Why do we require field borders. Are we practising sustainable Agriculture

This requirement has come about due to the nature of mainstream agriculture. If we use a system of agriculture that does not employ heavy machinery that compacts soil and stops the absorbtion of water and uses chemicals that destroy the insect food source we would not need to have these mandatory field borders.

Our HH- system is one of these systems of Agriculture because it employs people rather than machines to do the work. But farms always say they cannot get enough labour to assist in the growing of crops in this way and that is why they sometimes have to leave crops to rot in the fields.

Imports are another reason for the fall off in British agricultural produce as the methods of growing are structured under different economic conditions.

The reason farmers cannot get enough labour to do the work is because the scale is too big. This mentality has spread all over the world with one man, or one individual, or one company who wants to make all the profit.  The World’s educational systems are also geared to generate ”qualified agriculturists”  in order to be able to do this work. This again is another money making industry that costs and arm and a leg to undergo.

You don’t need to be a PhD or a Scientist to be able to grow vast amounts of food.

Our HH system of agriculture is one of the alternatives. It is probably the quickest alternative because unlike regenerative agriculture it doesn’t take several years to become effective. It is effective and crop producing in one season. Not only that. It produces larger, healthier and pest and disease free crops all at the same time with no extra effort other than recycling waste materials through our HH-2 system.  Anyone can operate this system if they follow the instructions.  We teach the simple techniques of farming in this way through our CSA programme.

Of course we are not in any way dissuading the regenerative farmers to do their thing, but it does employ heavy machinery and more technology to do so.

It will take all systems of sustainable agriculture to successfully produce enough food to sustain the growing population of the planet.

But as systems fail that we see around us due to unbeatable comparisons with imports more simple and Nature effective ways will come into being that will save the farmers leaving Agriculture altogether. These employ numbers of dedicated personnel  who understand the more conducive systems that rely on Nature for a local source of food production rather than the high technology and heavy equipment of mainstream Agriculture.

At a meeting of the APPG at the House of Commons one year I asked an organic farmer on the panel why do organic farmers need to have an undisturbed border round all their fields and along newly planted hedgerows? Her reply was ” I have no idea.”

Organic mainstream farmers do use heavy machinery which cause the compaction that causes the lack of water absorbtion into the water table and up to one third of production can be lost through the use of tram lines going across fields that the heavy machinery use. Our HH-system does not require heavy machinery because the condition of the soil is so enhanced by the operational process of the No Dig system that most of the cultivations used in organic farming are made obsolete. Organic farming also  uses 5 kinds of ”organic” chemicals to prevent pests and diseases whereas our system uses none.

The Good Gardeners, the originators of the No Dig System in the UK, used to produce a booklet every few months that described our practises  how the system was Beyond Organic.

While there are enormous farms that can engage industrial regenerative farming practises we are aimed at the most sustainable system that can survive the greatest hardships of economy and labour shortage. Also our system employs and recycles the wastes that Regen Ag. does not employ. So we recycle all the waste from house and home and produce pest and disease free crops all in one go. Therefore this can be seen as a most sustainable system of Agriculture.

SO if we farm this way we will not be requiring the restrictions of undisturbed field borders. If we farm in this way all areas of the farm that are unused will have wild grass and wild flowers that all kinds of pollinators can benefit from including bees.