Our environment: what women want and the power of the middleman

Chillax Max.

Last week, a poll describing Europeans’ feelings about climate change revealed differences between men and women’s attitudes. While men appeared more confident about our ability to adapt to a changing world, women were more worried about our current impact on the planet. Women were more likely to describe climate change as a serious problem (average score of 7.5 compared to 7.2 amongst men) , and to have undertaken an action to tackle it (14% of men said they had not taken any action compared to 11% of women).

But why this divide?

Perhaps because women, front-line producers and front-line consumers, are being hit with the reality of climate change every day. Meanwhile, their male counterparts are often the middle men of powerful corporations and governments, sweating it out in their suits and ties, but buffeted from the effects.

Vast generalisation I know, but let me expand. Polls after all are built upon generalisation, and I’m having a stab at explaining.

First- to the women as front-line producers. It is well documented that women are now bearing the brunt of agricultural hard graft world over. Mark Tran has written about this trend in Africa repeatedly and a recent report by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (Girls Grow: A Vital Force in Rural Economics) suggests that females may be the key to agricultural development and food security. Across Europe, more women are becoming self-employed as farm managers, or else heavily dependent upon seasonal wage-work. Examples towards this move, as men migrate to the ever-growing megacities can be found from all over the globe. The result: women are now nose to the soil and more aware of the change.

Women are also frequently touted as front-line consumers. While duff jokes about wives “maxing out” their husbands’ credit cards are pretty far-flung (I wish!), there can be no doubt it is more often a woman than a man in the check-out queue at Sainsbury’s with a family-size trolley of shopping.  The physiology of child birth and our present-day childcare set-up means that it’s the women who are spending more frequently on the essentials. That’s why it’s the women Cameron’s wooing as the female vote feels the recession.

But while women are busy doing growing this and buying that, it seems that it’s the men who are in the positions of power in both the corporate and political worlds. As of February this year,  within Britain’s 100 largest publicly traded companies, only 12.5% of the directors were women. Shockingly, almost half of the companies in the  FTSE 250 index have no women on their boards at all. Yet it is these same companies which are so powerful in our economy, which channel the power of the world’s consumers and producers. It is in these boardrooms that the private interests drive monumental decisions which affect us all – and women aren’t even at the table (unless they’re serving the tea).

The situation is not much better in politics; the arena (supposedly) of public interests. Thorsten (2005) found that globally, women make up only 15.7% of the members of parliament, while in Europe, only six countries empowered women adequately. On the other hand, it is pleasing to note that of the few cabinet roles held by women in Britain, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is one of them. Although even in that case, the unfortunate occupier was somewhat tainted by her husband’s agribusiness interests…

Now its not I think men are doing a bad job – its just that I think women could help them do it better. I’m in no way a man basher, but it is clear that we need change, and that women may be the front-thinkers in recognising this.

The question is, how do we get out of the fields, away from the checkout queues and into the clammy corridors of power? All while retaining our links to the natural world, and our valuable perspective. Answers on a postcard please.

A Tale of Two Farms

Deep down in Dairy Country, there’s a divide a developing; the divide between old and new. Driven by consumer preference and government subsidies, farmers are choosing to throw in their lot with either more natural, traditional farming methods, or more technologically advanced, intensive methods. Nowhere is this divide better exemplified than on two farms in Somerset, on the opposite side of the same lane, but operating centuries apart. As an environmentalist and ecologist I felt certain I knew which side of the lane my preferences fell. But on visiting these farms, my preconceptions were challenged.

Nature knows Best

Anyone with the vaguest understanding of the natural world usually comes to the conclusion that “nature knows best”. How many times have we heard stories of humans blundering into disaster when trying to control an ecosystem? (Weevils in North America, rabbits in Australia, and Bullfrogs the world over to name a few). The complexity and interrelatedness of all things means that such manipulation is beyond us: nature is not for the taking.

It is this understanding which makes ecologists, environmentalists and greenies everywhere (including me) often balk at anything overly interfered with by humans.

So on hearing about these two farms side by side, one an intensive, technologically advanced system, the other an entirely outdoor system, I wanted to see for myself how the two compared. I was expecting an easy win for Mr Marshall-Taylor’s agriculture al fresco at Visol farm.

Bucolic Bliss

Having farmed the same land for almost 40 years, it was both economic and environmental considerations, as well as his daughter’s advice, which persuaded Mr Marshall-Taylor to adopt an all outdoors method. Previously, he’d been operating the modern day norm in which cows are outside for roughly half the year and inside for the rest. Although this saves the winter’s wet ground from being paunched by the cow’s hooves (“worse than stilletoes”), feeding the cows inside requires a lot of silage and feed “concentrate”. Both require oil, which is bad for the environment as well as the farmer’s pocket.

But for the past seven years, Mr Marhsall-Taylor has been keeping his cows outdoors the whole year round. Come sun, rain or 20 inches of snow – the majority of his herd are outside. Whilst the ubiquitous Holsteins would have trouble in these temperatures, Mr Marshall-Taylor’s cross-breeds are smaller, sturdier and more resilient cows. He even milks the herd outside, using an outdoor milking parlour, fashioned after the old-hat milking “bails” first introduced in the UK in 1922.

On visiting, we wandered around in the sun watching the old girls being encouraged into position, fifty at a time, into the outdoor parlour. They’d spent a morning mooching around the fields and according to the statistic weren’t just looking contented; they were physically a robust crowd. Compared to Mr Marshall-Taylor’s previous system, the cows were now healthier and living longer. His milk has significantly lower bacterial counts (by almost 30%), and his carbon footprint has been dramatically reduced through his lower use of nitrogen-rich fertiliser and carbon costly feed concentrate. As I left, all seemed well down on the farm.

However – I’d also caught wind of some dark rumours. Rumours of cows up to their chests in mud during the winter months; rumours of a desperate farmer tying sheeting to his gates lest the local see some unhappy beasts. I was also surprised that while Mr Marshall-Taylor’s fertiliser use was half of what it had been – it was still surprisingly high at roughly 280kg per hectare.

It was with these reservations in the back of mind, but trepidation at the fore that I made my way across the lane to the techno touted Pyrland Farm, where I knew that the cows only spent two months a year outside. The term “battery” hung in the air, and the robots awaited.

Automated Autonomy

After a few minutes pottering in a pleasant foodie farm shop, I was greeted by the owner, Mr James Read. With giant strides across a well-kept yard, he took me onto a platform overlooking a large, light filled open barn with cows standing or lying in capacious cubicles on straw. On closer inspection, I noticed machines, not dissimilar to automatic lawnmowers in appearance, following cows on their occasional wanderings across the slatted floors. Mr Read explained that these were pushing any dung through the slats into a slurry pit below. This slurry would then be used to fertilise the fields, saving on oil-based imported fertilisers. Even more intriguing were the three automatic milkers sat at one end of the barn. Every now and then a cow would stroll into one of these booths of their own accord. Once inside, their centre of gravity was automatically detected by a metal plate on the floor. Suction cups then located the udder and attached. The absence of human interference was conspicuous. No one was herding the cattle. The cows decided when and how often they wanted to be milked. The cows were in control.

The effect of this autonomy on the herd’s health has proved significant. The rate of mastitis (a prevalent udder infection) has diminished to one third of even Mr Marhsall-Taylor’s herd. Compared to even the outdoor system, the cows here were living longer, their milk was cleaner and they were producing more milk. Moreover, Mr Read was using a lot less fertiliser than his neighbour- 160kg as opposed to 280kg per hectare per year. And while increased yield was of course a source of pride for Mr Read, it was the animal’s welfare that he cited as the single greatest benefit from his new method of farming.

But of course, there were downsides – some insurmountable for the carbon conscious. For example, by keeping his cows inside all year, Mr Read needs to feed them almost nine times as many concentrates as that used in the entirely outdoors system. Moreover, the whole system is based on cows staying indoors for ten months a year. However happy the cows seem inside, is our milk worth consigning the life of a bovine beauty to a shed?

So in conclusion – which system won? Well – it was by no means an easy victory for the au naturel outdoors system – it was actually a draw.

Because while we may feel that nature’s not for the taking, farming has already taken it. Long ago, the land was conquered, the beast tamed and the natural equilibrium disrupted. The reality is we’re operating in a false system, and our objectives should now be to ensure that this system is sustainable, and that animal welfare is prioritised. Although the carbon cost and “unnaturalness” of the indoor system are certainly negatives, the innovative approach to animal welfare is worth investigation by environmentalists. The divide between old and new styles of farming should dissolve and the best of both integrated. In Holland it seems that they’re already doing this, by taking the automatic milkers outside. Perhaps we could speed up such innovation in the UK by lending the green movement’s weight to backing the case for technology in promoting animal welfare?