Eco-ranching : agriculture to restore our upland green deserts?

Creating an eco-ranching class of agriculture to sit alongside farming would enable policy to revive upland ecosystems and villages.

For many city day-trippers, the upland landscapes of the northern Pennines and Yorkshire Dales deliver what they expect: drystone walls and sheep grazing on green pastures.  But these pastures are far from green and pleasant lands for the myriad of smaller life that shares our country. Many are ecological deserts. Intensive sheep grazing has compacted the soil, removed the process of water infiltration, and eliminated the microhabitats needed by plants and creatures at the foot of the food web.

The RSPB and other conservation charities are doing their best to protect the last breeding curlews, redshanks, and snipes, but in truth, they are remnant populations hanging on in quiet desperation, as is the English way. They are the remaining visible component of ecosystems in terminal decline and, for ecologists, symbolize the urgency of restorative action.

A tale of two pastures

To better understand the problem, consider the example of two pastures. The first pasture is on a hillside running down to a tributary of the river Aire. The tenant farmer ploughed the old pastures, reseeded, and rolled them to produce high productivity grass and the promise of more efficient and profitable livestock rearing. He got rid of his cattle and filled the pastures with sheep, but the ploughing and rolling disrupted the natural soil structure, creating a firm layer that many small hooves packed down into a pan. Today, the rains sit on this pan in a shallow sheet that flows down into the river. Little water penetrates the pan, and the seeds of old grasses, herbs, and bushes cannot break through.

The second pasture is on flatter ground, and the landowner seeded into the old sward without ploughing and rolling. He contracted out the management of his sheep to a company that provided a shepherd. The pasture couldn't sustain the number of sheep, the soil compacted, and water collected on top, creating the ideal conditions for inedible moss. This reduced the amount of grass, creating more overgrazing and moss, a downward positive feedback loop.

Both farmers face difficult decisions. The farmer with the high-production pasture will need to invest more and more in fertilizers and seeds since the land's natural fertility is gone. This may not generate a livelihood once farm subsidies are reduced, and there is increasing alarm at the flood risk contributions that such pastures export, from government agencies and citizens alike. The farmer may well be nearing retirement, and his children may be reluctant to take over the last leg of the three-generation tenancy introduced in the aftermath of WWII. The intensive sheep farming approach has failed to maintain and renew life quality in the uplands.

The farmer with the mossy pastures has been maximizing revenues from his land asset at arm's length. He is faced with three options: he could plough, reseed, and continue with intensive sheep farming; alternatively, he could plant it with trees and generate revenues from timber and carbon credits. If he doesn't want to make the upfront investment, he could lease the land to a company that (subject to planning permission) would plant and manage the trees and maybe even offer a revenue share. Lastly, he could sell the land and invest the capital in something else.

Time for change

In my opinion, none of the current trajectories will lead to a better future for our uplands. The process of enclosure that started in the 16th century to generate wealth for the few has culminated in a state where revenues generated from land are increasingly accrued by agri-businesses, land agents, consultants, contractors and bankers, dissociated from those who own and manage it. Consequently, there are few work and business opportunities in the uplands, and the socio-ecological systems are functioning at a low ebb.

We need change, and the question is, what kind of change do we want to shape? The Tory party's 25-year environment plan, which aspires to leave nature in a better place than we found it, introduced the principles of public payments for public (environmental) good and biodiversity net-gain in planning. However, both are being implemented through the traditional lens of farming, which may deliver some improvements for nature but will not create the conditions for the recovery of thriving upland landscapes.

The Westminster government is consulting on the taxation of environmental land management and ecosystem markets. Under the current regime, only land and buildings maintained for food production qualify for agricultural business and inheritance tax relief. This is a big problem given that nature production requires land to be committed for 30 or more years, and viable business models require diversification into complimentary areas such as ecotourism and associated repurposing of buildings.

The consultation document opens with the statement “Food is still the primary purpose of farming, and always will be”. Fair enough, but farming is not the only model of agriculture’. Another is ranching which is common in other regions of the world where the land is unsuited to cropping of intensive livestock rearing.

Eco-ranching

The term " ranching" has no cultural legacy in the UK, but neither did the internet, halloween, or cappuccino  30 years ago. Eco-ranching, where ranchers integrate conservation and sustainable land management practices in their extensive cattle grazing operations is present in Canada, the United States, Costa Rica, South Africa, and Australia. Eco-ranching involves extensive grazing with cattle and, as growing body of science shows, they are ecosystem architects that ability to accelerate nature recovery and carbon sequestrations, particularly if natural grazing principles are adopted.

Why don’t we create a UK version of eco-ranching - a class of agriculture that recovers ecosystems as infrastructure to generate revenues from produce, experiences, and ecosystem services?  

With suitable enabling policies, eco-ranching could offer a route to transition from agriculture as it currently exists to something more fitting for the 21st century.  In rewilding, regen agriculture, sustainable finance, and other fields we have a body of new science, principles, practice and technology that could both inform and be empowered by policy. Eco-ranching would generate new rural job and enterprise opportunities that would attract younger people to the countryside and revitalise community. Given that eco-ranching is essentially regen livestock farming meets rewilding it might also help heal the rift between farmers and environmentalists and narrow the cultural divide between urban and rural constituencies.

Of course, eco-ranching would require larger areas than traditional farms - perhaps 800 hectares and above, depending on topography and soils. Many estates are of this size, and eco-ranching could offer new opportunities for landowners and tenants alike.

Eco-ranching could also be a community enterprise. In 2014, the village of Langholme, with a population of less than 2500, raised the funds to purchase 4250 (10,500 acres) from the Duke of Buccleuch. This was enabled by the act and realized through a max of crowdfunding, gifts and grants. 

Alternatively, DEFRA has promoted the idea of farm clusters working together for landscape-scale conservation. However, an eco-ranch enterprise would farms to transition to a more communitarian model of agriculture.

To conclude, we have all the necessary ingredients to create a new eco-ranching agricultural land system. However, we need government to recognise ranching as a valid class of agriculture different from farming and supported by an enabling policy framework. With this in place we could restore our upland green deserts to thriving, multi-coloured socio-ecological systems. 

Please add your reactions and thoughts in the comments.  I’m keen to hear how the notion of eco-ranching lands.  Is it something  we Brits could embrace or is farming is too embedded in our national psyche.

p.s. Back in 2019 I outlined a ‘New Pastoralism’ vision in an @Ecosulis blog which, on re-reading, suggested one version of eco-ranching.

#naturebasedsolutions #rewilding #regenerativeagriculture #farming #naturepositive #yorkshiredales #greendeserts