oriented market with the implementation of farmer clusters on a national scale. The diversity of agricultural production can also be increased across the country as cluster farms communicate and exchange knowledge with one another. By promoting locally-sourced, sustainably grown, farm-to-table food, small farmers can benefit from creating a local market to sell their produce, while encouraging consumers to buy local. This can also promote food sovereignty and the cultural value of local, homegrown food in the UK.

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FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

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LAND AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY POST-BREXIT: A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY FOR THE UK

Land Reform with the Green New Deal

Written by Nelly Wat

CONSEQUENCES OF THE 2003 CAP REFORM

INTRODUCTION According to the National Farmers’ Union, the UK is highly dependent on the EU for importing food; the UK imports 45% of its vegetables as well as 84% of its fruits from overseas, primarily from European countries (Jordan, 2020). Presently, the UK has a negative trade deficit, producing less than 60% of its own food and importing the rest (Land Workers’ Alliance, 2017). In 2020, the UK withdrew from the EU, its largest trading bloc, and effectively left the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as well. This created both an urgent imperative to minimize disruption to domestic food production and ensure food security through new legislation, as well as an opportunity for the nation to transform its system of land management to be more sustainable, equitable, and accessible to all. The current system of land ownership and taxation in England is both ecologically and socially unsustainable; historical land and agricultural reforms throughout the centuries have produced a system that is currently favorable and highly profitable for large landowners, industrial farming, and corporations, while creating barriers to land and housing for farmers and the working class (Christophers, 2018; Tsouvalis & Little, 2020). Moreover, reforms to the CAP in the last two decades have arguably contributed to the increase in land prices, posing a greater barrier to young entrant farmers (Tsouvalis & Little, 2020; LWA, 2017). This paper examines the issue of land in relation to food security in England postBrexit, and argues for a transformation of

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the current system of land management in order to ensure food sovereignty, in line with a Green New Deal for the UK. To promote food sovereignty – the people’s right to healthy food that is produced with ecologically and socially sustainable practices, and their right to manage their own food systems – I argue that a new system of taxation and land management must be implemented alongside a new post-CAP agricultural policy that is socially just, promotes agro-ecological management practices, and supports future generations of land workers.

In 2003, the CAP underwent a significant reform that decoupled agricultural subsidies from farm production, on the condition that standards for environment, food safety, and animal welfare are satisfied (OECD, 2004). From 2005 onwards, farmers were no longer paid production premiums, but were granted direct payments based on the area of land they managed – known as the “single payment scheme”. These reforms were implemented under the assumption that economic incentives would make environmentally friendly management practices more profitable, and that less intensive farming would reduce agricultural outputs and hence produce fewer emissions (Schmid & Sinabell, 2007). However, this reform of the CAP has been heavily criticized for disproportionately benefitting large landowners, while driving up land prices and thus creating a barrier for younger entrant farmers (Tsouvalis & Little, 2020; Dowler & Carter, 2016; Taylor, 2017). In 2015, the UK received £3.2 billion in CAP subsidies, and three quarters went toward single payments – about £2.3 billion. Over two thirds of this single payment budget, or £1.6 billion, went to the top 20 percent of recipients, while the bottom 40% only received £85 million combined (Dowler & Carter, 2016). An investigation into the recipients of farm subsidies in 2015 found that the top 100 largest payments totalled £87.9m, of which £61.2m was granted by the single payment scheme – more than the total amount paid

V. LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION

to the bottom 55,119 recipients (Dowler & Carter, 2016). About 20% of recipients in the top 100 were businesses owned or managed by members of aristocratic families, including the Queen (Dowler & Carter, 2016). As a consequence of the 2003 reform, agricultural land prices rapidly inflated. As revenue per hectare increases, so does the price for a hectare, and thus the capitalization of subsidies produced barriers for entry into farming (Monbiot et al., 2019; LWA, 2017; Taylor, 2017). A significant proportion of EU expenditure is spent on farm subsidies; about 70% of the CAP budget, or 30% of the total EU budget, was allocated for the decoupled direct payments (Anania & Pupo d’Andrea, 2015). Rather than encourage environmentally friendly agricultural practices, the direct subsidy system rewards landowners for simply owning land, rather than for investing in environmental protection or rewilding initiatives (Lewis, 2019). Consequently, the poorest, least productive land, which could potentially store a large amount of carbon if rewilded, is farmed or used for grazing for the purpose of receiving subsidies. At the end of the European Commission’s 2015 financial year, the single payment scheme was replaced with the “basic payment scheme” (BPS) which was

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implemented to minimize loopholes in the previous single payment system and to reward farmers for the provision of public goods and preserving natural resources, or “greening.” Under this system, farmers are paid a green direct payment, constituting about 30% of their income, if they satisfy three mandatory greening actions: (1) crop diversification, requiring farmers to grow two or three different crops for improving the resilience of soil and ecosystems; (2) the maintenance of permanent grassland, which supports biodiversity and carbon sequestration; and (3) the dedication of 5% of arable land towards areas beneficial for biodiversity or Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs), such as trees, hedges, and fallow land (European Commission, n.d.). The environmental protection and rewilding incentives mandated under this system are a significant revision of the old single payment scheme, yet the BPS continues to grant subsidies based primarily on land ownership.

This has been called a “once in a generation” opportunity to address the shortcomings of the CAP, and to meet the goals necessary to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, including carbon sequestration, environmental protection, food security, and the wellbeing of rural communities (Wilson & Hall, 2020).

In preparation for the UK’s departure from the EU, policymakers were tasked with the challenge of writing new legislation that would minimize disruption to the food industry and transition smoothly from the CAP, of which the UK has been a part since 1973, towards a new agriculture bill that could impact the livelihoods of over 460,000 farm workers.

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FOOD AND FARMING POST-CAP: A NEW AGRICULTURAL POLICY Lang and McKee (2018) identify five potential risks to food security in the UK as a consequence of Brexit. Among these are the threats to food supply, labour shortages, and rising food prices. Firstly, given that the UK relies heavily on imports primarily from the EU, a post-Brexit transition may result in disruptions to movements of imports across borders. Moreover, this could result in higher quality food produced domestically, but a reliance on cheaper imports of potentially lower-quality food from countries with fewer environmental and animal welfare regulations (Benton et al., 2019). Secondly, domestic food production, which presently relies on full-time and seasonal migrant workers in agriculture, food manufacturing, and horticulture, could be disrupted by labour shortages resulting from the fall of the pound sterling, migrants losing their rights as EU citizens, and rising racism and xenophobia in the UK (Lang & McKee, 2018; Consterdine & Samuk, 2018). According to the British Summer Fruits Association, 98% of their seasonal harvesting staff in 2019 came from overseas, and are already facing labour shortages as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (BBC News, 2020). Despite recruitment efforts, UK residents demonstrate little interest in these jobs (Vanterpool, 2017). Thirdly, food prices could potentially rise following the exit from EU membership, particularly in the advent of a “hard Brexit,” whereby trade between the UK and EU would abide by World Trade Organization rules. Alternatively, the formation of special new trade agreements would be complex and time-consuming. In either case, food tariffs of about 22% would significantly raise consumer prices (Land & McKee, 2018). In 2020, the UK passed the new Agriculture Act, a landmark bill that will determine the future of farming in the country. The

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Agriculture Bill will shift away from the CAP’s system of direct payments based on land ownership, and instead pay farmers public money for “public goods” (Tsouvalis & Little, 2020). CAP regulations, including direct payments under the BPS, will be phased out over the next six years and replaced with the Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMs), which will roll out from 2024-2027. Farmers will be paid based on the provision of environmental services and benefits, including air, soil, and water quality, increased biodiversity, climate change mitigation, animal welfare, and heritage (Tsouvalis & Little, 2020). However, as a consequence of Brexit, the UK’s reliance on cheaper imports could undercut prices for British farmers who must meet higher standards, generating economic pressure that could devastate rural communities (LWA, 2021). The UK is capable of producing the majority of its own food, particularly seasonal vegetables in the summer months, but relies on imports in colder months (Jordan, 2020; LWA, 2021). 60% of the UK’s trade deficit is produced in countries with a very similar climate to Britain - mostly northern European countries (LWA, 2021). To address the threats to food security and the wellbeing of rural communities posed by the post-Brexit transition, the Agriculture Bill must be amended further in conjunction with a transformation of the current system of land management itself. About 70% of land area in the UK, or 17.4 million hectares, is under agricultural management (World Bank, 2018). Policy recommendations from the Land Workers’ Alliance (LWA), a union of small-scale farmers and land-based workers for social justice, as well as Land for the Many, a report commissioned by the Labour Party, argue

that the privatization and capitalization of land underlies a multitude of contemporary inequities, including limited access to land and unaffordable housing (LWA, 2017; Monbiot et al., 2019). Among 2,205 farmers under the age of 40 in the EU, 61% found availability of land for purchase the greatest barrier to entering farming (Zondag et al., 2015). Moreover, LWA argues that the 2020 Agriculture Bill must be amended to protect UK farmers from being undercut by cheap low-standard imports, and to support a transition towards agroecological farming through subsidies, training, and economic incentives (Wetherell, 2020). Supporting the next generation of farmers and land workers is crucial to this transition; the UK requires about 157,000 more farmers and land workers in order to maximize production from agro-ecological farms. Drawing from the policy recommendations of LWA and Land for the Many, the necessary actions for supporting food sovereignty in post-Brexit Britain are threefold: (1) increasing access to land for entrant farmers through tax reforms that aim to stabilize land prices, discourage land hoarding, and support smaller, more crop-diverse farms; (2) increasing domestic production and reducing food imports by 20%; and (3) supporting entrant farmers through aiding startup costs and funding apprenticeships for agroecological farming. As the UK transitions away from the previous system of agricultural subsidies under the CAP, there remains both an urgent need as well as an opportunity for the nation to radically restructure its system of land management, and set the course for the future of farming.

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REFERENCES Anania, G., & Pupo d’Andrea, M. R. (2015). The 2013 Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. In The Political Economy of the 2014-2020 Common Agricultural Policy. An Imperfect Storm. (pp. 33–86). CEPS. BBC News. (2020, March 24). Fruit and veg growers call for workers to “feed the nation.” BBC News. https://www.bbc. com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-52019810 Benton, T. G., Froggatt, A., Wright, G., Thompson, C. E., & King, R. (2019). Food Politics and Policies in Post-Brexit Britain. Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs. https://www.sipotra.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/FoodPolitics-and-Policies-in-Post-Brexit-Britain.pdf Christophers, B. (2018). The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain. Verso Books. Consterdine, E., & Samuk, S. (2018). Temporary Migration Programmes: the Cause or Antidote of Migrant Worker Exploitation in UK Agriculture. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 19(4), 1005–1020. https://doi. org/10.1007/s12134-018-0577-x Dowler, C., & Carter, L. (2016, September 28). Common Agricultural Policy: Rich List receive millions in EU subsidies. Unearthed. https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2016/09/29/ common-agricultural-policy-millions-eu-subsidies-gorichest-landowners/ European Commission. (n.d.). Income support. European Commission. Retrieved April 19, 2021, from https://ec.europa. eu/info/food-farming-fisheries/key-policies/commonagricultural-policy/income-support_en Hamer, E. (2012). Can Britain Farm Itself? The Land Magazine. Issue 12, p.24-28 Jordan, D. (2020, December 23). How dependent is the UK on the EU for food? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/ business-55408788 Land Workers’ Alliance. (2017). Hands on the Land: New Entrants in Agriculture. Land Workers’ Alliance. https:// landworkersalliance.org.uk/supporting-new-entrants/ Land Workers’ Alliance. (2021). A Vision for Positive Change: Building global food sovereignty through trade of food and agricultural products. Land Workers’ Alliance. https:// landworkersalliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/AVision-For-Positive-Trade.pdf Lang, T., & McKee, M. (2018). Brexit poses serious threats to the availability and affordability of food in the United Kingdom. Journal of Public Health, 40(4), e608–e610. https://doi. org/10.1093/pubmed/fdy073

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Lewis, S. (2019, October 1). Rewild 25% of the UK for less climate change, more wildlife and a life lived closer to nature. The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/rewild-25of-the-uk-for-less-climate-change-more-wildlife-and-a-lifelived-closer-to-nature-123836 Monbiot, G., Grey, R., Kenny, T., Macfarlane, L., Powell-Smith, A., Shrubsole, G., & Stratford, B. (2019). Land for the Many: Changing the way our fundamental asset is used, owned and governed. Labour Party of the UK. https://landforthemany. uk/3-for-the-many-not-the-few-a-fair-price-for-land/ OECD. (2004). Analysis of the 2003 CAP Reform. https:// www.oecd.org/eu/analysisofthe2003capreform.htm Schmid, E., & Sinabell, F. (2007). On the choice of farm management practices after the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2003. Journal of Environmental Management, 82(3), 332–340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jenvman.2005.12.027 Taylor, R. (2017, May 26). Britain’s farmers get £3bn a year from the inefficient CAP. That has to change. LSE BREXIT. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/05/26/britains-farmersget-3bn-a-year-from-the-inefficient-cap-that-has-tochange/ Tsouvalis, J., & Little, R. (2020, January 17). Agriculture Bill: here’s what it means for farming and the environment after Brexit. The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/ agriculture-bill-heres-what-it-means-for-farming-and-theenvironment-after-brexit-130091 Wetherell, S. (2020). Amend the AG Bill. Landworkers’ Alliance. Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://landworkersalliance. org.uk/amend-the-ag-bill/ Wilson, P. B., & Hall, S. (2020). UK Agriculture Bill: how farming and forestry could co-exist happily. The Conversation. Retrieved April 19, 2021, from http://theconversation.com/ uk-agriculture-bill-how-farming-and-forestry-could-co-existhappily-151311 World Bank. (2018). Agricultural land (% of land area) - United Kingdom. Food and Agriculture Organization. https://data. worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS?locations=GB Vanterpool, L. (2017, July 19). The Impact of Brexit on the UK Food Industry. The Sterling Choice. https://www. thesterlingchoice.com/brexit-mean-food-sector/

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SUPERCLUSTER

LOW DENSITY

HIGH DENSITY

This transition at Willowbrook is a local scale model for a landscape transformation at a national scale, involving the formation of a supercluster corridor across the English countryside. This transformation has the potential to expand land-based social enterprises from small individual farms to community-managed commons with their own local market, supplying land access to the next generation.

Fig. 163. National cluster map by Nelly Wat Figs. 164 & 165. Supercluster corridor by Mariam Zelimger

Willowbrook Farmer clusters

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Cluster network Small farms

Cluster network Woodlands

We envision a supercluster corridor that functions across the regional and national scale, connecting isolated woodlands and habitats while ensuring the well-being of rural communities.

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COMMONS

Fig. 166. Supercluster corridor by Mariam Zelimger Figs. 167-169. Landscape transformation: the new commons by Mariam Zelimger and Enrico Luo

Low density

These buffer zones around existing clusters represent surrounding areas that could benefit from joining in collaboration or forming a cluster themselves – what could later constitute the national supercluster corridor.

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High density

Cluster network Woodlands Potential supercluster

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POTENTIAL REFOREST AREAS

NEW CONNECTIONS

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169

170

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NEW CONNECTIONS

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CONCLUSION

Figs. 170 & 171. Landscape transformation: the new commons by Mariam Zelimger and Enrico Luo

This transition on a national scale will be a protracted landscape transformation as well as an ideological one. Taking examples of rewilding and agro-ecological practice from precedent case studies, we visualized how the region can shift from a fragmented and privatized landscape to one that is collectively managed regardless of ownership – constituting the new commons. As this gradual transition takes place on a larger scale, the farmers’ handbook for re-creating the commons will expand to include notes from practice, new policies, and new strategies. Ultimately, this project aims to demonstrate the opportunity for the UK to finally address the issue of land, to entirely transform agriculture in the UK to confront the climate crisis, and undertake a socially and environmentally just redistribution of the English landscape.

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APPENDIX A: FARMER INTERVIEWS

Allerton Research & Educational Trust, Leicestershire, Joe Standly Notes from conversation: 3-08-2021 Site Visit CAP: optional environmental scheme (countryside Stewardship) 30% farmers engagement, dropped from the 60% engagement before 2016, due to complex application process. ELM poses an opportunity for more engagement from small farms, due to their economic needs to rely on ELM to survive. ELM is a replacement for Countryside Stewardship, but no new replacement for Basic Payments (BP), previous BP consists of a large portion of the income (i.e. as high as 90% for sheep farming) Certain places are less motivated by ELM, ie Lincolnshire, as there’s no livestock to deliver agroforestry and the profitability of farms not affected by the change of policies. No current funding opportunities for environmental initiatives and research, given merely based on results. Rewilding should be tied in with management and productivity, to avoid leaving farmlands in the state of a wasteland. Trail agroforestry at Alberton Trust - varying density, from 100 tree per ha to 16,000 trees per ha (similar to a commercial forest) Assess the soil quality, productivity, and how sheep adapt to it. Black tree covering > plastic green ones, voles can’t live in them. Wood posts for support, but sheep climbs onto it and eats trees: a learning experience. Agroforestry mix: hayfield + grazing + trees. New experiments with agroecological methods are good for tourism and educational visits. Some farmers are scared of experimenting with agroforestry, having an irreversible mindset of the permanent changes it causes to the soil, making it difficult to grow crops in the future. Climate change impact: spring wheat planted as winter wheats couldn’t be grown. (spring is less profitable) Wildflowers pollinators corridors need to be managed and ripped out every 2 years, otherwise won’t grow well. (for the strip of beetle bank in-between two wheat fields): 2m wide bank = £500 grants per ha (per year)

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Organic market is saturated, which further discourages farmers to undertake transitions. Knepp rewilding project: enabled through huge subsidies from the government Brexit on Food: the success of Brexit is based on the number of trade deals made, leading large foreign food exporters exploiting this opportunity. The UK signed a beef import deal from Australia. Sustainable approaches should be a whole field option, rather than conventionally just around the edges of a piece of land. Typically, sustainable practices dedicate 5% of pocket spaces to nature, Allerton is on 15-20%, with hedges, shrubs, beetle banks, and wildflower corridors. Managing the farm for game & shoot actually improves the biodiversity, despite some controversy over the shoot. Currently farmers make 7-8% of the profit of the food chain, the rest made by the rest of the food chain such as distributors, processors; farmers don’t negotiate the market price. After the ww2: many diverse agriculture types were converted to Cereal, to ensure the supply of basic energy food, nutrients were less important. Current fruit industry is bad: no migrant workers from EU allowed since 2016. Unskilled local workers tend to give up very quickly in recent seasons. Mixed cropping on a field enhances production, despite being difficult to sell and to distribute as its mixed when harvested. How to compensate for the sacrifice made by the ELM? Intensify production? GMO? Average farming age in the UK: 59 No proper training programme at the moment, or ways of entry for young farmers. Young farmer could only come through family farms, older generations are more set in the traditional farming mindset. Young generations find it easy to be involved and hard to be in charge. Council farms and county farms don’t provide enough opportunities for entrants, often more in favour of leasing out to existing neighbour farms for longer periods. The freedom of tenant farmers to deliver environmental schemes is limited under the current land system.

Calmsden Farm, Gloucestershire, with Mark Tufnell Notes from conversations 15-08-2021 Site Visit

Beetle travels from bank into the field, its predator comes into the field and their interference is good for the wheat’s growth.

Previous CAP system based on production amount resulted in surplus production till 1990s, when the area-based payments were introduced.

The difficulty to transition to organic farm due to the labelling and market prices: Year 0: Conventional food: standard price, standard yield. Year 1: Conventional food: standard price, reduced yield. Year 2: Conventional food: standard price, reduced yield. Year 3: labelled as “organic food”: high price, reduced yield.

Some local farmers weren’t fully convinced by the idea of a farmer cluster at the start, many wondered ‘what’s in it for me?’ As a lead farm, Calmsden discusses the overall plan with cluster participants, aiming to ultimately meet the Landscape Recovery Programme (ELM) to meet larger environmental payment for greater scaled interventions. The potential downside of environmental participation is the certainty to

VI. APPENDIX

APPENDIX A: FARMER INTERVIEWS

transition successfully, having to suffer the cost of such actions. Conventional monocrop hollows the topsoil, where it would produce very little yields. Restoring the soil condition would significantly improve the nutrient quality of the crops, as well as being able to sell at a higher price. The best oats at Calmsden are £20 higher than standard ones per tonne. The cereal produced at Calmsden are supplied to Jordans Cereal at Bedfordshire, who partners with sustainable farms. Currently EU’s agricultural legislation is better than the ones in the UK, it also doesn’t undermine small farms where there has been a tendency to dispose small farms and convert to larger ones in the UK. Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF) has proposed a national recovery network, similar to the targets of farmer clusters to imply connections, but at a larger scale.

Willowbrook Farm, Oxfordshire, with Lutfi and Ruby Radwan Notes from conversations 15-08-2021 Site Visit Large land owners current receives lots of money for doing nothing, the land system should be changed. The current top-down policies are fundamentally not working. There should be a stress on collectiveness, but not too communist in a Stalin way. Currently many people don’t have access to land, especially crucial in the urban setting. Allotments are a way to engage with the community. The beauty of allotments is the sense of sharing, whilst each parcel is individually owned. Having access to the countryside is great for the mentality. Many farmers are emotionally and mentally dissented to the idea of a collaboration, making it difficult to connect with each other at a landscape scale. As smaller farms don’t have the land and the resources to set aside for environmental strategies, they have to integrate on the farms. over 6000 trees have been planted over a 18-year period at Willowbrook. The farming chain should be localised, at Willowbrook, workers are employed in the local area and the food produced mostly supply the Oxfordshire market, such as farmers markets, whereas a neighbouring farm employs one person to cover 1000 acres. Using heavy machineries, the profit does not contribute as much to the local economy. The food business is dominated by chained supermarkets, not enough market is created for local small farmers. The excessive application process and lack of support of current environmental schemes such as the countryside stewardship can stop some farmers from participating. ________________________________________________ 2-06-2021 Emails Q: Were you impacted by past/current reforms to agricultural policies in the UK, such as the EU Common Agricultural Policy or the recently passed Agriculture Bill 2020?

VI. APPENDIX

A: This hasn’t really kicked in so currently little change. Large estates get money for doing nothing in particular. The environmental works are often simply to leave land aside. Small farmers don’t have land to leave aside and sustainable farmers are not really rewarded for always protecting the sustainability of their land as a matter of course. Most importantly no farmers are penalised for using heavy machinery, pesticides, fertilisers or overuse of medication. So in a sense we are penalised for covering the costs of ‘externalities’ in our farming and factory farmers aren’t. They get us and other taxpayers to bear the cost of the damage they cause. Q: Did you transition to sustainable/organic farming, or were you established as a sustainable farm to begin with? How did you go about making this transition, and what were some challenges? A: Started 20 years ago from an academic career to peasant farmer. Main challenges the sheer hard manual work. Racism and hostility from a few rural residents. Bias from planning. Lack of money and resources to keep going. Q: Were there any barriers to entering farming? A: Loads. lack of finance, negativity of planning to this type of farming, market imbalances that make industrial farming so cheap and ‘real’ farming so expensive, lack of consumer awareness and in our case racial discrimination. Q: Are there any challenges or barriers that you currently face as farmers/ agricultural workers? For example, are you currently facing any labour shortages or difficulty with sustaining/increasing food production? If so, do you have any specific ideas of changes that policymakers should make to support agricultural workers? A: Basically, level the playing field. Charge non-sustainable farming so we are not disadvantaged in pricing our produce. No problems with labour. Q: What is your vision for post-Brexit and post-CAP agriculture? What are your thoughts about this transitional phase? A: Would like to see it as an opportunity for support to be based on real environmental stewardship but do not really expect either that aspect to be seriously addressed (despite the fake wording in the documents), nor do I expect any curbs on cheap food imports. So I expect a smooth transition from a bad agricultural policy to a similarly bad agricultural policy. Q: What policies would you like to see being passed to improve the wellbeing of farmers? A: Increased taxation of industrial farming leading to the eventual banning of its unsustainable practices and of its produce in shops. Q: Do you have any thoughts on Scottish land reforms and the Community Right to Buy model? A: Any interventions in this regard are important. Land redistribution to reverse the landed aristocracy created first by the enclosures and then by the industrialist and subsequent other capitalist classes that have bought up all the land in the UK and provide access to farming for the British working classes whose ancestors were dispossessed. Recognition of the colonial legacy of many of the estates and land trusts in the UK and attempts to affect some form of reparations towards PoC in the UK. The list is endless. Not gonna hold my breath.

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Montague Farm, Sussex, with Martin Hole Notes from conversations 12-05-2021 Emails Q: Were you impacted by past/current reforms to agricultural policies in the UK, such as the EU Common Agricultural Policy or the recently passed Agriculture Bill 2020? A: The imminent loss of Single Farm Payment, more than three quarters of our farm profit, is going to be a catalyst for some major change. Here we are cutting costs and reducing stock numbers, looking for a maximum sustainable output of beef and lamb from a more resilient all grass system. Over 5 years we have cut our organic flock from 900 ewes to 550, and our organic suckler herd from 75 to 55 cows. Reducing costs, especially feed, medicines and labour and adding better performance, higher kill weights and lower mortality should help profitability despite reduced turnover. Lower stock numbers should also make more room for nature. Q: Did you transition to sustainable/organic farming, or were you established as a sustainable farm to begin with? How did you go about making this transition, and what were some challenges? A: We have been organic for 22 years, growing from 100 hectares to 280 hectares in this time. Nature conservation payments have been central to repaying mortgages on the increased area, as has some diversification into residential conversions on the farm and a wedding venue launching this year. Q: Were there any barriers to entering farming? A: Barriers to entry are simply financial. A sound business plan and a good record has helped secure borrowing. Q: Are there any challenges or barriers that you currently face as farmers/ agricultural workers? For example, are you currently facing any labour shortages or difficulty with sustaining/increasing food production? If so, do you have any specific ideas of changes that policymakers should make to support agricultural workers? A: For our low input extensive grazing enterprise skilled labour is always at a premium. An industry paring costs, though is not conducive to encouraging better wages for workers. Perhaps the biggest problem for us, as we seek to conserve bird populations across our grazing marshes is a lack of participation in appropriate management by neighbours. Scale is essential, and we cannot protect the wildlife as a single entity. We have started a cluster group to try and address this, but it is slow work! Q: What is your vision for post-Brexit and post-CAP agriculture? What are your thoughts about this transitional phase? A: Post CAP and Brexit farming in England is facing a radical shake-up, as many farmers rely on subsidy. It is an opportunity for nature conservation to get bigger, better, more and joined. Market prices are strong currently, but farmers have no safety net of subsidy, so must seek resilient strategies. Simply getting bigger may be a mistake without qualitative changes and improvements to husbandry. Q: What policies would you like to see being passed to improve the wellbeing of farmers?

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A: I would like to see much better conservation payments and longer-term agreements with wildlife at their heart. Q: Do you have any thoughts on Scottish land reforms and the Community Right to Buy model? A: As someone who has qualified professionally, borrowed money and worked hard I feel that land reform may well not help family farmers like ourselves. I fundamentally disagree with state land purchase, seeing it as totalitarian and squashing initiative. Better equability must come about through public private partnership. Better land use is the challenge.

Plaw Hatch Farm, Sussex, with Mary Notes from conversations 8-06-2021 Phone calls Q: Did you transition to sustainable/organic farming? How did you go about making this transition, and what were some challenges? A: We have been organic from the beginning, for 40 years, Q: What are your thoughts on the Environmental Land Management in providing grants for delivering environmental and natural restoration? A: It’s quite difficult to farm organically, we don’t use fertilisers in any way, at the beginning it is quite difficult to get the balance right between the biodiversity on the farm, or what works for you without chemicals, but that’s an on-going process and we deal with it every single day. Q: What is your vision for post-Brexit and post-CAP agriculture? What are your thoughts and opportunities about this transitional phase, such as the EU Common Agricultural Policy or the recently passed Agriculture Bill 2020? A: We are quite alarmed; it seems that if you are horrible at farming and prepared to make really small changes and you get big rewards. And for the farms are already doing regenerative farming, in its entirety there is not much where we can go, so the benefits of these existing farms as far as I can see, is minimal! Really the landowners are going to make really small change, to me it is not helping farmers who are already farming in a regenerative way. Q: What does your supply chain look like? A: We are a very small farm (73.4 ha) our whole ethos is that we supply our community with food, we are well-managed, we don’t export, and we don’t import and that’s basically our whole purpose, so we won’t be affected by the prices. With Brexit, we are sustainable with staff resources as well, so we are slightly isolated form that, it won’t directly impact us. But it could make our consumers torn up and it may well make us concerned about that. Q: What are some of the challenges you currently face in the market? competition with industrial farms that supply global chains? A: Our customers come to us for our livestock management and farming methods, so they are not interested in industrial farming methods, in that respect I do not worry about competing with industrial farms at all.

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APPENDIX A: FARMER INTERVIEWS

Q: Do you source and supply for the local market? A: We have our own vegetables and chickens, we have a garden, so we sell what we produce at out farm shop, we do buy in the supplements, but we buy it as locally as possible. Q: Do you have any thoughts on Scottish land reforms and the Community Right to Buy, collective ownership of multiple neighbouring farmers? A: There is a local network here between farms and the shops that do work together. We have a community ownership.

Fobbing Farm, Essex, with George Young Notes from conversations 8-06-2021 Phone calls

it, which is a wild scene project, which is bringing together a couple of needs to commercial businesses, plus a wildlife trust, RSPB, I’m likely to try and get some funding like that as well. I think there are plenty of funding available, but you just need to be a bit creative about it. Apart from the woodland trust, there is no conventional farming that I found for it. Q: How has the recent policies, especially the ELM, affected your farming practice? A: Not at all, I have been doing irrelevant to what the policy said. I mean, the policy is so far behind is ridiculous, I am doing quite a lot of work at the moment, and I am reasonably sure that very little will actually end up being passed through into farming policy. Obviously leveraging bits and pieces where I can, and essentially any policies and stewardships that I can to make sure it complies but doing what I want rather than doing what the current guidance wants, which is nonsense.

Q: What are the main barriers and difficulties in applying agroforestry in farming for you? A: For me it was lucky to have a grant with woodland trust, but despite that it still costs me £15,000/16,000 to establish 50 acres, they (trust) paid me about £13,000. The grant is great, but still costs us, and obviously the time for establishments. Given the fact that it definitely exists in this part of Essex anymore but historically, there is less knowledge about what would do well. I got young trees this year, it is gonna be sitting still probably for anywhere between 4-5 years. And I will likely hit the entire farm for the coming 2 or 3 years after that so we will work out what seems to work well essentially. From other farming points of view, for farmers who can’t understand how it is going to work, most of them don’t understand, it a bit too different from conventional farming, lets say, those who are interested are a lot risk-averse than I am. Maybe I am quite happy taking risks in all of my businesses, which I certainly am more happy about personally. Q: What do you think are some of the benefits to establish agroforestry over time? How does it benefit your farming in the short and long term? A: I personally saw agroforestry critical to me being able to go organic in the way I want to go organic, I want to do a lot of grazing, so our trees are critical to grazing. To design a system to farm the way I want to farm in 15 years’ time. I mean, the benefits of having wild and undisturbed land, interconnected across your farm, that is to me the most integral part of agroforestry. They are not the perfectly tidy avenues, there are places that are a little bit more wild. So my biggest concern, generally, is biodiversity loss. We have got so little in the way of life, and the usage is in an appalling state with regard to this. Basically no one really believes, a few people certainly saying aren’t really believe us. That’s why I am trying my best to create these habitats on the farm. I am very much farming with nature and giving back as much as I can afford to nature. Q: What funding and subsidies are available for agroforestry at the moment? A: Woodland trust, I am going to a meeting at 5 and hope to find out what that is going to entail. I do believe there is hmm, I think you have to be a little bit creative to look for funding in agroforestry at the moment. If the woodland trust wasn’t there, I think you might have to be a bit creative. What I am working on is not agroforestry but there is a very similar bend to

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APPENDIX B: LIST OF FIGURES

Fig 1. A global atlas of wealth distribution and percentage of home ownership Fig. 2. Wivenhoe Park, John Constable, 1816, source: https://www.nga. gov/collection/art-object-page.1147.html Fig. 3. Haymaker, George Stubbs, 1780, source: https://www.tate.org.uk/ art/artworks/stubbs-haymakers-t02256 Fig. 4. Cornard Wood, Thomas Gainsborough, 1748, source: https://www. nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/thomas-gainsborough-cornard-woodnear-sudbury-suffolk Figs. 5-7. Land workers - by Mariam Zelimger Figs. 8-11. History of land ownership - by Enrico Luo, historical reference source: Shepherd, William R. Historical Atlas, (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1929). Fig. 12. Enclosure acts by Mariam Zelimger and Nelly Wat Fig. 13. farming in the Middle Ages, illustration in Queen Mary’s Psalter (c.1320) Fig. 14. Changing access to land through history by Nelly Wat Fig. 15. Consequential landscape by Enrico Luo Fig. 16. Land privatisation throughout history by Enrico Luo Fig. 17. Consequential landscape by Enrico Luo Fig. 18. Who Owns England? by Guy Shrubsole review - why this isn’t your land, retrieved from the Guardian, source: http://www.theguardian.com/ books/2019/apr/28/who-owns-england-guy-shrubsole-review-landownership Fig. 19. The Guardian view on the biggest privatisation: the land beneath our feet, retrieved from the Guardian, source: http://www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2019/mar/05/the-guardian-view-on-the-biggestprivatisation-the-land-beneath-our-feet. Fig. 20. The biggest privatisation you’ve never heard of: land. By Brett Christophers, retrieved from the Guardian, source: http://www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2018/feb/08/biggest-privatisation-land-margaretthatcher-britain-housing-crisis. Fig. 21. UK land owned by overseas companies: titles held by Nelly Wat

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Fig. 27 & 28. Industrial vs. sustainable farming by Mariam Zelimger Fig. 29. Industrial farm section by Mariam Zelimger Fig. 30. Sustainable farm section by Mariam Zelimger Fig. 31. Farm typology by Mariam Zelimger and Enrico Luo Fig. 32. County farms in Norfolk redrawn by Enrico Luo, Original image produced by Phillip Judge, source: https://whoownsengland. org/2018/06/08/how-the-extent-of-county-farms-has-halved-in-40years/. Fig. 33. Future generations at risk of losing benefit of our county farms, retrieved from Sustain, source: https://www.sustainweb.org/news/dec19_ reviving_county_farms_/. Fig. 34. Reviving country farms in England retrieved from Access to Land, source: https://www.accesstoland.eu/Reviving-County-Farms-inEngland. Fig. 35. Analysis of global land reform models by Enrico Luo Fig. 36. How small farms are leading the way towards sustainable agriculture, by Zareen Pervez Bharucha. Retrieved from Independent UK, source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/small-farmssustainable-agriculture-climate-change-africa-farming-a8786216.html. Fig. 37. Farmland Tax Breaks Revealed. Retrieved from ARC 2020, source: https://www.arc2020.eu/uk-farmland-tax-breaks-revealed/. Fig. 38. Green Britain: UK countryside can flourish now free of the EU’s common agricultural policy. Retrieved from Daily Express, source: https:// www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1398757/brexit-green-britain-biodiversityUK-eu-common-agricultural-policy. Fig. 39. Analysis of media coverage of policy proposals by Mariam Zelimger Fig. 40. Policy analysis by Mariam Zelimger Fig. 41. Text network analysis on web-scraped comments by Nelly Wat Fig. 42. Python script for web scraping Guardian comments by Nelly Wat Fig. 43 & 44. Text sentiment and network analysis by Nelly Wat Fig. 45. Map of farmer clusters in England by Nelly Wat

Fig. 22. Overseas-owned UK land by Enrico Luo

Fig. 46. Martin Down Supercluster. Original image retrieved from Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, drawing by Nelly Wat

Fig. 23. Map of farmlands in England by Enrico Luo

Fig. 47. Martin Down Farmer Cluster by Nelly Wat

Fig. 24. Map of large farms and agricultural land classification in England by Nelly Wat

Fig. 48. Martin Down Farmer Cluster: environmental strategies by Nelly Wat

Fig. 25. Map of large farms and agricultural outputs in England by Nelly Wat

Fig. 49. West Woodyates Partnership: environmental strategies by Nelly Wat

Fig. 26. Agricultural profit by region by Enrico Luo

Fig. 50. Map of sample sustainable farms by Mariam Zelimger

VI. APPENDIX

APPENDIX B: LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 51. Local analysis of labour skills and environmental health across sample sustainable farms by Enrico Luo

Fig. 106. Calmsden Farm site plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

Fig. 52. (left) Map of sample sustainable farms by Mariam Zelimger

Figs. 107-109. Photographs of Calmsden Farm by Enrico Luo

Fig. 53. (top) Local analysis of sample sustainable farms by Mariam Zelimger

Figs. 110-115. Environmental strategies at Calmsden Farm by Enrico Luo

Fig. 54. Map of farmer clusters in Oxfordshire by Nelly Wat Fig. 55. Map of Willowbrook site in Oxfordshire region by Enrico Luo Fig. 56. Map of farmer clusters in Oxfordshire by Nelly Wat Fig. 57. Map of Willowbrook site and surrounding clusters, catchment scale by Enrico Luo

Fig 116. Map of farms and clusters in the Oxfordshire region by Enrico Luo and Nelly Wat Figs. 117-119. Sample farms and levels of environmental strategies by Enrico Luo Fig. 120. Levels of environmental strategies by Enrico Luo Fig. 121. Land allocation at each transition stage by Enrico Luo

Figs. 58-63. Connectivity analysis of Willowbrook and surrounding region by Enrico Luo

Fig. 122 & 123. Alternate crop mixes and agroforestry practices by Enrico Luo

Fig. 64. National map of farmlands and Willowbrook regional site plan by Enrico Luo

Figs. 124 & 125. Projected grants received during transition period by Nelly Wat

Fig. 65. National map of farmlands and Essex regional site plan by Enrico Luo

Fig. 126. Funding and responsibilities through the transition period by Nelly Wat

Fig. 66. Regional site plan of proposed Willowbrook cluster and neighbouring clusters by Enrico Luo

Figs. 127-130. Visualization tool by Nelly Wat

Figs. 67-73. Photographs of Willowbrook Farm by Enrico Luo Fig. 74. Willowbrook Farm by Enrico Luo

Figs. 131-133. GANs training results by Nelly Wat Fig. 134. Crop diversification diagram by Enrico Luo

Fig. 75. Soil condition at neighbouring Walnut Tree Farm by Enrico Luo

Figs. 135-139. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

Fig. 76. National map of farmlands and site visit locations by Enrico Luo

Figs. 140 & 141. Environmental strategies diagrams by Enrico Luo

Figs. 77-80. Photographs of Willowbrook Farm by Enrico Luo

Figs. 142-145 . Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo

Figs. 81 & 82. Photographs of Allerton Research and Educational Trust by Enrico Luo Figs. 83-87. Photographs of Calmsden Farm by Enrico Luo Fig. 88. Photographs of Willowbrook, Willowbrook Farm, source: https:// www.willowbrookfarm.co.uk/visit Figs. 89 & 90. Photographs of Allerton and Calmsden by Enrico Luo Fig. 91. Educational incubator farm models by Nelly Wat Fig. 92. Feedback from farmers by Enrico Luo Fig. 93. Allerton Research and Educational Trust site plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo Figs. 94 & 95. Photographs of Allerton Research and Educational Trust by Enrico Luo Figs. 96-105. Environmental strategies at Allerton Research and Educational Trust by Enrico Luo

VI. APPENDIX

Figs. 146-148. Environmental strategies diagrams by Enrico Luo Figs. 149, 151, 153, 155. Grants received over the transition period by Nelly Wat Figs. 150, 152, 154, 156-158. Willowbrook plan and environmental strategies by Enrico Luo Fig. 159. Willowbrook food mileage analysis by Enrico Luo Fig. 160. National food imports by Enrico Luo Figs. 161 & 162. National food network by Enrico Luo and Mariam Zelimger Fig. 163. National cluster map by Nelly Wat Figs. 164-166. Supercluster corridor by Mariam Zelimger Figs. 167-171. Landscape transformation: the new commons by Mariam Zelimger and Enrico Luo

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APPENDIX C: ENDNOTES

1. Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs. “Environmental Land | Policy Discussion Document.” Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs, February 2020. 2. Land Workers’ Alliance. 2021. “Lump Sum and Delinked Payments.” Land Workers’ Alliance (blog). 2021. https://landworkersalliance.org. uk/lump-sum-delinked-payments-consultation-2021/.

Farmer interview - see Appendix A

3. Franco, Jennifer C., and Saturnino M. Borras. “A ‘Land Sovereignty’ Alternative? Towards a People’s Counter-Enclosure.” TNI Agrarian Justice Programme, July 6, 2012. https://www.tni.org/en/ publication/a-land-sovereignty-alternative-0. 4. Monbiot, George, Robin Grey, Tom Kenny, Laurie Macfarlane, Anna Powell-Smith, Guy Shrubsole, and Beth Stratford. “Land for the Many: Changing the Way Our Fundamental Asset Is Used, Owned and Governed.” Labour Party, June 2019. https://landforthemany. uk/. 5. Cosgrove, Denis E. Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape. University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. 6. McDonald, John and G. D. Snooks Statistical Analysis of Domesday Book (1086) Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General) , 1985, Vol. 148, No. 2 (1985), pp. 147-160 7. Self, Alexis, ‘What’s behind Britain’s perverse obsession with the housing market’ Prospect Magazines, 24, may, 2020. 8. Christophers, Brett. The New Enclosure. Verso Books, 2019. 9. Ibid. 10. Beckett. Andy, ‘The Right to Buy: The Housing Crisis That Thatcher Built’, The Guardian, 26 August 2015. http://www.theguardian. com/society/2015/aug/26/right-to-buy-margaret-thatcher-davidcameron-housing-crisis.

19. Marx, Karl. Grundisse, trans. Martin Nicoloaus (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973) p.553 20. Monbiot et al. “Land for the Many.” 21. Common Wealth, ‘Green New Deal’, Common Wealth 2019, Accessed 25 April 2021. https://www.common-wealth.co.uk/project-streams/ green-new-deal. 22. DEFRA. “Defra Statistics: Agricultural Facts England Regional Profiles” Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs, March 2021. 23. Andry, Alicia. “From Industrial Food to Local Alternatives: A Cultural Food Shift and New Directions in Public Health.” In The Intersection of Food and Public Health. Routledge, 2017. 24. Machum, Dr Susan. “Shifting Practices and Shifting Discourses: Policy and Small-Scale Agriculture in Sustainable Food Systems Past and Present.” 10th European IFSA Symposium, Aarhus, Denmark, 2012. 25. DEFRA. “Aggregate farm accounts for England and the Regions” Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs, August 2018. 26. van Es, Harold, and Fred Magdoff. 2021. Building Soils for Better Crops. Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education. https://www.sare. org/resources/building-soils-for-better-crops/.; Machum, Dr Susan. “Shifting Practices and Shifting Discourses”; Zhao, Qingyun, Wu Xiong, Yizhang Xing, Yan Sun, Xingjun Lin, and Yunping Dong. “Long-Term Coffee Monoculture Alters Soil Chemical Properties and Microbial Communities.” Scientific Reports 8, no. 1 (April 17, 2018): 6116. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-245372. 27. van Es, Harold, and Fred Magdoff. 2021. Building Soils for Better Crops.

11. Christophers, Brett. The New Enclosure.

28. Machum, Dr Susan. “Shifting Practices and Shifting Discourses”

12. Cosgrove, Denis E. Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape; Christophers, Brett. The New Enclosure.

29. Land Workers’ Alliance. “A Vision for Positive Change: Building Global Food through Trade of Food and Agricultural Products.” Land Workers’ Alliance, February 2021. https://landworkersalliance.org. uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/A-Vision-For-Positive-Trade.pdf

13. Hetherington, Kregg. “Agribiopolitics: The Health of Plants and Humans in the Age of Monocrops.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 38, no. 4 (August 1, 2020): 682–98. https://doi. org/10.1177/0263775820912757. 14. Christophers, Brett. The New Enclosure.

30. Shrubsole, Guy. “How the extent of county farms has halved in 40 years”, Who Owns England, 8 June 2018. https://whoownsengland. org/2018/06/08/how-the-extent-of-county-farms-has-halved-in40-years/.

15. Heron, Kai. ‘Averting Capitalist Catastrophism’, Design and the Green New Deal. class lecture, The Architectural Association, London, 8 March 2021.

31. Janvry, Alain de, “The Role of Land Reform in Economic Development: Policies and Politics” in American Journal of Agricultural Economics, May 1981, Vol. 63, No. 2 (May, 1981)http://arxiv.org/abs/1611.07004.

16. Christophers, Brett. The New Enclosure.

32.. DEFRA. “Defra Statistics: Agricultural Facts England Regional Profiles” Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs, March 2021.

17. Ibid. 18. Mahmond, Sara and Joe Beswick, ‘What Lies Beneath: How to fix the

182

broken land system at the heart of our housing crisis’ New Economics Foundation, July 2018

33. Farmer interview - see Appendix A

VI. APPENDIX

APPENDIX C: ENDNOTES

34. Land Workers’ Alliance. “Lump Sum and Delinked Payments.” 35. Monbiot et al. “Land for the Many.” 36. Ibid. 37. Janvry, Alain de, “The Role of Land Reform.” 38. Paranyushkin, Dmitry. “InfraNodus: Generating Insight Using Text Network Analysis.” In The World Wide Web Conference, 3584– 3589. WWW ’19. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1145/3308558.3314123. 39. Farmer Clusters. “Martin Down Farmer Cluster,” July 10, 2018. https:// www.farmerclusters.com/case-studies/martin-down-supercluster/. 40. Rural Payments Agency. “Facilitation Fund: Countryside Stewardship.” GOV.UK, 2019. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ countryside-stewardship-facilitation-funding. 41. Campaign to Protect Rural England, CPRE Local Food Guide,January 2017 42. Juergensmeyer, J. C., & Wadley, J. (1974). The Common Lands Concept: A ‘Commons’ Solution to a Common Environmental Problem. Natural Resources Journal, 14(3), 361–382. https://works. bepress.com/julian_juergensmeyer/62/ 43. Ryan-Collins, Josh, Toby Lloyd, Laurie Macfarlane, and John Muellbauer. Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing. London: Zed, 2017. P197-202 44. Rural Payments Agency. “An Update from the Rural Payments Agency.” Rural Payments Agency, December 2020. https://www. gov.uk/government/publications/rural-payments-agency-updatedecember-2020/rural-payments-agency-update-december2020-html-version. 45. DEFRA. “Farming Is Changing.” 46. Muñoz Gielen, Demetrio. ‘Proposal of Land Readjustment for the Netherlands: An Analysis of Its Effectiveness from an International Perspective’. Cities 53 (April 2016): 78–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. cities.2016.02.001. 47. Isola, Phillip, Jun-Yan Zhu, Tinghui Zhou, and Alexei A. Efros. “Imageto-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networks.” ArXiv:1611.07004 [Cs], November 21, 2016. 48. Jordan, D. 2020. “How dependent is the UK on the EU for food?” BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55408788 49. Land Workers’ Alliance. “A Vision for Positive Change.” 50. Kollewe. Julia, ‘Australia’s Beef Exports to UK “Could Rise Tenfold” on Free-Trade Deal’, the Guardian 20 May 2021. http://www. theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/20/australia-beefexports-uk-free-trade-deal-farmers.

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Isola, Phillip, Jun-Yan Zhu, Tinghui Zhou, and Alexei A. Efros. “Imageto-Image Translation with Conditional Adversarial Networks.” ArXiv:1611.07004 [Cs], November 21, 2016. Janvry, Alain de, “The Role of Land Reform in Economic Development: Policies and Politics” in American Journal of Agricultural Economics, May 1981, Vol. 63, No. 2 (May, 1981)http://arxiv.org/ abs/1611.07004. Jordan, D. 2020. “How dependent is the UK on the EU for food?” BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55408788 Juergensmeyer, J. C., & Wadley, J. (1974). The Common Lands Concept: A ‘Commons’ Solution to a Common Environmental Problem. Natural Resources Journal, 14(3), 361–382. https://works.bepress. com/julian_juergensmeyer/62/ Kollewe. Julia, ‘Australia’s Beef Exports to UK “Could Rise Tenfold” on FreeTrade Deal’, the Guardian 20 May 2021. http://www.theguardian. com/environment/2021/may/20/australia-beef-exports-ukfree-trade-deal-farmers. Land Workers’ Alliance. “A Vision for Positive Change: Building Global Food through Trade of Food and Agricultural Products.” Land Workers’ Alliance, February 2021. https://landworkersalliance.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2021/01/A-Vision-For-Positive-Trade.pdf.

———. “Defra Statistics: Agricultural Facts England Regional Profiles” Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs, March 2021.

———. “Lump Sum and Delinked Payments.” Land Workers’ Alliance (blog), 2021. https://landworkersalliance.org.uk/lump-sumdelinked-payments-consultation-2021/.

Evans, R. (2019, June 4). Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ money/2019/apr/17/who-owns-england-thousand-secretlandowners-author

Machum, Dr Susan. “Shifting Practices and Shifting Discourses: Policy and Small-Scale Agriculture in Sustainable Food Systems Past and Present.” 10th European IFSA Symposium, Aarhus, Denmark, 2012.

“ELM Policy Discussion Document 230620.Pdf.” Accessed September 10, 2021. https://consult.defra.gov.uk/elm/elmpolicyconsultation/ supporting_documents/ELM%20Policy%20Discussion%20 Document%20230620.pdf.

Mahmond, Sara and Joe Beswick, ‘What Lies Beneath: How to fix the broken land system at the heart of our housing crisis’ New Economics Foundation, July 2018

Es, Harold van, and Fred Magdoff. Building Soils for Better Crops. Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, 2021. https:// www.sare.org/resources/building-soils-for-better-crops/. Farmer Clusters. “Martin Down Farmer Cluster,” July 10, 2018. https://www. farmerclusters.com/case-studies/martin-down-supercluster/. Franco, Jennifer C., and Saturnino M. Borras. “A ‘Land Sovereignty’ Alternative? Towards a People’s Counter-Enclosure.” TNI Agrarian Justice Programme, July 6, 2012. https://www.tni.org/ en/publication/a-land-sovereignty-alternative-0. Heron, Kai. ‘Averting Capitalist Catastrophism’, Design and the Green New Deal. class lecture, The Architectural Association, London, 8 March 2021.

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Marx, Karl. Grundisse, trans. Martin Nicoloaus (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973) p.553 McDonald, John and G. D. Snooks Statistical Analysis of Domesday Book (1086) Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General) , 1985, Vol. 148, No. 2 (1985), pp. 147-160 Monbiot, George, Robin Grey, Tom Kenny, Laurie Macfarlane, Anna PowellSmith, Guy Shrubsole, and Beth Stratford. “Land for the Many: Changing the Way Our Fundamental Asset Is Used, Owned and Governed.” Labour Party, June 2019. https://landforthemany.uk/. Moore, Rowan. “Margaret Thatcher Began Britain’s Obsession with Property. It’s Time to End It.” The Guardian. April 5, 2014 Muñoz Gielen, Demetrio. ‘Proposal of Land Readjustment for the

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APPENDIX D: BIBLIOGRAPHY

Netherlands: An Analysis of Its Effectiveness from an International Perspective’. Cities 53 (April 2016): 78–86. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.02.001. Paranyushkin, Dmitry. “InfraNodus: Generating Insight Using Text Network Analysis.” In The World Wide Web Conference, 3584–3589. WWW ’19. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1145/3308558.3314123. Pretty, Jules. ‘Agricultural Sustainability: Concepts, Principles and Evidence’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 363, no. 1491 (12 February 2008): 447–65. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2007.2163. Rural Payments Agency. “Facilitation Fund: Countryside Stewardship.” GOV.UK, 2019. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ countryside-stewardship-facilitation-funding. Rural Payments Agency. “An Update from the Rural Payments Agency.” Rural Payments Agency, December 2020. https://www.gov. uk/government/publications/rural-payments-agency-updatedecember-2020/rural-payments-agency-update-december2020-html-version. Ryan-Collins, Josh, Toby Lloyd, Laurie Macfarlane, and John Muellbauer. Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing. London: Zed, 2017. P197-202 Self, Alexis, ‘What’s behind Britain’s perverse obsession with the housing market’ Prospect Magazines, 24, may, 2020. Shrubsole, Guy. “How the extent of county farms has halved in 40 years”, Who Owns England, 8 June 2018. https://whoownsengland. org/2018/06/08/how-the-extent-of-county-farms-has-halvedin-40-years/. Steel, Carolyn. Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World, Chatto & Windus, London, UK, 2020, Tax Justice Network. “Corporate Tax Haven Index 2021.” Tax Justice Network, 2021. https://cthi.taxjustice.net/en/. van Es, Harold, and Fred Magdoff. 2021. Building Soils for Better Crops. Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education. https://www.sare. org/resources/building-soils-for-better-crops/. Zhao, Qingyun, Wu Xiong, Yizhang Xing, Yan Sun, Xingjun Lin, and Yunping Dong. “Long-Term Coffee Monoculture Alters Soil Chemical Properties and Microbial Communities.” Scientific Reports 8, no. 1 (April 17, 2018): 6116. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-01824537-2.

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