Six Inches of Soil
Cissy recently attended the screening of Six Inches of Soil, a documentary film aiming to raise awareness and understanding of regenerative food farming. The film shares the inspiring story of three young British food farmers rejecting ‘standardised’ intensive, chemical dependent farming practices and transforming the way they produce food - to heal the soil, benefit our health and provide for local communities.
"Agroecology is an approach to farming that includes ‘regenerative’ farming techniques that work in harmony with, rather than against nature. It focuses on local food systems and shorter supply chains. The advantages are numerous: we get to know who is growing our food and how, farmers get paid a fair price and have the satisfaction of producing healthy food in a healthy environment. Agroecology may also be our best chance in the face of climate change: it keeps carbon in the ground and creates resilient systems in the face of climate uncertainty.”
The stories of the three farmers are inspiring and encouraging and clearly demonstrate how regenerative farming practices produce a higher quality product and are both better for the environment AND the economics of production.
Soil health is critical for our entire ecosystem. It supports biodiversity, which is vital for ensuring our ecosystems don’t collapse and for the ‘simple’ act of pollination, it acts as a carbon store and it reduces flooding. All without the need for chemical intervention.
And if you are unmoved by the environmental benefits, the economic merits justify this approach alone. The yields were all higher with lower costs of inputs (ie no need to buy costly chemical fertilizers and the need for insecticides, antibiotics etc reduced markedly). The yield of the arable farmer’s wheat was 50% higher than the ‘standardised’ industry average, without the cost of fertilizer. The nutritional value (and thus taste) of the farmed produce also increased.
Throughout the film, I couldn’t help but draw the parallels between the food industry and flowers. The similarity, and challenges facing the locally grown, cut flower sector here in the UK, is striking.
From the poor environmental practices of large scale intensive industrial flower growing vs the regenerative farming practices of many of the UK’s small scale flower farmers. Through the impact that the supermarkets have had on the sector in terms of setting, and normalising, unfeasibly low prices within the market. To the challenges of raising customer awareness and creating easy access to locally and regeneratively grown flowers. And most importantly of all, the many inspiring stories of flower farmers and season led florists who are striving to change the industry. Maybe they’ll make a film about flower farmers next…
The director, producer and a couple of the featured farmers are all local to the area, and for the screening Cissy took the producer, Claire McKenzie’s, wheelbarrow and a bucket of her beautiful, healthy soil (replete with worms) and created a floral installation evoking the wild beauty of our spring hedgerows for the screening… any excuse to showcase and raise awareness of regeneratively farmed flowers and the beauty of floral design at the untamed edge.
I really encourage you to watch the film if you can. It is both fascinating and inspiring… We genuinely have the potential to reverse the environmental challenges we are facing. It just requires the willingness to make the change.
Check out your local farmers market or Community Supported Agriculture subscription food (and increasingly often flower) boxes (https://communitysupportedagriculture.org.uk), and find your local flower farmer through the brilliant Flowers From the Farm of which both Lucy and Cissy are proud members.
The film is being screened all over the country at the moment, so check out their screening dates to see if if is being shown near you in the coming weeks and months.