Charlie Pye-Smith

A workmanlike account of the author's journey through India's Christian institutions. I knew the writer through his book on India's wildlife, so this book on a totally different subject shows his versatility and 'catholicity' of interests. The book serves as well as a travelogue of places and people you wouldn't get to visit yourself, giving an intimate view of India at the end of the 20th century, linking the present with the past in a competent manner. Apart from the fact that Christianity has had a pretty long presence in the country, there is a recurrent acknowledgement of the religious tolerance and breadth of inclusion in the general Indian outlook to religious matters, among both the Christians and the Hindus, so that there does seem to be something special and different in the Indian social psychology.… (altro)

When people think of farming though they tend to have a rose-tinted image of farmers and those that till the soil, seeing the fields of corn waving in the breeze and the farmer leaning over the gate looking at a field of cows. Most of us would need to go back several generations to find family members who worked as farm labourers, so our disconnect from the land that feeds us is more or less complete. And yet we have shaped the very landscape around us for the past five thousand years and one of the primary reasons behind this was to provide food for people to eat. These days though we have a split population; the majority have no clue where their foods originate from as they obtain all of it in packets from the supermarket and there is a minority who are fully aware of the source of their Sunday roast and may even know what its name was…

Charlie Pye-Smith took a year travelling around the country in a motorhome to take the pulse of British farming. He meets with producers large and small, those who have farmed that patch for generations, new people who are driven by an ideal to produce better food and talks with the owners of some of the largest farms in the UK. The way that some of these people produce our cupboard staples, milk, bread, meats and drinks are all examined under his careful gaze. There is a critique of the system, that is allegedly driven by the consumer, but is actually controlled by the supermarket giants and how farmers are having to diversify just to keep their heads above water financially.

We are supposedly nine meals from a breakdown in society, so we all have a critical interest in the way that our food is produced. Pye-Smith’s book does pass a sympathetic but critical eye over the process and actually meet the people who herd the sheep, make cider, grow hundreds of tonnes of potatoes and milk the cows. There are discussions about the Common Agricultural Policy that has provided subsidies and in some cases financial lifelines to farmers. He does touch briefly on the sustainability of the industry, but there was very little on the environmental havoc the industrial style of farming has wreaked in the pursuit of the lowest price and greatest profit. This is still a book that deserves a wider audience because of the subject matter, partly as people are far more interested in what they put in their mouths nowadays. It should also be used to open the debate about the food industry especially with the growing uncertainty in a post-Brexit Britain and all that entails.… (altro)

I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did; it is so informative and interesting with clearly defined chapters focused on particular aspects of farming. When I picked up Land of Plenty, I didn't know a lot about farming but I certainly know a bit more now!

I was reading Land of Plenty when I went on a trip to the Ouseburn Valley and the guide made a comment about animals from the far east being brought to graze on the banks of the Ouseburn before being sent to slaughter, like it was a little health farm for them. Thanks to Charlie Pye-Smith I knew why the farmers did this...I'm not going to tell you as it will spoil the amazement you will experience when reading it for yourself.

As a long time vegetarian, I did shudder at the passages on slaughter for the Halal and Kosher markets but found that farmers also found this barbaric and shocking. Farmers may slaughter animals too but they care about their stock and aim to be as humane as possible. I actually enjoyed reading about the cows and there's even a photo of four cows awaiting slaughter, which made me smile with its similarity to any four girlfriends gathering together for a group photo.

Land of Plenty is very current with references to Brexit and what it means for UK farmers; perhaps not the doom and gloom that we are told in the news but rather that farmers must become better at what they do with improved quality being passed to the consumers along with closer links to the public as farmers open up their arms to embrace exciting entrepreneurial activities.

A book about UK farming is not complete without mentioning the foot and mouth horror of 2001, which I remember quite clearly. It was so refreshing to see how some farmers coped with this by looking for alternative means of survival of their farm rather than closing up shop after the death of their herd.

Although I'm a beer drinker, I also really enjoyed the chapter about cider. From beef to cider, you can see that this book really encompasses every single aspect of farming that you can imagine. Each chapter is filled with interesting facts and personal stories that add to the human interest and give a wonderful insight into the life of a UK farm.

Concise and informative, Land of Plenty is a surprisingly riveting read and one of the best non-fiction books I have read for a long time.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.… (altro)

Very interesting account of modern farming. Pye-Smith is aware of all the protests against modern farming methods and looks into them in the course of this book in which he travels around farms in a wide area of the British Isles enjoying the hospitality of his farming hosts. He has reported on farming for years and studied it academically. He finds animal welfare is not a simple story, modern systems are at least comfortable, if rather monotonous for the animals. By contrast intensive cereal growing gets clear condemnation. Its all replete with statistics and graced with attractive descriptions of the countryside.… (altro)