Editors Molly Foster, Priya Kalia and Jeremy Toynbee have worked on this study of how food production impacts animals and the environment. The book also collects views from well-known names such as Mike Berners-Lee and Henry Dimbleby.
Six Inches of Soil covers aspects such as biodynamics ("organics with bells") and agroforestry, all with looking after healthy soil as the basis for the argument.
One of the best and most inspirational chapters is from Adrienne Gordon, who runs Sweetpea organic market garden in Caxton, Cambridgeshire. She volunteered as a WWOOF in New Zealand and then worked for Barcombe Nurseries and Peapod Veg in Sussex growing for veg boxes.
She posted on the Oxford Real Farming Conference noticeboard for land and set up on a 1.6ha plot in 2021. She grows salads to sell at Cambridge Food Hub and local markets. Other income comes from a CSA scheme in which people provide financial support for a share of the produce.
Turning a film into a book is a challenging idea. There's a bit of pace injected through 'interludes' such as on greenwashing (bad) and food security (good). A chapter on whether we are using farmed land wisely is timely and talks about diversification and not using land to feed industrial livestock, biofuels and to make ultra-processed foods.
Industrial farming increases crop yields, but at an ecological cost. This book is designed to inspire farmers to look outside the box.
One thing that's tricky to understand in a book that includes so many alternative methods is the reliance on animal farming ideas to make soil healthy. Truly challenging thinking would be to feature stock free farming, in which you grow plants to regenerate the soil, making a more efficient, cruelty-free use of the land.
