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More than a memoir; Langford manages to contain and convey the whole scale of the coming agricultural revolution." Heartbreaking and hopeful, this story of a farming revival has never been more important. It opened my eyes and touched my soul"
Rooted by Sarah Langford; Regenesis by George Monbiot reviews Rooted by Sarah Langford; Regenesis by George Monbiot reviews
Rooted is a brave thing: a book that prods into the ever-widening gulf between the binaries we increasingly use to examine the world. As conversations about what we eat and where it comes from reach fever-pitch, Sarah Langford's clear-eyed, inquisitive and passionate plea for farmers and farming offers a vital understanding when it has never been so needed. I hope everyone reads it." The environmentalist George Monbiot argues that farming is the world’s greatest cause of environmental destruction, but few people want to talk about it. In Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet he presents a vision for the future of food production. He tells Tom Sutcliffe that new ideas and technologies from soil ecology to laboratory-grown food could change the way people eat while regenerating the landscape. After gaining a degree in English Literature at a not-very-prestigious university, I worked as a barmaid, legal secretary and note-taking clerk before completing a law conversion course. Thanks to a scholarship from Gray's Inn Of Court I was able to take my Bar Vocational Course. I qualified as a barrister in 2005. This book broke my heart at times but also contained humour and such poignant insights into the criminal justice system.' An authentic, beautifully written portrait of 21st Century farming, this deeply personal account puts a powerful case: that the task of restoring our earth and ensuring a sustainable future both for our food and ourselves, lies in the hands of those who live closest to the land.
In Rooted, you highlight how regenerative farming can benefit the land and the output of a farm but balance it with the reality that there are a lot of farmers, who have been used to certain practices their whole farming life. What have you found to be the most effective way of starting those conversations and getting people to consider change? The author and her husband conclude that organic farming is the niche to explore for them not just because it seems the only way small, non-agribusiness farming can be financially viable but it is the path farmers need to follow after years of being pushed to produce more and more food via chemicals and farming methods alien to their ancestors.
Rooted by Sarah Langford | Waterstones
Where Rooted ploughs its own shining furrow in its humanity [...] but also the gathered, inspirational stories of farmers trying to do better and greener." Sarah Langford has reinvented a genre ... [as a barrister she has turned] her experience of 11 criminal cases into short stories that are as compelling as fiction, with the added fascination of being essentially true ... Immensely powerful. Jenni Russell, Sunday TimesHeartbreaking and hopeful, this story of a farming revival has never been more important. It opened my eyes and touched my soul Esther Freud Langford also tells the stories of farmers who are quietly leading an agricultural revolution. ‘It is a revolution that might just abate a climate crisis, a physical and mental health crisis, and a biodiversity crisis,’ she writes. She shines a light on the human side of farming, on the real cost of cheap food and on the regenerative choices some farmers are making. ‘All of us are connected to farmers, and them to us. They may represent just one per cent of our workforce but they look after 70 per cent of our land. Their choices affect us all.’ Moving, startling, uplifting, galvanising and unsettling, this plainly beautiful book is one of those rare few that changes how you see the world around you ' - Ella Risbridger, author of The Year of Miracles
About — Sarah Langford
Sarah Langford's book on farming is really a book about healing. All of life and death is here: family, politics, nature, climate, history, humanity. Rooted is a beautifully written, powerful reminder of where we've gone wrong, what is at stake, and how we can change. I loved it. Christie Watson, bestselling author of The Language of Kindness Moving, intimate, tender and searing, this is a gem of a book with deep roots and fresh green shoots. Tamsin Calidas, author of I Am An Island Published in the UK since 1935, Geographical is the official magazine of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).
Rooted is a brave thing: a book that prods into the ever-widening gulf between the binaries we increasingly use to examine the world. As conversations about what we eat and where it comes from reach fever-pitch, Sarah Langford's clear-eyed, inquisitive and passionate plea for farmers and farming offers a vital understanding when it has never been so needed. I hope everyone reads it. Alice Vincent, author of Rootbound
Rooted by Sarah Langford - The Royal Countryside Rural Reads: Rooted by Sarah Langford - The Royal Countryside
Moving, intimate, tender and searing, this is a gem of a book with deep roots and fresh green shoots." Rooted charts a quiet revolution taking place in our fields, barns and hedgerows, led by a new generation of farmers on a path of powerful change.An eloquent and personal insight into the terrible human as well as environmental cost of cheap food and an inspiring account of the people working to heal our relationship with our habitat and ourselves. Urgent, necessary and moving. Ben Rawlence, author of The Treeline Funnily enough, I think we’re seeing a pivot on it because when the job was sitting on a tractor with no autonomy, the agronomist decided what was planted and how it was farmed and the merchant decided what price it was sold at, then it was a boring job, that carried none of the status and very little of the money it used to have. But the interesting thing about regenerative farming is that there seems to be a renewed enthusiasm amongst the younger generation, who are getting into farming again. I think it’s very intellectually challenging – you have to really understand how plants work and how they respond to the soil and how they have a symbiotic relationship with animals – but it’s also a chance for farmers to be heroes again because through the way they are farming, they are not only providing food but they are also stopping villages from being flooded downstream; they are cleaning rivers; they are sequestering carbon; they are improving the biodiversity on their farms that people who walk through it can see and love and appreciate. I think that this way of farming, which is of course a very old way of farming but rebranded, has attracted both a large number of farmers’ children who wouldn’t have wanted to do it otherwise and also new entrants into farming.
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