Open Letter

Dear Fellow Occupant of Earth,

We are Agrarian Renaissance. We exist to help reconnect people, land and food.

The idea (in reference to a Chatham House report from last year) is: if what seems to be an impending global food crisis is not 'just a blip', and if we want to avoid social, economic and environmental 'breakdown', then we must choose between 2 potential futures...

1/. rapid technological innovation to make industrialised, linear, input dependent agriculture somehow sustainable
2/. the ushering in of a 'new era' of ecological, complex, non-linear, cyclical agriculture.

This is actually a non-debate. Ecological farming could be feeding the world already (I can prove it, but want to remain brief).

Despite 'sustainability' innovations, the impacts and inputs of industrial agricultural systems are only going up.

So, we are trying to do all we can to take action to create that 'New Era'... it entails a new agrarianism, a reconnection (and then redoubled interconnection) of people, land and food... that means a massive cultural shift, amounting to a full renaissance... hence Agrarian Renaissance...

There are billions of pounds in subsidies, and the fortunes of the largest supra-national corporations in the world, behind the linear agro-industrial status quo... but already implementing the alternative are endless isolated pockets of practical action and clear thinking, actively demonstrating what is clearly a better way... we already have a strong group of committed individuals and organisations engaged with Agrarian Renaissance, across a dizzying range of specialisms and interests...

If you are at all interested to find out more about what we're trying to do, you'd be more than welcome to visit Church Farm - the place where the idea for Agrarian Renaissance first germinated, and the pilot farm for the project...

All the best,

A League of Gentlefolk