In this fifth episode of my podcast, Agriculture Reinvented, I talk with Ben Goldsmith, investor, environmentalist, enthusiastic re-wilder, and farmer, about his investments, in and outside agriculture, the future of farming, and one of his favourite themes, re-wilding.
Regarding innovation, Ben expects "precision fermentation" to replace a whole bunch of animal protein commodities, such as protein powders which are presently extracted from milk or eggs, for use in processed foods, and that could equally be derived from fermentation, with consumers unable to spot the difference. For Ben, the drivers include not only lower cost, but displacing the “worst, cheapest end of industrial farming”, for example in the U.S. and China.
He is very supportive of the prospects for regenerative agriculture: the precision application of chemicals enabled by a combination of satellite imagery, drones and soil sensors, as well as no-till practices, to boost farm business profit margins and protect the soil.
As a previous DEFRA director, regarding post-Brexit, UK agricultural policy, he thinks that only demonstrated environmental actions can justify continued payments to farmers and other landowners, where he sees the new English Environmental Land Management scheme, ELMs, as a pioneer, likely to be copied globally, including in the EU and U.S., as he thinks “farm support is highly vulnerable, the idea of area-based payments for farmers is a concept that won’t survive”.
Ben is most excited about what he calls farmer-centred re-wilding, and especially the role of native breeds of big grazing cattle, which he calls a silver bullet to revitalise nature, and especially wood pastures, in more remote landscapes, keeping farmers in business, supported by the taxpayer, while increasing jobs in conservation. In the most remote landscapes of all, with local community support, he imagines a whole food chain of native species reintroduced in Scotland and the wilder English uplands and wetlands, from wild ox to beaver and bison to wolves, for a “genuinely wild future”, in million-acre rewilding projects. He sees such farmer-centred re-wilding as a way to maintain farm communities, instead of sheep farming for example, which he says “is not working”.
And he described one new investment fund that he is advising on, to “create new wild places in Britain”, producing “mid-single digit yields” by buying corporate-owned, low productivity land, to generate revenues from biodiversity and carbon offsetting, nature tourism and environmental payments under Britain’s new farm policy.