the land between the cities

I would like to offer a few personal observations about the state of the British countryside and reflect on what these might mean for the future of the land between our cities.

I can remember stories of farmers on the Islands simply abandoning their sheep, as it would cost them more to take the sheep to slaughter at an abattoir on the mainland than the carcass was actually worth. Commuting along the same route over decades, I have seen the once damp corner of a field, turning into an abandoned corner, and finally a whole forgotten field, at last under no pretence of cultivation whatsoever. From fences to drainage, the state of the farmland is deteriorating before our eyes. The knee high Ragwort is everywhere at this time of year, its bright yellow flowers predicting a bumper crop of further airborne seeds. But Ragwort is a notifiable weed, toxic to livestock and you can be prosecuted for having it on your land.

Even worse, the Daily Mail is full of stories about Japanese Knotweed, an invasive species with roots that will tear through concrete, or Giant Hogweed, with a sap that is not exactly toxic, but will remove your skin’s natural ability to defend itself against sunlight, resulting in horrendous blisters for the unwary. Clearing a patch of these species can cost £3,000 and even then it is not certain.

Elsewhere the BBC reports on dairy farmers buying up milk from supermarkets and giving it away, in protest at their inability to get a decent price for their product.

Nowadays we just take it for granted that we do not build ships in this country, that is just not something that we do here anymore. What if farming were to go the same way. What if the land between the cities just ended up like the urban brownfield sites and unused petrol stations that no one wanted. Too expensive to remediate, not worth the trouble, in the wrong place.

Will the countryside end up like Pripyat, the abandoned city outside Chernobyl, all feral dogs and forgotten classrooms.

Will our countryside end up as a post apocalyptic landscape, with the irony that there was no apocalypse.

Perhaps now is the time to start to ask ourselves what do we want the countryside to be there for, and how do we get to there?