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Pastoral Song: A Farmer's Journey

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I really enjoyed the first part of the book that involved him learning about farming from his grandfather. Our land is like a poem, in a patchwork landscape of other poems, written by hundreds of people, both those here now and the many hundreds that came before us, with each generation adding new layers of meaning and experience. And the poem, if you can read it, tells a complex truth. It has both moments of great beauty and of heartbreak. It tells of human triumph and failings, of what is good in people and what is flawed; and what we need, and how in our greed we can destroy precious things. It tells of what stays the same, and what changes; and of honest hard-working folk, clinging on over countless generations, to avoid being swept away by the giant waves of a storm as the world changes. It is also the story of those who lost their grip and were swept away from the land, but who still care, and are now trying to find their way home. The New York Timesbestselling author of The Shepherd’s Lifeprofiles his family’s farm across three generations, revealing through this intimate lens the profound global transformation of agriculture and of the human relationship to the land. I will be honest, I absolutely adored “The Shepherd’s Life” and was not sure this would appeal to me. However, I was so very wrong. Rebanks has written a book that is both informative and offers an insight into his family history. Rebanks really opens up to the reader about what his family life is like, how far they have come and how far they have to go. At the same time, Rebanks reflects on modern farming and the damage that has been caused, is being caused and could be caused in the future.

I cannot remember the last time I read a book that had such an impact on me. I found this absolutely fascinating and gave me so much to think about. In no way is this patronising and Rebanks can admit to his own weaknesses and downfalls. With this read you will learn about farming, natural history and family life, whilst at the same time be left with deep questions around the future of farming and of our world. The main thrust I think of the author’s arguments is captured in this compromise. At its worse this seems to be rather resentful of both sides: he seems to share equal dislike for the world of neo-liberal free-trade and globalised economics (economists in particular seem to be his rather odd bête noire) and for left-wing extremists (George Monbiot is not named in the book but the two seem to have a history of opposition). But more commonly he argues against entrenched positions (that farmers are either all bad or all good) and bifurcation (for example colleges which turn out either economics focused MBA farmers or nature loving ecologists but without ever bringing the two into dialogue). What a lovely book! James Rebanks is a farmer who lives on the western fringe of the English Lake District.

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I must admit I struggled with the first part of the book and the description of apparently traditional and generally benevolent farming from around 40 years ago. My own recollection of farming from that time was of widespread use of pesticides, polluting stubble burning (with the added “bonus” of accidental destruction of pesty field boundaries), destruction of hedgerows, the deliberate concealment or obstruction of rights of way – and that things are much better in almost every sense since - but I think industrial farming hit East Anglia a long time before the author’s corner of the lakes.

Rebanks has a gift for capturing both the allure of his beautiful surroundings and his difficult work, and for articulating the complex, worrisome issues facing farmers today. Pastoral Song enchants. ... Urgently conveys how the drive for cheap, mass-produced food has impoverished both small farmers and the soil, threatening humanity's future." — NPR.org, What We're Excited to Read Next Month The name of the game became productivity. Ancient field systems were broken up, traditional crop rotation abandoned. Breeds of plants and animals re-engineered to produce greater yields on massive farms. In three sections (“Nostalgia,” “Progress,” and “Utopia”), Rebanks writes of learning to plant barley and tending animals with his grandfather, to witnessing the seismic transition of family farms into agribusinesses across England and the United States. In these movements, he invites readers into his most intimate moments shared with his young children during their daily chores on the farm—inherited land once farmed by his grandfather. This chronology and intimacy is effective in illustrating two important points: real change takes time, especially when you are tethered to a landscape, and healthy ecosystems, including agroecosystems, are more a practice than a destination. This book won the Wainwright Prize for UK nature writing (2021), was on the longlist for the Orwell Prize for political writing (2021) and made the shortlist for The Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize (2021). Through the eyes of James Rebanks as a grandson, son, and then father, we witness the tragic decline of traditional agriculture, and glimpse what we must do now to make it right again.”Near the end of the book, as he catalogues all the changes that must occur to combat the farming crisis, he implicates the reader by switching to the pronoun “we.” His rhetoric fails to inspire because unlike the memoir portions of Pastoral Song, he discards concrete details for abstract ideas. He writes: “We are all responsible for the new industrial-style farming. We let it happen because we thought we wanted the sort of future it promised us. Now, if we want a different kind of future, we need to make some difficult decisions to make that happen.” What decisions need to be made? How will they affect the future? Even in the climax to this section, he drifts into generalization: “Some of the solutions are small and individual, but others require big political and structural changes.” Pastoral Song gives readers an insider’s perspective into a part of society that is extremely important yet persistently overlooked by a public that takes for granted the labor—and pain—that goes into keeping their bellies full. Unfortunately, lazy prose and a fragmentary structure make for an inconsistent reading experience.

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