This year, as recognised by the FAO, marks the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists. Nowadays pastoralism is associated by many with idyllic ‘country life’. Here, Olivia Boothman uncovers its true meaning and origin, and what we could learn from pastoralist practices to transform our farming systems and to rebuild a sense of connection between people and the environment that supports us.

The BBC’s ‘Race Across the World’ recently featured an episode where the contestants traversed Kyrgyzstan as quickly as possible to make it to their next checkpoint. This contrasts with the intentional and considered journeys that are made across the plains and mountain ranges of Kyrgyzstan every year as pastoralists herd their animals to pastures new. What was portrayed well, however, were the idylls of rural life in this country, sustained by land-based activities. Two young men from Liverpool paid their dues for their overnight stay by helping with the walnut harvest, another team rode on horses to enjoy the vast scenery.

Pastoralism, etymologically, originates from the word pastor, meaning ‘shepherd’. But it has also come to be associated with idyllic ‘country life’. These days though, ‘country life’, in many people’s minds (at least here in the UK), is Hunter wellies, Land Rovers, black and white cows, endless horizons of knee-high golden crops and lambs frolicking in fields demarcated by barbed wire fencing – a far cry away from ‘true’ pastoralism.

Pastoralists are people whose livelihoods depend primarily on herding domesticated or semi-domesticated animals, which feed mainly on natural rangelands, often involving seasonal or regular movement between grazing areas, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.

Since, it is no surprise that the FAO is urgently trying to protect them. This is absolutely essential, but more than this, should we be using this ‘International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists’ to think about what we can learn from pastoralism to inspire our own farming future?

Can the UK feed itself in the face of ecosystem collapse? Our Head of Policy & Campaigns, Megan Perry, takes a closer look at the UK Government’s recently published security report – following a Freedom of Information Request by the Green Alliance – highlighting how the government’s ‘just in time’ approach to food supply jeopardises the UK’s food security, and the transformation in food and farming production that is needed to address this.

A new report has given one of the starkest warnings yet for UK food security. If current rates of biodiversity loss continue, every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse. This will mean the UK cannot feed itself.

These warnings were so stark, in fact, the UK Government attempted to bury its own report. ‘Global Biodiversity Loss, Ecosystem Collapse and National Security’ was written by the joint intelligence committee (which comprises the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ and senior officials from the Cabinet Office, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence, Home Office and HM Treasury) and was initially blocked by Downing Street. It only came out following a Freedom of Information Request by the Green Alliance.

Why was it blocked? According to The Times, Downing Street felt the report was too negative and would draw attention to the Government’s failure to act. The published document is reported to have been cut down, with some of the most alarming parts left out.

As the Government tries to keep us in the dark, it is even more important we sit up and take notice. The report warns that, “Without significant increases in UK food system and supply chain resilience, it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food. The UK relies on imports for a proportion of both food and fertiliser and cannot currently produce enough food to feed its population based on current diets.”

Across the world, ecosystems are collapsing. According to the report, the rate of extinction is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years. It suggests that a sixth mass extinction may be underway. There is a realistic possibility some critical ecosystems, such as coral reefs in Southeast Asia and boreal forests will start to collapse by 2030 or sooner, and rainforests and mangroves from 2050. This is a direct result of biodiversity loss from land use change, pollution, climate change and other drivers.

As the report clearly states, “nature is a foundation of national security”. Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse threaten the fundamental existence of human life – access to water, food, clean air and critical resources.

As these become scarce, the report warns there will be conflict within and between states along with mass migration and increased risk of pandemics. According to the report, a one percentage increase in food insecurity in a population compels 1.9 percent more people to migrate. Political instability and rising poverty will provide more opportunities for terrorism and organised crime. Global economic collapse will become more likely. As the report says, “Nature is a finite asset which underpins the global economy. It would take resources of 1.6 Earths to sustain the world’s current levels of consumption.”

The report is upfront about how this impacts UK food security. Biodiversity loss, alongside climate change, is one of the biggest threats to domestic food production – through depleted soils, the loss of pollinators, and drought and flood conditions.

It details how ecosystem collapse would place the UK’s agriculture system under great stress, leaving it struggling to pivot to the new approaches and technologies that would be required to maintain food supply. Impacts on major food producing regions around the world will have a direct impact on the UK which relies on global markets for food (40% is imported), animal feed (18% comes from South American soy) and fertiliser.

But food is not just affected by biodiversity loss, it is a direct contributor, with food production named as the most significant cause of terrestrial biodiversity loss.

A shift to sustainable farming systems has therefore never been more critical, playing a key role in reversing ecosystem collapse and mitigating food insecurity. Carrying on as we are and pursuing extractive agricultural practices is not an option. Yet the UK Government seems determined to ignore the immense and imminent risks.

“As the report clearly states, “nature is a foundation of national security”. Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse threaten the fundamental existence of human life – access to water, food, clean air and critical resources.”

It is notable that the UK has so far failed to change its approach to supply chain resilience and security, unlike countries such as Sweden, Finland, Norway and Germany who are building up their food stocks and reserves. The UK, meanwhile, continues to rely on a ‘just in time’ approach to food supply, requiring consistent and rapid delivery to keep shelves stocked. Any disruption to this supply chain could have an enormous impact on the availability of food in the UK.

Global threats are looming, and while the UK now reports separately on food security, it lacks any coherent action plan and fails to integrate food with wider security strategy. The UK Risk Register – which flags up the main threats to the UK and covers everything from terrorism to disease outbreak – fails to make food and water a clearly defined risk in its own right. The UK National Security Strategy published last year gave a passing mention of food four times and without any detail about how the UK plans to address threats to food supply. The 2022 Government Resilience Framework said nothing at all about food.

What can be done?

Protecting and restoring ecosystems is clearly a priority. But our current trajectory does not look good, and plans need to be put in place now to deal with the potential impacts.

We agree with many of the report’s conclusions, including that self-sufficiency requires a wholesale change in consumer diets and improvements in efficiency, waste reduction and resilience across the food system, including agricultural production, food processing, distribution and consumption. These echo the conclusions of the Sustainable Food Trust’s Feeding Britain report which showed the UK can transition to fully regenerative farming practices and maintain or improve current levels of self-sufficiency, but that dietary change would be needed.

We welcome the mention of regenerative agriculture as a solution and feel there is a wider point to be made – climate change and geopolitical shocks change the equation around agroecological vs ‘conventional’ food systems and their (perceived) practicality. Arguments that agroecology is unfeasible due to its lower yields and a requirement for very difficult dietary change, are somewhat overshadowed by the reality that a food system with heavy use of imports, fossil fuels and agrichemical inputs could become unviable in the face of ecosystem collapse and geopolitical turmoil. Not to mention that these intensive input-heavy systems are the biggest contributors to ecosystem collapse. There is no choice but to seriously consider agroecology as the main alternative.

We therefore caution against placing too much emphasis on new technology to provide the answers (plant-breeding, AI, lab grown protein and insect protein are all mentioned). That’s not to say that technology has no role to play – far from it. But systemic change, from farm to fork, is what is ultimately required.

Any shortages in food will inevitably impact hardest on those who are already facing food poverty. The report says substantial price increases for consumers would be required for self-sufficiency. Yet prices now do not reflect the real cost of production, with the most damaging foods often being the ‘cheapest’ yet costing far more in environmental damage and impacts on our health. A transformation of our food system is needed to right these skewed economics and government intervention must be a core part of that.

The report also says the UK does not have enough land to feed its population and rear livestock. We agree that a complete shift is needed away from grain-fed livestock, particularly intensively produced poultry and pork. But integrating pasture-fed livestock, such as cattle and sheep, into regenerative systems is critical to rebuild soil fertility and move away from our reliance on fossil fuel- and energy-intensive fertilisers and pesticides.

Grazing livestock produce nutrient-dense foods that complement, rather than compete with, the crops produced from our finite and increasingly degraded arable area. In fact, in a regeneratively farmed UK, predominantly grass-fed animals could supply a significant proportion of the nation’s nutrient requirements – including around 34% of recommended protein intake, 37% of fat intake and 98% of vitamin B12 intake.

“We caution against placing too much emphasis on new technology to provide the answers (plant-breeding, AI, lab grown protein and insect protein are all mentioned). That’s not to say that technology has no role to play – far from it. But systemic change, from farm to fork, is what is ultimately required.”

Livestock also provide a level of resilience to environmental shocks that crops do not – they can be moved and, in worst cases slaughtered, should resources such as water become scarce or fields flooded.

So, a major transformation in livestock production is needed, as is the case for crop production. And this will require many people to eat less meat and dairy, overall. It’s critical, though, that this transformation doesn’t overlook the massively positive role that livestock can play in fostering a more resilient, environmentally and socially sustainable food system.

The report says countries best placed to adapt are those that invest in ecosystem protection and restoration, and resilient and efficient food systems. Yet support for sustainable food production has been inadequate and shambolic, with record closures of farming businesses. The UK also appears to have given up on the 30×30 target (30% of our land and sea protected for biodiversity by 2030) and is on track to miss targets established in the 2021 Environment Act for protecting and restoring wildlife.

While we must pressure Government to act with urgency, communities can also take things into their own hands. Tim Lang’s excellent report on civil food resilience highlights the different ways people can build resilience themselves, whether by growing food in allotments, gardens and community farms, forming co-operatives, building community food stocks, or by sharing skills.

Ultimately a major mindset shift is needed to address the root causes of ecosystem destruction and to embrace an integrated approach to food production and nature restoration. There is no time to lose.

 

Featured image courtesy of Christian Kay.

With Christmas approaching – a time for stories and renewed hope – Robert Barbour, Senior Research Manager at the Sustainable Food Trust, reflects on the six months since the launch of Grazing Livestock: It’s not the cow but the how. He examines why we urgently need the ability to imagine a different future for food and farming, and how a research-backed vision for such a future has drawn both praise and pushback.

Earlier this year, the SFT published a report looking at the debate surrounding grazing livestock. It was a labour of love (amongst other emotions) started by our late colleague and friend Richard Young, that set out to make the case that cattle and sheep actually have a hugely positive role to play in a future UK food system – one where farming practices and diets are based on the land’s ecological carrying capacity.

Since its publication, we’ve had some really engaging conversations on the issues the report covered. But with lengthening nights and the dismal advent of Christmas hyper-consumption having soured my mood this week, I’ve decided to instead tap into my inner Scrooge and reflect on some of the criticisms the report has received.

The critiques: Tough questions to consider

Most of these have posed some interesting challenges. Wouldn’t, for instance, a future that involves smaller amounts of sustainably produced meat and dairy send food prices soaring? By talking about the positives that grazing systems can deliver, or by arguing that ruminant methane is a nuanced topic, aren’t we just pushing ‘Big Livestock’ talking points? And even if our arguments do have some validity, they only apply to a fraction of the animals reared today, and therefore surely only serve to justify continued, unsustainable patterns of meat consumption?

These are important questions, which I don’t have the space to do justice to here. One key point to make, though, is that these critiques are not universally applicable in every context. Yes, arguments for nuance around methane, for instance, are abused by parts of the livestock sector – but this doesn’t mean they constitute industry denial in every instance. And yes, the pasture-based, low input ruminant systems the report argues for only supply a small percentage of the meat and dairy we consume today – but that doesn’t mean that this need always be the case.

Is it all just “romantic cottagecore”?

If we’re going to emerge from our current siloes, we need to be much more open-minded and imaginative when it comes to the arguments presented by different sides in this debate, and in our ability to imagine food systems that are very different to today’s. And this leads on to the main criticism I’ve come across of our position, which is that the less intensive, generally lower yielding approach to livestock and food production that the SFT supports is disconnected from reality – “romantic cottagecore” as George Monbiot dismissively put it.

It’s true that the vision we set out will be challenging to realise. A wholesale transition to agroecological farming practices, where livestock production is centred on pasture-based systems of mainly cattle and sheep, is not going to happen overnight. Achieving this whilst also aligning our diets to what we can sustainably produce, and in so doing reducing the amount of meat and dairy most of us consume, will be even trickier.

Taking a more strategic view

I completely disagree, however, that campaigning for a move towards this vision is naïve or detached from reality. For a start, making the case for a more agroecological future isn’t just about fostering better lives for the people, livestock and wildlife that live in our farmed landscapes (though these things are clearly worth fighting for in and of themselves). There are big strategic reasons for supporting this transition, too. Take the reintegration of grazed temporary grass and clover ‘leys’ into arable rotations. We know that this can bring all sorts of environmental benefits. But what’s probably less often considered is how valuable a role this transition could play in improving the long-term viability of arable production, by making it more resilient to climate-related shocks, and much less reliant on the energy- and fossil fuel-intensive inputs we are going to have to wean ourselves off moving forwards, whether we like it or not.

This strategic value also applies to the nutritional contribution of grazing animals. Contrary to what is often argued, this could be really significant, not just because of the quantity of key nutrients that could be produced, but also, crucially, because this would be a supply of nutrients from a feed source – forage – that humans can’t consume. And this means we’re talking here about animals which complement, rather than compete with, the crops produced from our finite and degraded arable area, unlike animals reared in heavily grain-fed, industrial systems. Again, this is a service that is only likely to become more valuable as climate change and its associated shocks increase the probability of major disruptions to domestic crop production and global agrifood trade.

Some would say that that’s all well and good, but that it doesn’t change the fact that realising this approach to livestock production and the smaller amounts of high-quality meat and dairy it would necessitate is wishful thinking. They have a point – getting people to change their diets requires overcoming all sorts of deeply embedded institutional and cultural barriers. But this is the case with any sufficiently transformative vision of a sustainable future food system! Take a future where all animal-sourced foods are replaced with analogues created through precision fermentation or other cultured techniques. It’s sometimes argued that this represents a much more plausible route to getting people to change their diets because, in effect, they’d still be eating the same foods – it’s just that they’d come from a vat rather than an animal. But is that really the case? As far as I can see, this represents a dietary shift every bit as radical and difficult to sell as the sort we support – in fact, arguably more so.

What about ‘sustainable intensification’?

The immense difficulty of the diet challenge is partly why others argue that making industrial livestock systems ever more ‘efficient’, to sate the planet’s growing demand for meat as ‘sustainably’ as possible, is the only plausible solution here. But even if we set aside the massive environmental and ethical challenges this poses, this vision also comes with big question marks over its future viability. Climate change and its associated geopolitical shocks are already having major impacts on the food system, and as these worsen, the input- and import-heavy intensive cropping systems which industrial livestock production relies on are only going to become more vulnerable – perhaps even untenable. We also know that we need to get fossil fuels out of the food system fast, and this will have massive implications for the production, and potentially availability, of the synthetic fertilisers and pesticides that form the lifeblood of industrial agriculture. It’s safe to say that the potential ramifications of this have not yet been widely enough grasped.

A realistic agroecological future – and what’s needed to get there

In short, I don’t think an agroecological future, where grazing animals play a central role, is any more implausible than the other more commonly supported visions of a sustainable food system. Neither is it a ‘fairytale’ – grazing animals can help improve the resilience of a UK food system that faces all sorts of major threats to its food security, in various ways.

There is a hugely positive story to tell here, in some ways more positive, I’d argue, than the livestock-free narrative, certainly when it comes to speaking to the farming community. And that matters, given we very obviously need farmers to be a key part of any transition. I think a lot of people and organisations realise this – it’s hugely encouraging, for instance, to see an increasing number of conservation groups showcasing pasture-based and organic livestock farms as examples of what sustainable meat and dairy production looks like in practice. All too often, though, there still seems to be a disconnect between the positioning of pasture-based livestock systems – and indeed, agroecological farming practices more generally – as case studies of sustainability on the one hand; but then, on the other, the promotion of policies or recommendations that actively work against the adoption of these systems at scale. The EAT-Lancet commission’s latest report is a recent example of this. It contains a lot of really good stuff, including positive words around the need for a shift towards agroecology. Frustratingly, though, some of its agricultural modelling assumptions (e.g. increased yields in regions where these are already high) and dietary recommendations (e.g. greater levels of chicken in the diet than red meat) are just not consistent with what a shift towards agroecology would look like in reality.

This criticism is perhaps a bit nit-picky, especially when most livestock production – irrespective of species – still has so many problems. The point, however, is that if we do want to support agroecology at scale, as many organisations say they do, then there needs to be much more clarity and joined-up thinking across all food system actors than is the case today, including of course, around the need to support a transition to low input, pasture-based grazing systems.

How do we do this? There are obviously lots of things to say here, but I’ll finish by focussing on the critical importance of measurement. Sustainability is still so often understood largely, or even solely, through the narrow lens of carbon and land use intensity metrics, that don’t just overlook a wide range of key public goods but also provide a very incomplete picture of actual climate and land use impact. Unless we develop and adopt more holistic measures of sustainability, we will find it impossible to create a food system that truly delivers for people, the planet and the landscapes that we rely upon.

You can learn more about the role of livestock in a sustainable food system by downloading our Grazing Livestock report.

With water an ongoing issue in California’s San Joaquin Valley, ranchers have stepped in to rethink how to restore the land, in valuable and creative ways. At the centre of this are cattle who play a key role in reviving native and non-native grasses, along with innovative farmers exploring diverse opportunities – from firebreaks to solar farm management.

The San Joaquin Valley stretches some 400 kilometres from California’s capital Sacramento to Bakersfield in the south. With its mild climate and fertile soils, the Valley is one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions; some 250 crops can be grown here, from lettuce to carrots, garlic, onions, melons and peppers and, most important of all, almonds. However, nothing grows without irrigation – the climate is semi-arid. California’s highly complex water system consists of hundreds of dams and reservoirs to catch rainwater and snow melt: a network of canals that measures roughly 6,500 kilometres distributes water to farms and cities like Los Angeles and San Diego.

In the past decades, California has seen long periods of drought. Farmers who could afford it paid for additional wells, some as deep as 400 meters. Thousands of these wells reach into the aquifer like straws, sucking it dry very quickly. Over-pumping has led to subsidence, causing roads to buckle and buildings to crack. To preserve what’s left of the groundwater, California has passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). From 2040, well owners can only pump as much water from the ground as can be recharged during the rainy winter months.

The consequences for agriculture in the Valley are stark: at least 20% of agricultural land will have to be fallowed for lack of water, and some estimates are even higher. But according to a recent study by the University of California Merced, the frequency of dust storms has already increased. Leaving ground bare on up to 900,000 acres, would be catastrophic.

Cows to the rescue

Before European settlers arrived in the 19th century, the San Joaquin Valley used to be a sea of grass, grazed not by bison, but Pronghorns and Tule elks. The native grasses were well adapted, and in winter, cold season grasses flourished, while in summer, heat tolerant warm season varieties dominated, and some grasses even tolerated highly saline soils on the west side of the valley. Could these grasses be reintroduced and could ranching make a comeback?

Diane Bohna is a fifth-generation rancher. In 2021, she rented 7,600 acres of land from UC Merced; the land was over grazed, showing more bare patches than remnants of grass. Bohna was an early adopter of Allan Savory’s principles of holistic management, and now, just three years later, 320 cow-calf pairs and a few bulls munch their way through a sea of knee-high grasses. “In the first year, we were lucky and got a wet winter,” says Bohna. There was still a seedbank of native grasses in the soil, and having the cattle graze them right – ‘bunched’ as a tight group and for a short period of time – helped re-establish those grasses. The animals will stay over winter, and during the summer months Bohna and her crew drive them to high altitude pastures in the Sierras on horseback, like the cowboys of old.

The SFT’s Senior Research Officer, Imogen Crossland, highlights the case study farmers featured in our Abattoir Users Survey 2025 report, which provide tangible examples of how abattoirs support diversification, profitability and resilience for farm businesses.

Concerns are growing around the provenance, ethics and sustainability of meat. For those who choose to eat it, knowing how and where the animals have been reared is increasingly important, especially as the environmental, animal welfare and human health consequences of industrial livestock production continue to be made clear. But the opportunity to choose traceable, locally sourced meat is under threat. Across the country, small abattoirs are closing at an alarming rate, with serious knock-on effects for farmers, local retailers and the communities they serve.

Earlier this year the Sustainable Food Trust, alongside the Soil Association and Rare Breeds Survival Trust, surveyed 850 livestock farmers across the UK, many of them operating agroecological systems with native breeds, to understand the importance of small, local abattoirs for their businesses. We asked what the impact might be of further abattoir closures, rising slaughter costs and the loss of key services often provided by smaller abattoirs, such as provision for particular breeds and species, or ‘private kill’, where the meat is returned to the producer to be sold directly to customers.

While the results revealed the importance of local abattoirs for livestock farms of all shapes and sizes, the dependency was greater for some than others, especially among those supplying local markets. If their abattoir were to close, 43% of farmers said they would no longer be able to sell their meat locally, while 29% would consider shutting their meat business altogether. Sadly, the impact of abattoir closures is already being felt, with a third of respondents having seen their local abattoir close in the last five years.

More than half of farmers (58%) believed their business would no longer be profitable without the ability to sell direct or locally. For many, this is because selling through short supply chains, including farm shops, farmers markets and meat boxes, combined with adding value to their meat and other by-products, are integral to their business viability.

The case studies featured in our survey report provide tangible examples of how abattoirs support diversification, profitability and resilience for farm businesses.

Farm retail: Essington Farm Shop, Wolverhampton

Essington Farm Shop has been retailing quality home-grown produce since 1892. Its award-winning butchery and deli are central to the business, accounting for more than half of its annual turnover.

The farm shop has seen steady growth, with butchery sales rising by 10% year-on-year.

Much of this success is attributed to growing customer concern about how meat is produced, especially around health, environmental impact and animal welfare. Demand for traditional counter service by a butcher has also increased, driven both by renewed interest in home cooking and the limited choice of pre-packed meat products in supermarkets.

Access to their local abattoir is fundamental to the continuing success of Essington Farm’s retail operations. Pigs and cattle reared on the farm, alongside livestock from neighbouring farms, are slaughtered there before the carcases are returned to the butchery for processing. If the abattoir were to close, the impact would be severe, risking the loss of around £2.25 million worth of sales and over 20 redundancies. Essington Farm would effectively lose its ability to meet the strong demand for high-welfare, local meat among the community.

In Cyprus, the Kot-Kot project shows how animals, food waste and farming can be reconnected to restore soils and reduce reliance on chemicals. But as writer and researcher David McKenzie explores, the challenges it faces highlight a broader dilemma: will food systems reward regenerative, mixed models like this – or continue to favour industrial approaches that externalise their costs?

There is no single solution to building sustainable food futures. Nor is there a silver bullet for establishing resilient food systems that can best respond to the unpredictable impacts and challenges of climate change. It will take a concerted effort, with myriad approaches and solutions working together.

Still, some solutions have more of a ‘feel-good’ factor than others. And this might be one of them.

An olive grove in Cyprus has been taking an innovative (yet incredibly simple) approach to enhancing the organic matter of their soil, while also helping combat the island’s serious food waste problem and providing a means of reducing chemical fertiliser and pesticide use. It’s doing this by taking retired hens from the egg industry and having them roam free on the grove, fed by unwanted food-waste collected from local schools, restaurants, hotels and businesses.

The project, called Kot-Kot, has been running since early 2024 at Akaki Grove, 30 kilometers west of the capital Nicosia. It was instigated by farmer Elena Christoforos, who inherited the semi-abandoned olive grove from her grandfather, and Nicolas Netien, an environmental engineer and soil biologist who Christoforos brought on board in 2021 to help revive the olive and citrus trees.

“My focus is always on growing soil,” says Netien, who has been designing agro-ecological systems in line with a permaculture framework for 20 years. “I grow soil and let the trees grow themselves.”

Within that framework, Netien looks for any and every technique to increase organic matter in the soil, he says, focusing on maintaining a healthy microbiome for the trees’ root systems. In line with this, a diverse ground cover of plants was first established at Akaki Grove to enrich and protect the soil. But Netien wanted to “speed up” these natural processes and carbon cycles by having animals grazing the ground cover.

Christoforos agreed, but as a vegan, she has a zero-kill policy at the grove, instead favouring the maintenance of balanced, diverse ecosystems in which pests kill each other. She insisted that they could only do it if the animals were not to be killed or used for egg, meat or milk production.

That’s where the “happy hens” come in. Animals are expensive to keep and to feed, and if they weren’t going to have them for meat, egg or dairy production then it made sense, as Netien puts it, to find animals that nobody wants. Chickens, in particular, are “great workers” for the olive trees, since they not only clear the ground cover and unwanted weeds, reverting nutrients back into the soil via their fertile droppings but also provide excellent pest control by pecking at the larvae of insects like the infamous olive fly, traditional adversary of Mediterranean olive growers.

And so, with the help of free-range egg farmer and olive grower Nicholas Schizas, Kot-Kot managed to adopt a few hundred two-year-old hens coming out of the egg industry, who have finished their productive laying years and otherwise would’ve been slaughtered (yet still with plenty of ‘retirement’ years ahead, having a life expectancy of eight years or more).

From there, the next issue was sourcing food for the hens. Again, without any income that would usually come from egg or meat production, this needed to be cheap (if not free).

Coincidentally, however, Cyprus has a terrible food waste problem.

Cyprus generates by far the most food waste per capita of any country in Europe at around 300 kg per year, more than double the EU average of 132 kg/inhabitant. To make matters worse, the island nation’s waste management system has been mired in scandal and mismanagement for years, leading to hefty fines from the EU for continuously failing to meet waste management targets and failing to establish adequate facilities for processing mixed municipal waste (including organic waste), despite heavy EU funding specifically for such projects since at least 2015.

The UK’s rivers and wetlands are under pressure from pollution, droughts and floods, with livestock farming both part of the problem and the solution. In this article, Robert Barbour, Senior Research Manager at the SFT, explores how agroecological livestock systems could help restore water quality and build resilience to climate extremes.

For all that the UK is famed for its reliably damp climate and lush green landscapes, the reality is that it faces a major water problem. This year, an exceptionally dry spring and summer is likely to result in the fifth worst harvest since 1984. Yet it was only last autumn that the south of the country witnessed record-breaking heavy rain that led to the third worst harvest on record. It’s been a bewildering, historic year of weather, but these are far from isolated aberrations. The climate crisis has already increased the likelihood of extreme weather events, and as the planet warms, these are only going to become more frequent and intense, both in the UK and globally.

At the same time, many of our rivers, lakes and wetlands are in a desperate state, choked by sewage and agricultural pollution. While some chemical indicators of water quality have, in fairness, improved over recent years, by most measures our freshwater environment continues to deteriorate – a damning indictment of decades of political and market failure.

These are serious issues, that pose some major challenges for the future of livestock farming in the UK. Intensive production systems, with their often-heavy use of fertiliser and high concentrations of animals – and therefore slurry – are a leading source of nitrogen and phosphate pollution in many catchments, the Wye and Lough Neagh being perhaps the two most infamous examples. Livestock farming is also hugely vulnerable to changes in climate, and the greater extremes in precipitation we are already seeing, pose a real threat to the way in which many farms operate. This is something the sector hasn’t fully come to terms with yet, but if the predictions are right, a much more unstable climate is a reality every farm is going to have to face up to.

How we confront these challenges is, like all things livestock, a contentious issue. Some would argue that livestock have no role to play at all in a food system that works for water. But while every farm and catchment is different, and no one solution will work everywhere, livestock can play a hugely positive role in restoring our aquatic environments and increasing our resilience to extreme wet and dry weather, by helping enable a nationwide transition towards a food system based on agroecological principles.

Realising this will require a shift from the largely production-focused systems which remain commonplace today, to a more multifunctional approach, where animals are rotationally grazed on diverse pastures for most or all of the year, with minimal use of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or arable feed inputs. Such a transition would help alleviate the massive pollution problems associated with intensive livestock systems touched on above. It could also deliver more direct benefits for freshwater biodiversity, by supporting the sorts of low-intensity grazing practices which benefit a number of wetland plant species. Grazing livestock can even help reduce water pollution from conventional all-arable systems, through the re-integration of fertility-building grass and legume ‘leys’, grazed by livestock, into crop rotations. By naturally fixing nitrogen, increasing soil carbon levels and disrupting pest, weed and disease cycles, leys minimise the need for fossil fuel-intensive synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, both of which are major water pollutants in the east of the country.

These more nature-friendly, agroecological approaches to livestock production could also improve the resilience of our farming systems to drought and heavy rain, in various ways. Shifting from all-arable to ley-arable systems could, for example, help increase the genetic, landscape and enterprise diversity of farms, so spreading weather-related risks. Agroforestry expansion, meanwhile, would provide more shade and shelter for crops and livestock. But perhaps the biggest climate adaptation benefit of an agroecological approach to food production is that it tends to increase a farm’s soil water holding capacity, thanks, in particular, to the higher levels of soil organic matter generally found in biologically based systems.

This is something which grasslands are key to delivering. Stable organic matter can absorb several times its own weight in water, just one of the reasons why increasing soil organic matter levels is a crucial objective. Grassland soils contain much higher levels of organic matter than arable soils, and this means they soak up water much more effectively than arable land, reducing the speed of runoff and the risk of rivers bursting their banks. This is particularly true with semi-natural and extensively managed grasslands, which are far more effective at reducing the risk of flash flooding than those which are too heavily grazed. Culm grasslands in North Devon, for example, hold more than four times as much water as intensive grassland, and have much slower rates of water runoff, even when the soil is already waterlogged. But there is also considerable scope to improve water holding capacity of improved grasslands too, by encouraging more species-diverse, deep-rooting swards. The integration of trees into grassland can also dramatically improve water infiltration rates in pastures, significantly slowing the flow of water and helping reduce peak river flows during heavy rain, as the Pontbren Project in Wales has shown.

Grasslands can play an even more direct role in flood prevention, in the form of floodplain meadows. Clifton Ings and Rawcliffe Meadows, for example, are a crucial part of York’s flood defences, with their combined water-storage capacity of approximately 2.3 million cubic metres helping reduce the level of floods by up to 15 cm. The capacity of grasslands to store huge quantities of water can bring major benefits during periods of drought, too – including, again, in arable rotations that incorporate temporary leys.

Realising this sort of approach to livestock production at a national scale will obviously be difficult to achieve, requiring major changes in farming practice, and a shift to diets more closely aligned to what the land can sustainably support.

There are reasons for hope, though. The sorry state of our freshwater environment is now a headline issue that has energised a large swathe of society, and this has helped force government into action. There have, for instance, been some promising announcements around policy and regulation, two intensive poultry units have recently had their planning permission removed, and the massive problem of nitrogen pollution is now finally beginning to receive the attention it deserves, in no small part thanks to the work of the Sustainable Nitrogen Alliance (of which the SFT is a member) and others. However, this is only a start, and governments – and indeed every actor in the food system – need to go much further in helping farmers produce food in a way that delivers plentiful clean water.

You can read more about grazing livestock and their role in a sustainable food system in our report, Grazing Livestock: It’s not the cow but the how.

Featured image taken at Treehill Farm by Cath Shellswell.

As tensions rise over how the UK’s uplands are managed, the SFT’s Senior Research Manager, Robert Barbour, considers how we can build a more constructive conversation about their future.

A recent legal challenge brought to the High Court by campaign group Wild Justice has re-ignited one of the more interminable debates around land use – the role of sheep in the UK’s uplands.

Wild Justice’s argument was that the Dartmoor Commoners’ Council is failing to meet its statutory obligations to protect the moorland environment, by refusing to reduce livestock numbers. This led to the publication of two articles in The Guardian – one, an opinion piece by Chris Packham, the other by reporter Phoebe Weston. They described much of Dartmoor, and many of the UK’s upland areas more generally, as ecologically devastated “dead zones”, stripped bare, in large part, by sheep farming – in Packham’s words, “an environmentally destructive, loss-making industry that makes a minimal contribution to the nation’s food supply”.

Unsurprisingly, many in the farming sector pushed back, with the NFU saying they “couldn’t disagree more” with Packham’s characterisation. They instead painted a much rosier picture of Dartmoor, going on to argue that hill farming makes a hugely positive contribution to the UK’s upland environment, as well as to the nation’s food supply. “Far from being barren,” NFU rep Mat Cole wrote, “these landscapes are shaped and sustained by the people who live and work in them.”

Now, I can’t comment on the Wild Justice case or Dartmoor specifically, because I don’t know the region or its obviously complex and deep-seated challenges. Clearly, though, much of the moor is in poor condition, and in urgent need of a change in the way it is managed.

What I am confident in saying, however, is that this latest round of the sheep wars has done little to advance the wider discussion around the future of hill farming in the UK, a debate that has become depressingly polarised.

Take much of the discussion around biodiversity. On the one hand, The Guardian are correct in saying that large parts of the UK’s uplands are ecologically degraded, and that overgrazing, particularly by sheep, has been a major contributor to this. This is a reality which I think some in the farming community need to be more honest in acknowledging. Yes, traditional low-input farming practices have shaped our upland environment in hugely positive ways, but much of the biodiversity they once supported has been lost to decades of intensification and specialisation, and I don’t think arguing otherwise does anything to help the farming sector, or its reputation in wider society.

At the same time, it is also true that grazing, when done right, remains crucial to the management of some of our most important habitats and species. Indeed, under-grazing – not just over-grazing – represents a serious and growing threat to the biodiversity interest of many sites, with the loss of hill cattle a particular problem in a lot of cases. None of this was mentioned in The Guardian’s reporting, a major omission that gives the entirely misleading impression that getting rid of sheep will universally benefit our upland environment.

Overlooking the ecological importance of grazing animals is problematic in and of itself. But it also does nothing to help win over an increasingly beleaguered farming community that feels, at present, like it is being unfairly attacked over its environmental credentials. That’s not to say that criticism of the sector is unjustified, of course, or that all its grievances are legitimate – far from it. Still, given most of our uplands are farmed, I don’t think there’s any credible, socially just way that we achieve nature recovery at scale without farmers being at the heart of the effort, and critiques of hill farming that fail to mention its very real benefits to society does nothing to help this.

In fairness, most (though not all) prominent conservation voices are very vocal in their support for hill farmers. But while Packham does acknowledge the positive role farmers have to play in supporting nature recovery, I think some of the framing he and others use around this is problematic. Their argument, in short, is that we need to be taking the uplands “out of any pretence of significant food production” and instead be rewarding farmers “if they put nature first”. Now, this might sound like a good use of land and public money, that still offers farmers a fair living. For the vast majority of hill farmers, however, rearing livestock and producing food – in other words, farming! – is not just their primary focus, but a key part of their and their community’s identity. Arguing that we need to abandon “any pretence of significant food production” is obviously pretty alienating in this regard. But it also risks being dangerously reductive from an environmental perspective, as it ignores the critical importance of supporting infrastructure, like livestock marts and small abattoirs, to conservation grazing efforts – infrastructure that requires a thriving agricultural sector.

Again, none of this is to argue for a continuation of the status quo. Nature has been criminally under-prioritised in upland management for decades, sacrificed all too often at the altar of maximising production – be that for agriculture, forestry or shooting. People are right to be angry about this, and much more space must be made for biodiversity moving forwards. But we also need to remember that the uplands are a diverse place, lived and worked in by different groups who have quite different outlooks and priorities about what the uplands are ‘for’, some of which we may not personally agree with, but which in a pluralistic society do, for the most part, need to be respected. These are also landscapes that are managed and valued for a wide range of important environmental, social and cultural interests, of which biodiversity is just one. In many cases, these different interests can be delivered in tandem – low-intensity grazing systems being a prime example of how. Sometimes, though, there will be conflicts and trade-offs, and therefore the need for compromise from all sides.

Amidst the current quagmire of binary tribal discourse, a sustainable future that delivers on all these fronts, for hill farmers and the uplands more generally, feels a long way off. It can be done, though, as the Burren LIFE Programme in Ireland has shown. Started in 2010, this is a novel agri-environment initiative covering 23,000 hectares of farmland, that has delivered significant increases in biodiversity, alongside a host of other environmental, social and economic benefits. It’s also led to long-term changes in farmer behaviour, all while representing excellent value for money – achievements which agri-environment schemes (AESs) all too often fail to deliver. The secret to the Burren LIFE Programme’s success hasn’t, however, been more funding or stronger regulation per se (though these things obviously matter) but the fact that its schemes have been co-designed by farmers and on-the-ground conservationists. It’s a genuinely inspiring example of how Government support can help enable modern hill farming and nature to coexist, in a landscape where until recently they were all too often viewed in opposition. For this to happen, though, we need to create the conditions for farmers and conservationists to collaborate. Fostering a more nuanced, respectful and imaginative dialogue than recent weeks have witnessed would represent a good start to realising this.

To learn more about grazing livestock and their role in a sustainable food system, read the SFT’s latest report, Grazing Livestock: It’s not the cow but the how.

Our recent Grazing Livestock report featured several farmers located around the UK who are taking a holistic approach to how they farm. Here, we take a more in-depth look at some of their farms and the benefits of a holistic approach to farming – including the integration of grazing livestock – for animal welfare, soil health and nature.

In our era of bitesize content, simple sells. Whether it’s a product or an idea, silver bullet solutions delivered with snappy straplines flood our social media and news feeds. The problem is that, when it comes to food and farming, these supposed solutions fail to reflect an infinitely complex reality, only serving to further distort the picture.

This is never more evident than during discussions about livestock. We often hear that animal agriculture is bad for the climate and for nature, yet the reality isn’t so straightforward. Recognising the difference between livestock farming that is part of the problem and that which is part of the solution, is a first step in moving towards a more holistic approach to our food system – one that grasps the interconnectedness of soil, plants, animals and people.

But what does this holistic approach look like in practice? Here, we share a snapshot of some of the farms featured in our recent Grazing Livestock report – farms where animals form part of a living system that operates within planetary boundaries while still producing the food that we need. Some of these farms are also part of the SFT’s Beacon Farms Network, which is working with farmers to harness the power of ‘seeing is believing’ experiences and, in doing so, build a body of informed public opinion on how our food is produced.

Hafod y Llyn | Teleri Fielden, Ned Feesey and Ianto Glyn

Teleri and Ned’s farming business is based upon producing and selling slow grown, pasture-fed red meat. The native breed cows are used for conservation grazing on various National Nature Reserves (NNR), Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), whilst the sheep mainly graze the home farm’s floodplain rush pasture and are on parkland in the winter. The animals live outdoors year-round, generally in one large family group or ‘mob’, which has benefits for animal welfare, soil health and nature. Surveys show around 70 different types of grasses and forbs (flowering plants) per field, and nearly 45 different types of birds, including rare species. Grazing by the livestock also helps to control Himalayan Balsam, an invasive, non-native plant species. A ‘closed loop system’ is in operation, with no artificial fertiliser or bought-in feed crops required as the livestock feed entirely off pasture, shrubs and trees. Insecticides and anti-parasite drugs are not used on the cattle, and by checking animal dung for eggs, the need for wormers is reduced, the intention being to feed the soil microbiology with the livestock’s dung, as opposed to damaging it. Teleri and Ned are very lucky to have a local, family-run abattoir and butchery 20 minutes away, and they generally sell their meat locally.

Yatesbury House Farm | Richard Gantlett

Richard Gantlett is an organic and biodynamic farmer, with a herd of around 350 Aberdeen Angus beef cattle incorporated into a rotational mixed farming system, along with crops, including wheat, barley, rye and oats. The cattle graze on diverse herbal leys, containing up to 29 species of plants. These provide nectar for wild pollinating insects as well as the bees that provide honey for the farm. Richard has also embraced a ‘forest farm’ approach, allowing his cattle to graze the trees and shrubs on 64 acres of native woodland, which provides shelter from sun and rain. In return, grazing by the cattle increases the plant variety under the trees. The whole farm supports an abundance of species, from bluebells and orchids to hares, tree sparrows, corn buntings, quail and short-eared owls. One of the most important goals for Richard is achieving a ‘zero fossil fuel farm’ and he continues to find ways to work with electric vehicles as well as generating and storing electricity on the farm. In 2019, a Farm Carbon Toolkit audit found that the farm was sequestering 10 times more carbon than it was emitting. While this carbon balance is extremely positive, it was not initially a farm goal. Increasing the life in the soil, by growing diverse leys and grazing cattle, has been the route to carbon storing, nutrient cycling and water absorption.

Home Farm | Sophie and Tom Gregory

Sophie and Tom Gregory are first-generation organic dairy farmers. Their focus is on producing nutrient-dense milk from grass – milking a herd of 400 Jersey, Friesian and Shorthorn cows. They have been farming organically for over 10 years, motivated by animal welfare as well as the economics of an organic approach, but more recently deciding to take a step further in improving soil health by moving towards regenerative principles, including mob grazing and the introduction of diverse herbal leys. Alongside the benefits to the soil and biodiversity that farming regeneratively has brought, Sophie and Tom are especially dedicated to maximising the social value of farming in this way, something which is much harder to measure (see the Global Farm Metric’s website for more on measuring social outcomes). Part of the SFT’s Beacon Farms Network, Home Farm serves as an educational platform, regularly hosting visitors, from school children to farming discussion groups, in order to inspire more people to become involved in regenerative farming, especially those from non-farming backgrounds.

Edinglassie | Malcolm Hay

The name Edinglassie is derived from the Gaelic ‘Eudanglasaich’ meaning ‘steep grazing’. It is an upland estate with sheep and native breed cattle. Twenty-five years ago, Malcolm’s farm system was heavily reliant on artificial fertiliser, producing large amounts of silage to see their heavy continental-breed cattle through the winter. These practices, along with a succession of wet winters, resulted in damage to the fields, which sparked their conversion to organic and the use of native breeds better suited to the steep, wet ground. Edinglassie is a good example of a Highland estate where grazing plays a crucial role in helping to maintain habitats, including grasslands and wetlands of high biodiversity value. Well-managed grazing has enabled a wide variety of small plant species to thrive, many of conservation interest, without being outcompeted by more dominant, common species. The quality and diversity of habitats on the estate support many other endangered species, including birds like black grouse, snipe and curlew. Crucially, the transition to organic has also brought financial savings through the elimination of expensive inputs and breeding their own replacement stock, along with the premium received for organic beef and lamb.

Want to see sustainable farming in action? Join us for our Beacon Farms weekend event on 11^th – 13^th July at Holden Farm Dairy. The programme will include workshops, panel discussions and experiential farm walks, with locally sourced food and live music. For more information and to book your ticket, click here.

In his Guardian column this week, George Monbiot raised a number of criticisms of our recently published Grazing Livestock report. Here, we respond briefly to some of them.

 

Dartmoor

Monbiot states: “Sheep, cattle and ponies … selectively browse out tree seedlings, preventing the return of temperate rainforest, which is extremely difficult to burn. In dry weather, the moor grass, bracken and heather covering the deforested landscape are tinder.”

Our response: Overgrazing has undoubtedly contributed to an increased risk of wildfire on moorlands, including through a rise in the dominance of Molinia – a flammable grass that now blankets large areas. But that doesn’t mean that moorland grazing is inherently bad. There is good evidence, including from SW England, to show that well-managed grazing can help reverse the dominance of Molinia, bringing benefits for wildfire risk and biodiversity. Grazing animals play a crucial role in supporting upland biodiversity more generally, with many protected habitats and species benefitting or even relying upon low intensity grazing. That’s not to say, of course, that all of our uplands need to be farmed with grazing livestock – we clearly need to make more space for trees, for example. Still, grazing animals have an important part to play in the more sustainable management of our uplands – a role that is under threat from the ongoing loss of livestock in certain areas.

Greenwashing

Monbiot states: “Celebrities, politicians, billionaires and far-right podcasts, seek to persuade us that cattle and sheep are good for the atmosphere and the living planet.”

Our response: Monbiot is right to highlight the risk of those with ulterior motives hijacking messaging from the regenerative or agroecological movements. But that doesn’t mean that influencers are always wrong on the question of livestock! Livestock can absolutely play a central role in a food system that is good for people and the planet, but we would agree with George that their intensive counterparts are causing a great deal of harm. So, the critical point is to differentiate between the livestock systems that are part of the problem and those which are part of the solution – which is what our report is all about.

We also believe it is a good thing that some of the major food companies and retailers have become interested in moving towards regenerative practices. Our job is to scrutinise any claims they make, and ensure they are not mis-representing the science to greenwash their actions.

Beef, lamb and their land use and greenhouse gas footprints

Monbiot says: “Beef and lamb are the most land-hungry and climate-damaging of all farm products. Their climate impacts range from the methane and nitrous oxide the animals produce to the huge areas they need for grazing, which could otherwise support wild ecosystems far richer in carbon, such as forests and wetlands.”

Our response: Are beef and lamb land hungry? It’s true that they require a lot of land to produce a given quantity of food. But this very narrow focus on land use footprint overlooks the crucial point, which is that grazing livestock can play a key role in a food system that makes a much more efficient use of agricultural land than today. To achieve this, we need to move from diets heavy in grain-fed livestock products, and instead base our consumption of meat and dairy off the output of animals reared largely or solely on pasture. By doing so, we could free up a lot of arable land currently used for growing feed crops (including for soya overseas), and instead use it to grow more fruit, vegetables and pulses – and, in a more sustainable manner than today. Such a scenario would involve an overall reduction in the amount of livestock products we consume, but it would still allow for a significant supply of nutrient-dense meat and dairy, produced from the 70% of the UK’s agricultural area only suited for growing grass, as well as from the fertility-building temporary pastures that would form a central part of biologically-based crop rotations.

What about the claim they are climate-damaging? Well, it’s true that beef and lamb have high emissions footprints, when measured in the conventional way (CO2-equivalent emissions per kg of food). Again, though, it is a massive oversimplification to claim on this basis that all beef and lamb is inherently climate-damaging. If we adopt a more holistic approach to measuring climate impact – one that accounts for emissions, carbon sequestration and a wide range of other key indicators of sustainability – it is clear that grazing livestock can play a central role in a food system that works for the climate, nature and human health. To realise this, though, we need a transformation in farming practice and diets – and that is what our report calls for.

Arable land use

Monbiot says: “[The Grazing Livestock report] urges us to stop eating pigs and chickens and eat cattle and sheep instead, while consuming far fewer arable crops, as its proposals would, it admits, greatly reduce output.”

Our response: Our report did not set out to model a prescribed pattern of production or a specific diet, and it certainly does not claim what is quoted above. What we actually say (mostly in our previously published Feeding Britain from the Ground Up report), is that in a sustainably farmed UK, we could produce a greater diversity of plant foods, including more pulses, fruit and vegetables, but that production of pork and poultry (which relies heavily on arable feeds) would reduce dramatically. This is due, in large part, to a 50% reduction in grain output – linked to a move away from chemical production to fertility building crop rotations. As a consequence, both chicken and pork would become more expensive and consumption would have to be reduced. On the other hand, beef, lamb and dairy would see less significant falls in production, and would continue to form an important part of the national diet. This, as mentioned above, is because of the importance of grasslands in a biologically-based farming system.

Monbiot says: “How much land would be needed under this system to produce the crops we eat? Would we become even more dependent on imports, taking grain from hungrier people overseas or commissioning the destruction of forests, savannahs and wetlands?

Our response: Once again, we covered these issues in our Feeding Britain from the Ground Up report, which concluded that if we reduce food waste by 50% and ate differently, as described above, we could maintain our current levels of national self-sufficiency in staple foods. Other studies which have modelled a large-scale transition to a more biologically-based approach to farming have come up with similar findings.

Monbiot says: “Given that cattle and sheep in almost all systems require supplementary feeding, and are far less efficient converters than chickens and pigs, would this proposal really ensure that less grain was needed?”

Our response:  It’s true that at present, many sheep and beef systems do include supplementary feeding, but there are a growing number of farmers who are committed to finishing animals exclusively on grass and pasture, now represented by the Pasture Fed Livestock association and their certification scheme. There is, then, no fundamental reason why the majority of beef and lamb could not be finished exclusively on grass. While there is a stronger case for supplementation with dairy cows, which we factor into our Feeding Britain report, we can and should, still move towards systems of dairy production that use much less in the way of arable feeds than today.

Affordability / “The price of food would soar”

Monbiot says: “When I spoke to Holden, he admitted that the price of food would soar.”

Our response: We acknowledge that the sort of the transition outlined in our report could come with challenges around food prices. However, as our report The Hidden Cost of UK Food demonstrated, the prices we currently pay for food are misleading and do not reflect the environmental and health costs of our existing food system. ‘Cheap food’ is in actual fact not all that cheap. In addition, it’s worth remembering that the UK has some of the cheapest food in the developed world, relatively speaking – and yet we still have a quarter of all households struggling in food poverty. Price, then, is far from the only issue at play here.

Still, ensuring everyone has access to healthy, sustainable produce, is of course a major challenge, particularly when it comes to meat and dairy. Rather than simply replacing chicken and pork with beef and lamb in the diet (as George describes) our report emphasises the need to reduce overall meat consumption, especially industrial livestock products. This reduction can help ‘make space’ for pasture-based meat, without increasing overall costs, including, for example, in the public sector. By connecting pasture-based livestock farmers with the public through short supply chains and local food initiatives, progress can be made to ensure these products are not limited to a privileged few.

 

Featured image courtesy of Christian Kay.