Guest election blog: Who should I vote for? by Henry Edmunds, farmer

Henry Edmunds is an organic farmer who farms the Cholderton estate on the edge of Salisbury Plain.

How will I vote in the forthcoming election? The priority for me will be to back a party that recognises the ongoing crisis in the British countryside and acknowledges that measures must be taken to turn away from the path of intensification to one that supports regenerative agricultural practices. The fact is that these are best for farmers, the land, nature and the planet.

For far too long, agricultural policies have been dictated by organisations and governments who have been influenced by the multi-national chemical industry. It is these who have profited from selling their products by promoting the ‘agricultural revolution’. However, in so doing, the numbers of farmers and skilled farm workers has drastically declined. Concurrently, carbon dioxide emissions from agriculture have skyrocketed and unsustainable practices have become the norm.

We must turn back to systems employed by our grandparents. Farms need to generate their own fertility by utilising grazing animals on their fields. I emphasise ‘grazing’ because the current practice of enclosing huge numbers of animals in buildings, together with the use of high protein feeds, is a major source of CO2 and methane and is unsustainable. Grazing animals at appropriate stocking rates is great for wildlife and encourages diverse pastures containing a plethora of wild flowers and insects.

As grass grows, it gives off hydroxyl ions as part of the process of transpiration. Water vapour, rising from the soil’s surface, together with these hydroxyl ions bind with the methane and nitrogen from grazing animals, returning these gasses to the soil where they promote natural fertility. 95% of planet cooling is achieved by the transpiration of plants.

Pastures containing a substantial leguminous element should be established on an extensive proportion of the land currently dedicated to the continuous arable cycle. Pastures will enrich the soil and eradicate arable weeds naturally. After a few years, they can be returned to cereal production and will produce good crops for 2 years or more without applied chemicals. This process should be extrapolated, on a rotational basis, over the entire arable area. Because chemicals are no longer utilised, wildlife flourishes.

The land will now become a carbon sink due to the rise in organic matter in the soil from animal waste and the roots now produced by the pasture.

Employing these techniques will make a very substantial contribution to reducing UK carbon emissions and could help the country achieve parity before the target date (too late) of 2050.

Much store is given by some concerning the carbon emissions from livestock, but, as has been explained, this is only part of the picture.

Before the industrial revolution, there were countless millions of large grazing animals on the planet. The plains of North America, Africa and the steppes of Mongolia and Tibet had incalculable numbers of grazers, moving in herds across the open lands. Yet, carbon dioxide levels were stable. It is only since the industrial revolution that CO2 levels have accelerated.

Unless real action is taken very, very soon, all life on earth will become progressively more difficult for every living entity.

This is one of a series of opinion pieces on the political parties’ 2024 general election manifestos. They were commissioned by Wild Justice several months ago by approaching a wide variety of conservationists and environmentalists long before the date of the general election was known. Some people who originally agreed to write pieces found the date and short timescale impossible and had to back out. We did not know what they would write and their only brief was to pick one or two political parties’ election manifestos and tell us what they liked and didn’t like about their environmental policies. We didn’t tell people what to write and we haven’t edited what they wrote (except to squeeze things into a common format, to correct minor grammatical and spelling errors and typos). The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Wild Justice.

If you think you could produce a review of one of the 2024 general election manifestos then we would need to receive it as soon as possible, but in any case before 26 June. Henry didn’t stick at all closely to the required format, but because we know him and like him we let him off. We won’t necessarily do the same with you so please stick closer to the format of Ruth Tingay’s or Mark Avery’s review. Send your submission as a word file and with a .jpg or .png image of yourself, the author. Send any potential texts to admin@wildjustice.org.uk and we will look at them. We’ll let you know if we want to publish your piece and we may be able to pay you a small amount for it.