Pastoral Song

by James Rebanks

THE ACCLAIMED INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

“A brilliant, beautiful book” (Sunday Times): the New York Times bestselling author of A Shepherd’s Life chronicles his family’s farm in England’s Lake District across three generations as they lose and reclaim “the old ways,” revealing through this intimate lens the profound global transformation of food production and of the human relationship to the land.

As a boy, James Rebanks's grandfather taught him to work the land the old way. Their family farm in the Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. And yet, by the time James inherited the farm, it was barely recognizable. The men and women had vanished from the fields; the old stone barns had crumbled; the skies had emptied of birds and their wind-blown song.

Pastoral Song is the story of an one that affects us all. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world were brought close to collapse, and the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community and wild things were lost. And yet this elegy from the northern fells is also a song of of how, guided by the past, one farmer began to salvage a tiny corner of England that was now his, doing his best to restore the life that had vanished and to leave a legacy for the future.

This is a book about what it means to have love and pride in a place, and how, against all the odds, it may still be possible to build a new not a utopia, but somewhere decent for us all.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Memoir, Environment, Biography, History, British Literature

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2020

About the author

James Rebanks runs a family-owned farm in the Lake District in northern England. A graduate of Oxford University, James works as an expert advisor to UNESCO on sustainable tourism.

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author James Rebanks’ memoir, is written with a prose that’s so poetic, it’s fair to say it touches the soul, and was extremely moving.

On his Cumbrian farm, in the Eden Valley, James looks back with nostalgia to early memories, sitting on the back of his grandfathers’ tractor, plowing fields in the old traditional (but nowadays considered less efficient way), the gulls giving chase, their excited screeches filling the air, and then, their work done, heading homewards beneath a blue black sky filled with a million glittering stars.

His grandfather cared deeply for the land, and it’s difficult not to feel a deep sadness for him, defiant in his determination to carry on with the traditional way of farming, and he did so right up until his death, but eventually there comes a time when change has to be embraced, to modernise in order to survive, but what about the cost to families, and rural communities, animals and nature?

James’s grandfather was such an important part of his life, teaching him everything he needed to know about farming the land, in a manner that didn’t compromise the quality of the yield or destroy the environment. His grandmother too is remembered with fondness, as she toiled in the kitchen, looking after the menfolk, forever cooking, baking, making jams and chutneys, and I felt an immediate affinity, as I was reminded of my own grandma, who was a terrific baker - it took me down memory lane, right back to her cosy kitchen filled with love and warmth, with the most delicious aromas, and watching her slice generous chunks of her home made bread, still warm from the oven, smothered in golden butter, with a slice of creamy cheddar, or home made jams of various varieties - and her cakes and pastries, oh my! Apologies for that, got kind of carried away there!

Back to the book, it was easy for me to share his nostalgia, and needless to say, I was somewhat moved by the whole experience. There were so many things that I loved about this book, not least the author’s passion for farming the land in a way that allows bees, pollinators, birds and beetles to thrive. To bring the natural system into balance, a new economy that is sustainable and respects the limits of natural resources and the functions of ecosystems is fundamental.

This is an extremely informative and absorbing memoir about the changes in agriculture across three generations. James shares some serious issues and concerns, and he relates where he believes things went wrong, and what he’s doing on his own farm to ensure a sustainable future, both financially and ecologically for his own children.


If you get the chance to read English Pastoral, grab it with both hands - it covers some serious issues that we all need to acknowledge, and the author’s passion for the land just radiates on every page.

* Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Press UK for an ARC, for which I have given an honest unbiased review in exchange *

[Ceecee · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Rebanks family has been farming in the Eden Valley in Cumbria for many years. He learned his craft particularly from his grandfather whose methods of framing owed much to the past. His own father stood on the cusp of the old and the new economical and industrial framing which caused him a great deal of internal conflict. Now it is James turn to inherit the land - in which direction will he err, the old or the new?

As I’m surrounded by two farms and enjoy watching the annual cycle of activities I was interested to read this. It is a really well written book which captures the colours, the wildlife and the landscape beautifully, in places it is almost lyrical as it’s a love affair with the land. He is passionate in how he discusses and presents his views on how he wants to farm and his concerns about modern farming. I love the sections where he recounts his early life on his grandfathers farm whilst he imparts his wisdom. His grandfather sounds like a wonderful man and a truly great teacher with his respect and love for his animals and the land. His care for the curlews eggs just sums up the goodness in his heart. His grandfathers methods are the old ways which is extremely hard work but is ecologically sound. However, James and his father are caught between making their farm pay and balancing that with nature in a rapidly changing world. Much of the book looks at the ‘progress’ of the business school approach to farming, the growing industrialisation, enormous machinery, the widespread use of fertilisers and ripping up of ancient hedgerows. He debates thoughtfully and passionately the ethics of modern farming and the demands of the supermarket and the consumer for cheap food which obviously negatively impacts animal welfare. I found this very interesting as it does make you step back and think about what we take for granted as we gaze at the supermarket shelves.

James makes the decision to go for the new English Pastoral of the title, shepherding the land and his livestock in a caring way that will not make him rich but will bring joy and be a wonderful inheritance for his children. I love reading about the changes that he makes and I’m sure his grandfather would be smiling down in wholehearted approval. The curlews will be pleased too.

This is a very intelligent, inspirational, well researched and thoughtful book which reflects on the massive rural change and examines what the future may hold. He advocates diversity and protecting old systems but equally the need for efficiency in order to feed a growing population. There’s real ‘food for thought’ here.

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Press UK.

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There was a time to live and a time to die. When he killed, he did it swiftly, with respect, but without great displays of emotion. Knowing and seeing death on personal terms, he had a kind of reverence for meat on the table. We were told not to leave a morsel, even the bacon rinds. He would have been confused that anyone could be so foolish, or rich enough, to suffer rabbits destroying a crop, or so morally elevated to think they were above killing when it was called for. He existed in nature, as an actor on the stage, always struggling to hold his ground. A risen ape, not a fallen angel." James Rebanks

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).

Rebanks's prose is sometimes simple but often lyrical as he describes the landscape and nature around his fells farm in the Lake District of England. He says that the literary tradition of the Lake District was mostly about the middle class and asks, "Where were the farmers?" He writes about the forgotten farmers and his long legacy on the land. His family has lived in this area for hundreds of years.

Rebanks's connection to the land is palpable in the stories he tells of his grandfather and parents. As a young boy, Rebanks describes himself as work shy and easily captivated by the TV, "in danger of becoming a disappointment," that is, until his grandfather takes him under his wing. His father, a somewhat surly man, doesn't have the temperament or patience to engage the youngster. Rebanks only begins to understand the tensions of the economic realities of the farm as he grows into adulthood and realizes the weight of responsibility that rested upon his father's shoulders.

One of the treasures (and there are many) of this story are the intricacies of this three-sided relationship between grandfather, father, and son. Rebanks describes a day when he and his grandfather were rolling the field, "flattening the loose soil, tucking the seed beneath a pressed down surface." Grandfather stopped the tractor to rescue a nest of curlew eggs. When Rebanks pridefully tells the story to his father that evening, his father calls Grandad a "soppy old bugger" "and no wonder they had taken so long to get the work done."

Rebanks writes about the failures of industrial farming, acknowledging that he bought into it for a while because farms were struggling for productivity just to stay afloat. One of their neighbors, 'Old Henry' doesn't use any interventions on his farm and was always behind schedule. They tsk about him, but after 'Ole Henry' dies, his land is tested and is found to need nothing. All the other farms have depleted soils due to artificial fertilizers and chemicals; the fertility has been leached by modern agricultural practices.

Last year I read 'The Seed Keeper' by Diane Wilson, and it served as a call to bring me to a year of gardening in '22. I had many failures and some successes. One of my middling crops was a hybrid 'Silver Queen' corn (a sweet, white corn). First of all, I had wanted to plant 'Peaches n Cream,' a sweet bicolor corn, but my husband returned from the seed store with 'Silver Queen.' I proceeded with some disappointment after a little row with my husband. We probably sounded like a couple of bickering crows. My husband is disabled but he supervised quite nicely from the sidelines assuring me this would be the best corn we ever ate. From laying off rows to harvesting and freezing, I accomplished what I felt was quite a feat with thirty some quart freezer bags of corn to sequester in our freezer at the end of the season. Harvesting corn in the middle of a hot summer was almost beyond me and I groused that it would be easier and cheaper to just buy cans of corn at the grocery store. According to Rebanks, herein lies the problem. Our food is not properly appreciated. Prior to inflation we were used to cheap food. My pocketbook likes the idea of cheap food. But a year of intensive gardening taught me something about value. We recently opened our first freezer bag of corn. My husband was right about the taste. I creamed it with milk, a little four, pepper and salt, and it was better than anything you can get out of a can.

I needed Rebanks message about the proper appreciation of food to put my own gardening journey into perspective. When I think about the hybrid and heirloom tomatoes I grew and the seeds I saved, I am reassured that it is worth the work, at least as long as I can do it. I'm hoping that Rebanks's narrative will invigorate me for another year in the garden. I think it will.

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very fine book.

An engrossing read. The memoir is divided into three parts. Reading the first part I lost sense of time. It was so enjoyable and so interesting to read. Being a city boy all my life, I was fascinated about life on the farm. Not an easy life to be sure.

There were many accolades from some very fine authors regarding this book: Wendell Berry; Richard Flanagan, and Philip Gouretivich.

This was a good quote that I thought summed up the book well…by Joanna Blythman:
• “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.”
I really enjoyed the first part of the book that involved him learning about farming from his grandfather.

It was sad reading about the demise of the family farm. How in the good old days there were harvest festivals that brought the farming community together every year, and now it’s a thing of the past. I think we are taught that progress is a good thing with no ands, ifs, or buts. I think this book is a cautionary tale…

One quote that resonated with me, because I am so tired of seeing commercials on TV with happy people buying, buying, buying bright and shiny objects that they don’t need but they feel that they need, and the people who make the commercials are telling me I too need the bright and shiny objects to be happy…grrrrr.
• The constant wanting of store-bought things he (James Rebanks’ grandfather) held in disdain. He thought these people (he and his fellow local farmers) had understood something about freedom that everyone else had missed, that if you didn’t need things–shop-bought possessions–then you were free from the need to earn the money to pay for them.

Anyway I am glad this book seems to be very well liked by so many people. I hope you can read it! 😊

Reviews:
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
• https://markavery.info/2020/10/18/sun...
• https://literaryreview.co.uk/peak-soil

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Rebanks is a farmer – and author – who lives in the Lake District in northwestern England, just south of the Scottish border.

It was his reading of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) that opened his eyes and those of many other people about the environmental dangers of the overuse of pesticides and the culpability of both the chemical industry and governmental officials who did not challenge the industry’s claims that their products were safe for humans and wildlife.

After reading her book, Rebanks began noticing a decline of wildlife on his farm, especially birds, such as the curlew, and also a lack of plant biodiversity. Out of a sense of duty toward future generations he made a decision to farm in a more sustainable way than he had been doing, but especially unlike the bigger farms in his area and those that he saw after he made a visit to American farm country in Iowa.

As he maintains, it is so-called agricultural progress that has led to large, terribly expensive machines, heavy applications of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, hormones to put on weight of beef cattle and increase production of dairy cows, and indiscriminate use of antibiotics.

Rebanks is on a passionate crusade to spread the word on “how can we farm in ways that will endure and do the least harm?” He maintains that “[a]pplying industrial thinking and technologies to agriculture to the exclusion of other values and judgments has been an unmitigated disaster for our landscapes and communities.” He goes on to say that “to have healthy food and farming systems we need a new culture of land stewardship, which for me would be the best of the old values and practices and a good chunk of new scientific thinking.”

Agricultural regions in the U.S. have certainly become hollowed out as a result of intensive, large-scale agriculture. A couple of years ago, I was on my way to visit relatives in Arkansas and I decided to drive some of the back roads in southeast Missouri that I had roamed while growing-up. Several times on those gravel roads I had to stop and ask myself, “Where the hell am I?”

The reason was that all the landmarks were gone. There was a time that farmers needed laborers to help them farm their land and that is why there was a house on every forty acres. But today, because the owner doesn’t live on the farm, there may not be even one house.

What changed?

When I first became old enough to drive a tractor we were farming with two-row planters and cultivators. We had to make six trips through the field to plant or cultivate an acre. Therefore, we often had to hire tractor drivers to help us, and before my brothers and sisters became old enough to help out, we had to hire people to chop and pick the cotton. That’s why there were four houses on our 160 acres.

About the time that I left the farm my father bought four-row equipment, but by then bigger farmers were planting and cultivating with six-row equipment. Today, family farms such as ours have become as extinct as the dodo bird and the big farmers and land corporations are doing their work with twelve-row equipment. It takes them only one trip through the field to plant or cultivate an entire acre.

The demise of family farms means that there are fewer and fewer people living in rural areas and that is why communities are dying on the vine and why there are fewer houses and trees – and it is also why I feel no attachment to the place where I lived from age five to age twenty-one. Today, there are no buildings or trees or any evidence that anyone has ever lived on it; it’s just 160 acres of dirt that belongs to a corporation.

So I hear you, James Rebanks. Maybe you can make some headway in your country, I sure hope so, but things are not going to get any better in ours before they get worse, and you know it. The bigger the better mentality is here to stay and I read what you said about us in an interview. You said that nothing about agriculture changes in our country “because the status quo works just great for a handful of giant corporations who own the food and farming system.” And that both U.S. political parties are bought off by lobbyists from Big Ag and Big Pharma.

I wish you were wrong, but you aren’t.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

Winner of the 2021 Wainwright Prize for Writing for UK Nature Writing – the book was described by the prize as “the story of an inheritance. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world have been brought close to collapse, and the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community and wild things are being lost. This is a book about what it means to have love and pride in a place, and how, against all the odds, it may still be possible to build a new pastoral: not a utopia, but somewhere for us all.”

The author was already well known for his previous autobiographical book “A Shepherd’s Life” – a book which has generally very favorable reviews on Goodreads – although I note with interest that a number of reviews criticise the book for its anti-intellectual inverted snobbery.

This book is effectively a tale of two family farms – one rented by his late Father in the Eden Valley (between the Pennines and the Lake District) and where the author grew up, and one owned by his grandfather in the Lake District which the author now farms.

The book is in three parts:

Nostalgia (which broadly is the author’s reflections on his Grandfather’s more traditional approach to farming around 40 years ago in an already changing era – his Grandfather a late resister to the changes around him)

Progress (which mainly sets out the way in which farming changed rapidly – firstly on his Father’s farm and then in the farming the author inherited with: machinery replacing hands on manual labour, artificial fertilisers replacing manure, larger fields; silage replacing traditional feeds; bigger barns: modified crops and livestock; as well as economic pressures from global competition, supermarkets squeezing down prices, banks tightening the screws – and the resulting impact on farms and on the nature they used to support)

Utopia (which explores the author’s attempt to bring back some traditional ways to his farm and in particular to support diverse wildlife)

Each of the chapters is named slightly ironically: the first chapter does not hide some of the brutal realities and precariousness of his Grandfather’s approach; the second commendably tries to be partly even handed about the change (recognising what it has done to enable more people to be fed alongside concentrating on all that has been lost) and the third is far from a utopia but a very deliberate compromise the author has made which he knows will disappoint both “die hard production focused farmers” and “extreme wilderness-loving ecologists”

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).

Although seemingly close to Isabella Tree (and her “rewilding” at Knepp) his focus is not on rewilding (which in its fullest sense he sees as firstly impractical on any scale, and secondly as leading to either even more intensive and damaging farming on the land left for growing food or to the import of food and the exporting of the environmental damage) but on altering the practices of farms in lots of ways which improve their impact and on altering people’s attitudes to the quality, convenience and price of what they eat. He argues that any natural system has an alpha predator and that enlightened man has the potential to be the best such alpha.

A few other comments:

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.

Perhaps related to this the solutions the book puts forward does seem to focus on a particular type of farm – highland, small scale which I cannot relate to many farms I know – and I suspect the upcoming book from the head of Conservation on the Holkham estate will be of much greater interest to me (see for example this New Yorker article https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...)

There are some parts I was not so keen on – I can see the anti-snobbery point that was criticised in the earlier book : the author for example seems to believe that people deep down hate working in offices and living in Cities (doing only from economic necessity) - which is I think simply not true. And perhaps this gets to a wider issue which is endemic in so much nature writing of this type – any book which harks back to tradition/past generations/trying to resist change tends to have an (at least) implicit diversity issue (of race, descent, class, location), and of course the idea of native-born and native adapted animals makes its inevitable appearance. There is also a rather bizarre part where anti drink driving laws are blamed for their adverse effect on social solidarity in the country.

But overall this is an enjoyable and thought provoking book – some of the writing is really very strong and literary with some great use of description and similes and the book is a lot more nuanced that I had expected: so that overall this was a book which was more poetical and less polemical than I had expected.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This struck me for its bravery, good sense and humility. I found Rebanks’ first book, The Shepherd’s Life, overrated; not only is the writing better here, but the topics of the degradation of land and the dangers of intensive farming are of the utmost importance. Daring to undermine his earlier work and his online persona, the author questions the mythos of modern farming, pointing out the ways in which he and his father were drawn into unwise practices and contrasting these with the more sustainable and wildlife-friendly ones his grandfather had espoused. Old-fashioned can still be best if it means preserving soil health, river quality and the curlew population.

Rebanks also recalls trips to Australia and the American Midwest, where he realized the true costs of intensive, monoculture farming, as opposed to the small-scale, mixed rotational farming that is traditional in the UK. Rather than wallowing in nostalgia or guilt, neither of which does anyone much good, he chronicles how he has taken steps to restore his land as part of a wider ecosystem. It takes courage to publicly change one’s mind and follow through on it, and I felt the author was aware of nuances and passionate about working with ecologists to see that his farm is heading in the right direction. He has 200 plant species growing on his land, but planted additional key species that were missing; he hasn’t used artificial fertilizer in over five years; and he’s working towards zero pesticides.

This was a great follow-up to other books I’ve been reading recently about environmentalism and long-term thinking, such as Losing Eden (which, similarly, took inspiration from Silent Spring) and The Good Ancestor, and should attract readers of Wilding by Isabella Tree. I hope it will go far in next year’s Wainwright Prize race.

Favorite lines:

“In a noisy age, I think perhaps trying to live quietly might be a virtue.”

“We are choking to death on our own freedoms. The merest mention that we might buy less, or give anything up, and we squeal like pigs pushed away from the trough.”


[Some unfortunate proofreading issues here, though: he almost always says “[person/people] that” rather than “who”; there are three severe homonym slips (“peddle” for pedal, “yoke” for yolk, and, worst of all, “sewn” for sown!); and he refers to the hymn as “We plough the seed and scatter” - it should be fields.]

[Tom Mooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our response to ecological collapse may prove to be the defining legacy of our generation, one way or the other. Many well-meaning, largely urban and middle class people have taken to the streets in the name of the planet in recent years. But waving placards and climbing on top of trains when something becomes fashionable is all show. In this brilliant, deeply moving book, James Rebanks details what true rebellion and real bravery look like.

Rebanks begins by recounting his romantic upbringing, largely under the wing of his grandfather who, even in the 70s and 80s was something of a throwback to a simpler time. He writes beautifully of time spent on his grandfather's rented Cumbria farm where he learned to do things the old way: slow, labor-intensive farming that was in step with the natural world around them - though they never necessarily thought of it like that. It was just the way things had always been done - rotating crops, leaving fields to rest during fallow years, grazing livestock who then shit the goodness back into the soil.

He then shatters this English idyll, recounting his and his father's push to modernise their farm and 'improve' their land in ways encouraged by greedy governments and supermarkets. Fertilizers were spread, fields enlarged, hedgerows and coppices cleared. The soil health decimated.

Rebanks shows honesty and candour when detailing the things his family got wrong and this serves as a basis for change towards the end of his father's life. Rebanks picks up the pieces and gives us his blueprint for the future of farming in the UK - a future where farms and the natural world coexist for the benefit of nature and humans alike, where there is diversity and rotation, harking back to the traditions of the past while embracing new technologies. These are changes he has already made on his own farm - to the consternation of some and to the detriment of his finances in a world where all incentives pour towards intensive, single-crop or single-livestock farming. These are brave choices he has made which have both eyes on the long term. This is farming for the benifit of generations he will never see. And it is something that is radical and requires conversations and cooperation to work.

This is real bravery. Real activism. Rebanks is someone with his hands in the soil, not some placard-waving virtue-signaller. His father and grandfather would be very proud.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughts soon.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Nonfiction/Environment/Nature. As this one started, I wasn't feeling it. I needed to read it for a reading challenge so I plowed ahead. I eventually fell into its rhythm and I was so glad I stayed with it. This wasn't quite 5 stars, but I rounded up for the overall message. Everyone should read this, whether you grow food or eat food....this is for you. This is a timely message.

Granted this book describes the author's farm in England, but I'm mostly referring to the US in my comments. With the urbanization of America, farming wasn't in vogue any more. The kids left family farms, flocked to city life and got jobs. In hindsight I can see how family farm life was ripe for destruction by the big machine farms. However, in the last couple of decades, so much has been learned about what works & what doesn't, how to feed the masses and what is best for the environment. But it is as if that doesn't matter because some of these truths cut into the bottom line......PROFIT!! Anyway, I won't construct a soap box here because the author has done that quite eloquently with this book.

The one thing I didn't care for (and it is just me), but often in nonfiction when wanting to attach a negative emotion to something, sad and depressing images are conjured up....like death, rotten things, dying, muck, desolation, etc. And when wanting everyone to feel warm fuzzies about something, images of sleeping children, romping through the fields, family time, grandma out in the field working because that is where she feels close to her husband who has passed away are in practically every sentence. I understand it, but at the same time I hate it. Just give me the facts please and I'll choose my own high horse, thank you.

[Fern A · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a brilliant book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. James Rebanks is a farmer in Cumbria. He comes from generations of farmers on the same land and muses over the changes that have taken place on the same land and within farming in general within the UK.
Rebanks explores the changes of farming methods from small family farms, to larger farms that focused on machinery, genetics and businesses to now looking at a striking a balance between two- allowing ecosystems to flourish which in turn makes the land better and richer through returning to older methods, rewilding projects etc. What is good is he does so without a rose tinted naive outlook but is realistic at the challenges faced too.
The book makes it clear that with modernity and our instant culture of now we are ruining and losing many aspects of our land. So many things are interwoven and if one thing is changed for the immediate benefit of one group, this may be at a massive and destructive cost to others. We need to think long term about the ecosystems, land, nature, wildlife and not just look at the end products wrapped in plastics in the supermarket. So many of the answers we are looking for our rooted in history if we look, even if we didn’t know why things worked like they did at the time.
What particularly stood out for me in this book was how Rebanks showed many themes are intertwined. With farming modernised and following business models and looking at scientifically engineering genetics of crops and animals this has a negative effect on the quality of soil, isn’t sustainable, wildlife is lost and becomes extinct and interestingly human communities too begin to break down. We are more entertwimed then we realise and we need to wake up and start thinking about this soon.
History, anthropology, ecology nature, farming and memoirs are all in here- a must read for everyone!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Press for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Judith Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An old friend of ours from North Yorkshire ( we all lived in Hackney at one time) gave us this book when we met up in the summer on the west coast of Wales during a lockdown window.

I reckon J Ironside’s review here on Goodreads says most of what I think about this book. I feel very grateful to James Rebanks for writing it and for everything he and his family are doing, and reading the book has tempered my views on rewilding, certainly.

We have played a small part these lockdown years by creating a wildlife pond and planting borders where only monocultural lawn grew before in our new home.

I will be recommending this book to others - it’s vital that the author’s message gets out there. As he quotes at the end of the book, as said by Mayson Weir, Dowthwaite Head Farm:

“Tell them what is happening on the land. Someone has to tell them ...

‘When I was young there was cowslips and Ragged Robin everywhere, and butterflies on the thyme in the rocky rags on the fell. The becks were full of minnows, the pools alive with them, and water boatmen skating in the top ...

‘I’m maybe old and stupid, but I like to see them things. But you don’t see them anymore. And greed is to blame. Greed. And it will get worse if they don’t change things.

Tell them.”

[J.A. Ironside · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could, I would make this required reading for everyone. Regardless of where they live in the world. (America, you probably need to read this almost more than anyone else!) This is a painful read at times, but it's also full of transcendent beauty and hope.

James Rebank is a farmer, son and grandson of farmers. When the old style of farming - mixed and rotational - made a final shift towards industrialised farming, he had a front row seat. Some of what he recounts, I already knew. I grew up in rural Dorset, went to school with farmers' children, played on their farms and saw some of this shift for myself - although it would be many years before I really understood what I was seeing. Even after those realisations bore fruit, there was a level of nuance that I just didn't have. Like James, I am a country person. I know the plants, trees, birds, wildlife. I feel an intense connection to the land. Everything he says here lands on fertile soil with me, confirming much of what I did know and deepening my understanding in other ways.

Industrialised modern farming is unsustainable. In the pursuit of profit, in the service of greed, we are killing the very land that feeds and sustains us. All the fancy models and neat machines will be of no use when the land - once renewed by a cycle of farming that was less profitable but ultimately made far fewer incursions on our natural world - no longer grows crops or feeds livestock. And yet many farmers are forced to it - or were originally - because they could not compete in any other way with huge industrial farming complexes. Farmers are now so dramatically underpaid that most struggle with crippling debts, some lose their land, and many suffer from poor mental health. Suicide is on the rise amongst farmers. I can name two whom I personally knew who have committed suicide.

Despite this chilling essential truth, this beautifully written and searingly honest book is full of vignettes from a Fells farm, both past and present. It doesn't ever sketch over the problems with any kind of farming; ultimately the biodiversity of the land is better without any humans on it! But we are also part of nature, even if we have forgotten. Good farmers husband the land and act as caretakers. Good consumers do not seek to be so disconnected with the process of food production, with where what they eat comes from. There is a way to produce the food we need without killing our future. When we plough to the edge of the meadows, when we remove hedges, when we sow crops several times a year and make silage instead of hay, we impact nesting birds, insects, mammals, myriad plant life. We kill off the very creatures who renew the soil that will feed us again. It's time to realise that we cannot eat our profit margins. We should pay fair prices for meat and dairy and respect the animals that gave them to us. We should focus less of fast, cheap, processed food and instead (wherever possible) pay a bit more and eat a bit less, respecting the labour that went into growing crops. And we absolutely should be lobbying our government unceasingly to do something about this before it's too late. Our best hope is to return to a more mixed and rotational style of farming.

And over all of this is multiple layers of just how beautiful and fragile our countryside is. James Rebanks makes a gift of the British countryside to the reader. He does it in such a way that we cannot avoid seeing what a gift it has always been. Probably one of the most important books of the decade. Highly recommend.

[Lisa - *OwlBeSatReading* · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘If modern farming made the soil worse, and reduced it to a junkie requiring more and more hits of shop-bought chemicals, then how sustainable was it?’

English Pastoral is a beautifully written, devastating, yet hopeful account of how England’s farming practices have changed over the last century or so. It is not designed to make the reader feel bad about how society has, and continues to, decimate the British countryside, but more about how balance and compromise can change and create a better future for our farmers, their livelihoods and their land.

I try to buy organically and locally when I can, but still I find myself feeding the corporate world in order to feed myself. It’s all down to money (or lack of) and convenience. I’ve got to curb it, ideally stop it completely, but how? Money is such a key factor, and I do feel kind of caught up in how tricky it is to make changes for the better. We have to ‘opt out of the cheap food dogma’, but with this cost of living* crisis, it is easier said than done.

Sadly I don’t have the outdoor space to ‘grow my own’, like my parents did back in the 70’s and 80’s, but as a child I experienced the ‘from soil to cooking pot’ way of life, so ‘English Pastoral’ is the biggest plate of food for thought I’ve ever had put in front of me.

’The old farmers said that where there was muck there was money’.

We need to stop being so greedy. It is destroying our landscapes. We need to stop and rewind. Ironically, a ‘backwards’ farm is the way forward. That is what James Rebanks is desperately trying to do. He has to succeed, it cannot go on like this, not just in England, but wherever corporate greed has taken away the natural balance. James’ inheritance is a battle, and what he’s doing with it is as distressing as it is optimistic. Consider this book his weapon of choice.

’Intensively farmed land was regularly soil-tested to see what artificial nutrients needed applying. But the analyst reported back that the soil was some of the best he had ever tested. Henry’s soil was healthy. It needed nothing. It was full of earthworms - rich and fertile’.

- Henry’s ‘backwardness’ proving that the most traditional farming methods created the healthiest soil.

This is one of the most urgent, emotional and important books I’ve read this year.

’…in reality the world doesn't fall apart on one day. It is much harder to see and appreciate the gradual changes that destroy things over ten, thirty or a hundred years’.

5 ⭐️ - Brilliant. I loved it.

*greed

[Shane · Rating 2 out of 5]

James Rebanks is a historian and farmer. English Pastoral is a memoir that presents a view of English farming beginning during his grandfather's farming days and ending in 2020 at the book's publication.

The book is divided into three parts, and these are subdivided into short sections that hold anecdotal tales or brief arguments about the benefits or problems with different farming practices. Rebanks presents a nuanced view, influenced by his reading of Rachel Carson and his life on his family's farm. The overall narrative is about striking a balance between industrialisation in farming and keeping traditions alive, presented with some suggestions for future farming in the last chapter.

The short sections can be enjoyable, but the writing is not very strong and the sections often jump from one topic to another or become repetitive, particularly in the first section. The book could easily have been edited down to about two thirds of its length. Also, as a character who is careful to maintain neutrality, Rebanks never acknowledges the extraordinary advantage he has with owning so much land (c. 185 acres) and just barely manages to acknowledge that women have a role in his tale. It's a difficult book - lively at times but overall a little disappointing.

[Megan Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Rebanks was taught by his grandfather to work the land the old way. Their family farm in the Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. And yet, by the time James inherited the farm, that landscape had profoundly changed. The men and women had vanished from the fields; the old stone barns had crumbled; the skies had emptied of birds and their wind-blown song. English Pastoral is the story of an inheritance: one that affects us all. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world were brought close to collapse, and how the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community and wild things were lost. But this elegy from the northern fells is also a song of hope: of how, guided by the past, one farmer began to salvage a tiny corner of England that was now his, doing his best to restore the life that had vanished and to leave a legacy for the future. This is a book about what it means to have love and pride in a place, and how, against the odds, it may still be possible to build a new pastoral: not a utopia, but somewhere decent for us all.

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.

‘English Pastoral’ is a beautiful portrayal of an English farming family, this is incredibly enjoyable as well as being insightful. I absolutely loved this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Press UK for an advance copy.

[Sofia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me start by saying that this book made me think of time spent with my siblings on my grandparents’ pig farm. It was such a fun time as a kid even on hot days. My brother probably wouldn’t agree as he had to do the harder parts and I got to enjoy the baby pigs. As I grew up, I did have conversations with my dad about how hard the business was. He used to tell me stories of growing up on the farm and how much different things were back then. I remember how hard my dad worked to continue my grandpa’s traditions only to sell a few pigs every year for little money. Living in a rural area now and having gone to school with a lot of kids that have now inherited their family farms, I can i to imagine how hard and honest work it all is.

But the book just jumped around and mentioned a lot of the same struggles. So I found myself bored after 30-40% of the book.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding picture of farming in the Lake District.

I found this a compelling read and a lovely sympathetic story of the author's life and upbringing on a small farm in the Lake District.
On a personal note, I found much of this story resonated with my own memories of my uncle's small farm in Cornwall back in the '50s.
For anyone with an interest in the changing face of farming in the UK, and what could and can be done to ameliorate the effects of the dash for cheap food, this will prove fascinating. The fact that is written about one of my favourite parts of the English countryside makes it even better.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. I really enjoyed this book once we got past the nostalgia section of the book. I found his viewpoints on the industrialization of farming to be very insightful. I find myself wanting to look into changing the way I buy and consume food. I don't think I fully understood what it was that had changed the farming industry and I found this book to be very educational and poetic. <3

[Colleen Earle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who’s interested in farming, where their food comes from, or passionate about environmentalism.
Rebanks does a fantastic job at looking at how farming has changed over his lifetime, for better or for worse, and what it means for farmers and consumers.
He spends a lot of time look at the financial reasons behind these changes and what’s continuing to drive practices like monoculture crops, and excessive use of chemicals in farming.
In the third section of the Book, he outlines what he and his family have been doing to make farming more sustainable; going back to the old ways of crop rotation, raising a variety of animals, planting more trees and hedgerows, and returning pasture to a more natural way.
I loved Rebanks first book, but this one took everything that I loved about it and turned it up. I highly recommend this book.

[Rae · Rating 5 out of 5]

A memoir of three generations of men farming one Lake District farm, Rebanks takes us through the modern agricultural revolution, what it did to the land and the pressures on farmers which forced them to go along with it. Rebanks is an incredible writer, who combines a passionate love for, and knowledge of, his farming work with lyrical, powerful prose. Just as in reading The Shepherd’s Life before it, I was challenged, moved and changed by this book. Rebanks’ books are a must read for all those who, like myself, rely on farmers every day and yet know nothing of the realities of the world in which they live and the pressures they face.
4.5 stars

[Jen Carroll · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me say that this was not a "bad" book. I liked the overall theme of what industrialized farming has done to our world, both from a people and ecological standpoint. I do think we need alternatives for our food sources so that we have the ability to choose sustainable, locally farmed goods.

Unfortunately the author lost me a lot because of the deep farming details that he went into throughout the book that I honestly had no interest in. Initially it seemed like the author was going for a coherent narrative, but the story just jumped around too much for my liking.

[Grace Machon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excuse me whilst I take up dry stone walling.
Incredible, funny, moving, informative plea to try a little harder. You can not help feel caught up in the prose that sometimes feels like poetry and is full of nostalgia and love for a land that James, and myself share.

I will recommend to anyone who will hear me, I loved it.
Highly recommend the narration for the fabulous Bryan Dick and Cumbrian accents.

[Michael Betteridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, James Rebanks presents a recent history of British agriculture by sharing a deeply personal, and mostly autobiographic, story of four generations of his farming family. The main narrative and argument of the book is that in the time between Rebanks' childhood and the modern day, British farming, and many of its international counterparts in the developed world, has been degraded and corrupted by a greedy ideology that prioritises progress and efficiency over sustainability. Rebanks concludes that despite this, sustainable and non-destructive farming is possible in the modern day, even though it is heavily economically discouraged.

This argument and the history it is based on are both aided in their presentation by Rebanks' vivid but precise prose, which contrasts traditional pastoral imagery with the increasingly disturbing effects that industrialised farming has had on natural and agricultural settings. For example, one recurring motif is Rebanks' childhood memory of flocks of gulls following his grandfather's tractor to pick at the worms turned up by its ploughing, a phenomena that ended on most farms after pesticides began to be widely used, killing worms and destroying biodiversity on farmland by extension. The personal and specific details that are highlighted throughout this narrative lend a sense of authenticity to Rebanks' writing, as well as underlining the human costs of the destruction of traditional farming.

Readers may be surprised at the ambition of this book in terms of scope and scale, as it often uses agriculture and the writer's personal experiences primarily as a lens through which to examine a wide range of the challenges Western society is currently facing. In many ways, this book is mostly a critique of boundless consumerism and globalisation, and argues that communities would be healthier, happier and more sustainable if they were also more limited in their access to goods and experiences. These ideas are profoundly politically charged, and while they originate specifically from the insights of a farmer, they apply to most facets of society. I was told by multiple friends who had read this book before starting it that it was in some significant way a defence of the practice of eating meat. While this is touched on by Rebanks, and there is a section where he argues that human society inevitably displaces, exploits and kills other living things just by virtue of its existence, this facet of the book is only a minor part of its overall argument, and focusing on it undermines the more important point being made. The book is not a defence of eating meat, it is an attack on industrialised factory farming.

My only major disagreements with the book relate to how it presents history and how Rebanks presents some arguments. For example, the above idea that human societies are intrinsically destructive to other living things is presented as uncontroversial common sense, however is subject to a historical critique. This may or may not be the case for sedentary agricultural societies, but these are not the only types of societies humans have organised themselves into. I would be interested to see how Rebanks' belief system would interact with a hunter-gatherer or small-scale horticulturalist society, although these ideas are mostly overlooked in the book or in some cases actively avoided (specifically when discussing Australian agriculture). Similarly, some of the broad claims about the past in the book trigger scepticism. Rebanks seems to want to claim that the way his grandfather farmed was part of a contingency that stretched back to the Roman agriculturalists described by Ovid. Considering the writer's background in history he is clearly aware that agriculture underwent several enormous changes in technique, scale and substance in that time frame, and while he points this out occasionally, there still seems to be a rhetorical desire to present the farming of a few decades ago as part of a millennia-long practice that was only recently disrupted by artificial fertiliser and pesticides, an argument that turns a blind eye to many of the similarly dramatic transformations of the past.

Despite these complaints, I found English Pastoral extremely insightful, captivating and surprisingly moving. It is a commentary on society and its trajectory from and often overlooked perspective and a powerfully incisive argument against many of the trends of the modern, or postmodern, world. I would recommend this book to anyone not yet convinced of the flaws with globalising consumerism and to a huge number of urbanites and suburbanites (amongst which I certainly include myself) who often underestimate the intellectual and philosophical sophistication of farming as a practice and its importance in society. I would like to see more from Rebanks tackling some of the historical oversights of the book, however I think it stands well currently as a concise and necessary appeal from the agricultural world to the rest of society.

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The British Wendell Berry. Magnificent.

[Molly E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cynics will say James plays both sides of the nature vs farming debate but that is exactly what we need. Read this if you want an honest depiction of how difficult farming can be. Rebanks dispels the myth that the life of the farmer is one of independence. They’re unforgivingly tied to trade agreements and the feeding habits of the rest of the world and he writes hauntingly about him and his father trying to keep up with the pace of modern agriculture.

Will definitely read his first book now which is a more explicit ode to shepherding and his life as a farmer. I read this book to better understand the history of U.K. farming but James’ nature writing is good enough on its own to reel me in!

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. Such a good and thoughtful (although not exhaustive) lesson in farming, ecology, and environmental science. I love how gently he shares his experiences and how much truth there is in it. This was a very thought provoking book for me and THIS is how I like to be "preached" to: by experience and kindness and simple logic.

This quote towards the end of the book was my favorite and sums it up nicely: "I am tired of the absolutes and extremes and the angriness of this age. We need more kindness, compromise, and balance". Indeed.

I wish this book was required reading for High schoolers in an environmental science class. I feel like these are the things we should really consider and be made aware of.

[Steven Hevey]

I adored The Shepard's Life but this read like a poor imitation. He can write for sure, but something about this just didn't seem to work. That said he seems like a lovely person and can definitely write so it's good to see others are getting something from it. I guess for me The Shepard's Life was just too damned fine a book.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost as good as the first book. I read it straight through in a single sitting, which is something I rarely do. This time around Rebanks has more polemic than reportage/memoir - even though he is right.

Also recommend Andrew O’Hagan’s long essay ‘The End of British Farming.’

[Alisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5. I learned something, and it was well written. The biologist in me appreciated learning about the ecological impact of agricultural efficiency and technological advancement, but I think you need a greater appreciation for farming in order to fully enjoy this book.