Pastoral Song: A Farmer's Journey

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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 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 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. Remarkable…A brilliant, beautiful book…Eloquent, persuasive and electric with the urgency that comes out of love." - Sunday Times (UK) An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. 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.

Pastoral Song by James Rebanks - Ebook | Scribd Pastoral Song by James Rebanks - Ebook | Scribd

In Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey, James Rebanks offers a realistic perspective on the demands of farming as a profession and why farm systems across the world have shifted toward convenience and efficiency over the past four decades. Trying to balance both art and science, tradition and innovation within his own farm, Rebanks offers, “Our land is like a poem.” Compared to other treatises on the perils of modern agriculture, such as Wendell Berry’s Unsettling of America or the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, Pastoral Song is a firsthand account of change and compromise within a multigenerational farming family that speaks to the heart our most urgent land management question: Can a commercial farm be a regenerative part of an ecosystem? Rebanks offers a sensible way to think about food and the planet.... His prose will transport readers, introducing them to both the harsh realities and the joys of everyday life on a piece of land that has deep, personal meaning." — Christian Science Monitor, Best of the Month 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 a terrific book: vivid and impassioned and urgent – and, in both its alarm and its awe for the natural world, deeply convincing. Rebanks leaves no doubt that the question of how to farm is a question of human survival on this hard-used planet. He should be read by everyone who grows food, and by everyone who eats it.” — Philip GourevitchRebanks is a rare find indeed: a Lake District farmer whose family have worked the land for 600 years, with a passion to save the countryside and an elegant prose style to engage even the most urban reader. He’s refreshingly realistic about how farmed and wild landscapes can coexist and technology can be tamed. A story for us all.” — Evening Standard (London) A con, however, is our tendency towards mono-cropping which can lead to disastrous results like the Irish potato famine. The death of more than a million people and emigration of a million more, was triggered by potato blight in a society reliant on one crop. As a witness to his grandfather’s careful attention to the land as well as the stress and burden his own father carried trying to stay financially viable amid massive food system consolidation and modernization, Rebanks is in a unique position. And he is willing to share what he has learned, and is humble enough to admit what he has yet to figure out. “I have worked here my entire life, but I am only now beginning to know this piece of land.” Torn between what is good and what is necessary, Rebanks educates his readers on the workings of his own farm, like soil biology and animal breeding, and suggests possibilities for the future of food, such as a return to diversification in animal and plant production and a revitalization of local food-processing infrastructure.

PASTORAL SONG | Kirkus Reviews

They used to call England a green and pleasant land, but in truth it was never entirely green, nor entirely pleasant. It was a tough old place with almost every acre used by humans, but there was much in it that was good. And yet the truth is that the countryside that feeds us has changed. It is profoundly different from even a generation ago. The old working landscapes and the wildlife that lived in them have mostly disappeared, replaced by an industrial farming system that in its scale, speed, and power is quite unlike anything that preceded it. This new farming has proved to be both productively brilliant and, we now know, ecologically disastrous. The more we learn about this change, the more unease and anger we feel about what farming has become. Our society was created by this farming, and yet we increasingly distrust it. 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.

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James Rebanks’s fierce, personal description of what has gone wrong with the way we farm and eat, and how we can put it right, gets my vote as the most important book of the year ...Some books change our world. I hope this turns out to be one of them.”— Julian Glover, Evening Standard A healthy farm culture can be based only upon familiarity and can grow only among a people soundly established upon the land; it nourishes and safeguards a human intelligence of the earth that no amount of technology can satisfactorily replace. 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.

Orion Magazine - Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey

This elegy that captures the soul of British farming – its families and their land from which they are indivisible … Rebanks’s observations are rich with detail. He writes with a simplicity that hides his scholarship (how many Cumbrian farmers can quote from Virgil’s Georgics?) and some passages are right up there with Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie… This is a wonderful book. James Rebanks writes with his heart and his heart is in the right place. We should listen to him.”— Telegraph Remarkable … A brilliant, beautiful book … Eloquent, persuasive and electric with the urgency that comes out of love.” — Sunday Times (London) A poem describing the life and manners of shepherds; a poem in which the speakers assume the character of shepherds; an idyl. Contents Everything that happens on a farm is affected by the era it exists in,” he says. “Farming is now a term that tries to encompass a vast messy range of activities.” 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.He is eloquent — scenes of mud and guts are interspersed with quotes ranging from Virgil to Schumpeter, Rachel Carson to Wendell Berry…[ Pastoral Song] builds into a heartfelt elegy for all that has been lost from our landscape, and a rousing disquisition on what could be regained — a rallying cry for a better future." - Financial Times (UK)

Pastoral Song - James Rebanks - Harper Academic Pastoral Song - James Rebanks - Harper Academic

James Rebanks combines the descriptive powers of a great novelist with the pragmatic wisdom of a farmer who has watched his world transformed. English Pastoral is a profound and beautiful book about the land, and how we should live off it.” — Ed Caesar, contributing writer, The New Yorker The New York Times bestselling author of The Shepherd's Life chronicles his family's farm in England's Lake District across three generations, revealing through this intimate lens the profound global transformation of agriculture and of the human relationship to the land. 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.One of the most important books of our time. Anyone who cares about our land – indeed, anyone who buys food – should read this book. Told with humility and grace, this story of farming over three generations – where we went wrong and how we can change our ways – is at the forefront of a revolution. It will be our land’s salvation.” — Isabella Tree This book tells a story of that old world and what it became. It is the story of a global revolution as it played out in the fields of my family’s two small farms: my father’s rented farm in the Eden Valley, which we left nearly two decades ago now, and my grandfather’s little Lake District fell farm, seventeen miles to the west, where I live and work today. It is the story, warts and all, of what farming was like here in my childhood, and what it became. It is about farmers like us, in our tens of thousands, across the country and around the world, and why we did the things we did—and what some of us are now trying to do to make it right. The last forty years on the land were revolutionary and disrupted all that had gone before for thousands of years—a radical and ill-thought-through experiment that was conducted in our fields.