Читать книгу Riverford Farm Cook Book: Tales from the Fields, Recipes from the Kitchen - Jane Baxter - Страница 15

When I was at college, the soil scientists tended to be wildly eccentric recluses who worked from labs in the cellar, occasionally emerging, bemused and mole-like, to gather samples and bemoan the world’s pitiful ignorance and lack of interest in their subject. The problem with soil is that, to the casual observer, it is an inert, uninteresting inconvenience that sticks to your shoes and threatens to pollute and infect your food. Few appreciate that this is where terrestrial life begins, that it supports myriad organisms, that it is being destroyed by modern farming and that it needs our stewardship every bit as much as the giant panda.

A key principle of organic farming is to understand nature and find ways of working with it rather than seeking to dominate and replace it. This applies as much below ground as above but the ecology is even more complex and poorly understood. It is an unfortunate aspect of human nature that we distrust what we do not understand and will frequently try to control or destroy it rather than taking the time to understand and appreciate its virtues. Soil sterilisation, as practised in greenhouses and strawberry growing, is one of the most hideous abuses of modern farming, virtually akin to Nazi book burnings in its reflection of the narrow-minded ignorance of its perpetrators.

Good organic farmers, and a few conventional ones, are acutely protective of their soil, treating it with the commitment, concern and empathy normally reserved for close family members. I have seen organic farmers sniffing and even tasting their soil, and describing its virtues with familiarity and affection. A handful of healthy soil can contain millions of life forms from tens of thousands of different species, almost all benign or beneficial to us and our crops. Not only do they recycle organic matter, making nutrients available to plant roots, they also out-compete and even attack pathogenic bacteria, fungi, eelworms and slugs. Pesticides, fertilisers, animal wormers, excessive and poorly timed cultivation, compaction and poor drainage can all drastically reduce these populations, not by just a few per cent but by 10 or even 100 per cent. Imagine the outcry from WWF if anyone could see the carnage.

So if you can’t see the fungi, bacteria and invertebrates and you don’t feel inclined or qualified to taste your soil, how do you know it is healthy? Earthworms are a wonderful indicator. If you can find plenty of fat, juicy worms, you can be sure you have healthy soil; I would expect to find two to five per spadeful in our soil but I have seen soils that have grown continuous cereals for decades where you can dig for a long time without finding one. It is an uncomfortable truth that the soil would be much happier if we did not cultivate it at all and went back to being hunter-gatherers. You will find the best soils, supporting the most life, where we have been denied access: in the base of an old hedgerow, for example, the debris is naturally incorporated into the soil, and the gradation from leaf litter through fungal decay and the action of invertebrates into the soil below is seamless. The structure of the soil is invariably perfectly friable, breaking easily into fine crumbs that make me, as a grower, itch to sow seeds. Our heavy machinery, and in particular the compaction that it simultaneously rectifies and causes, is a clumsy luxury afforded by cheap oil. It is notable that during my farming career the cultivations have got deeper and deeper but the soil structure has almost invariably deteriorated. The skill of a good farmer lies in being able to get a decent crop with minimum detriment to the soil in its natural state. That requires experience, sensitivity, and occasionally listening to those moles in the basement.