Why monitoring is essential to soil-friendly farming: talking with documentarian Claire Mackenzie

Last month, EnvirotechOnline visited the Blue Earth Forum in London, which brought together investors and startups offering solutions in line with the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. Alongside each pitching session, thought leaders and industry veterans took part in panel discussions covering all topics in sustainability and climate tech, from air pollution and soil regeneration to renewable energy and bioplastics.  

During the forum, we spoke to one of the Forum’s panellists, documentarian Claire Mackenzie about her work on regenerative farming, an approach to agriculture that places the improvement of soil quality at its cores. Her latest film, Six Inches of Soil, takes us on a tour of Britain’s regenerative farms that are paving the way for more sustainable agriculture and more comprehensive stewardship of the land. We discussed the importance of monitoring technology to regenerative farming, how soil quality regulations could necessitate a shift to regen, and whether we need an England-wide soil monitoring programme. 

During filming, what sort of monitoring did farmers use to help them regenerate their soil? 

There’s a market gardener in the film, who works with Tom Pearson of Raynham using Soilmentor, a piece of software that uses baseline testing to keep track of soil quality. And then, Ben, the livestock farmer, he worked with Farm Carbon Toolkits. Anna in the film, who is an arable farmer, has been working with Agri-tech, using different monitors. I met a fantastic farmer recently, who's been using radar platforms that have been capturing weather data for four or five years. I know a lot of them use all these amazing weather apps and software because, say, if you’re moving cows more every day to prevent overgrazing, they’ve got to have a source of water wherever they go, so if you know that it's going to rain at a particular place and time, it makes this regenerative technique more efficient. And of course, with climate change ensuring that every two minutes weather is changing, often in quite extreme ways, anything that can help them navigate that, they’ll use. But what I think that all the farmers struggle with is: there's so much to choose from! I think it's a bit of a Wild West. So, for carbon calculators, there are, what? 60+ carbon calculators? There's no regulation.  

You know, quite often people say: “Regenerative farming is going back to farming like grandpa!” And yes, they are going back to that way of doing things and emphasising observation; maybe they’re reading Albert Howard, one of the founders of organic farming. But equally, they're using incredible technology that earlier farmers never had access to, whether that’s GPS, soil testing or monitoring devices, all of which are enabling them to take their regenerative farming to the next level and be more efficient. They haven't gotten the agronomist in there saying, “Right, here's the chemical bag: you're going to apply this amount of nitrogen fertiliser and then you're going to bring in the fungicide here” - of course, that still exists but the farmers our film follows are trying to step away from that and they need technology, because half the time they're doing it all themselves. So, yes, I think the public perception is that regenerative farming would be less technological but actually, it’s meant quite a lot of new technology being brought in. 

And many of the farmers we followed really think outside the box. Every farmer cares about the land, no matter how they're farming, but some farmers have more capacity to be more explorative; maybe because they're a bit younger and more dynamic, or it may just be they have that brain for it. I watched a film last night, Peter Byck’s latest in his Carbon Cowboy series, called Roots So Deep. It features an amazing farmer, who's in his 80s, and he has this epiphany whilst they’re filming because he's like, “Electric fencing, what’s that?” Because in his day they never had electric fencing! As soon as they bring it in, though, the ease of having this technology – suddenly, they’re liberated! 

So, Soilmentor, which is designed by Abby Rose, who started Farmerama Radio, and Tristan Leslie, who's one of their main testers, told me they have designed everything alongside farmers. John Pawsey, one of the most innovative organic farmers up in Suffolk –he always talks favourably about tech and I think he invites a lot of companies in to trial new tech and is very open minded to test new equipment. I heard an amazing woman talking about the powers of satellite. She was a NASA scientist, talking to farmers. I was like: Wow, of course! When you hear those brains being matched up with practical solutions – because basically, all we're doing is trying to get humans survive on this planet because without us, the world would recover. But we are clever, let's celebrate what we're good at, but also recognise that we need to observe and work with with nature, that's the most clever thing we can do! 

You mentioned regulation. What’s been your experience with how soil quality regulations have been implemented? Are farmers in the driving seat? 

Some would say no, but I know very well that two or three of our key partners, one being the Nature Friendly Farming Network are constantly in government, they are continually lobbying. They are pushing for farming and nature to go on alongside each other, rather than a ‘rewilding vs. intensive farming’ conversation. So, they’re constantly in there, constantly producing the data that they need. So, yes, farmers have been involved with government and policy, and they have helped to design everything alongside the civil servants. The worry is that the new government will come along and undo what has been achieved so far.  The civil servants have worked hard alongside farmers and other agricultural experts. They have achieved a lot and there’s years of people being on farms, testing and observing how to work with nature and step away from the chemical-led approach. Let's not undo it all. 

Barely any of the political parties devoted any real mention to our soil crisis in their manifestos, apart from the Green Party. How do you feel about their commitment to a comprehensive soil monitoring programme across England, similar to those in operation throughout Wales and Scotland?  

Baroness Natalie Bennett, one of only two Green Lords, has a degree in agriculture and she put soil into the latest Environmental Act, so I imagine she’s one of the leading lights in that conversation. There are members of the Liberal Democrats, such as Pippa Heylings MP, who are very supportive of regenerative and organic farming. I think everyone was looking to the Labour Party to do something, but who knows what will happen, it’s early days. The other day, I was at an event for Future Countryside. Former Minister for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Steve Barclay was there and Steve Reed, the current Environment Minister, who did speak well but there wasn’t much substance. 

In the EU, I think we're finally getting a framework with soil in it. We need to have the same here. The Sustainable Soil Alliance, the soil regeneration lobbyists, they're really, really pushing to have that regulation in the system. Then, it makes it much easier for people investing in farming to do so sustainably, because if they know that that standard is set, then everyone can channel their efforts in one direction. At the moment, like I said, it's just a Wild West.  

Trouble is, I have been in many rooms with lots of different soil scientists, and everyone has their nuances – so, one may just be checking the microbiome, someone else might be studying a particular bacteria in the soil and so on. We need to stop everyone from working in silos; let's all get together and have some agreement! Like, do we look to carbon credits? Well, actually, it's so damn difficult, because does soil get to a stage where it's not absorbing anymore? You know, there's so many different variables that it's very hard to get consistent testing, but that's what we need, don't we? Each farm is different, each bit of land’s different, each soil type, the geology, then the weather comes in, and then the people management comes in ... and so it's putting it all together. That's what everyone is trying to get to: a level playing field where you can have consistent regulation. I think that's what they're working towards. 

What do you think are the core dimensions for assessing soil quality? 

Organic matter keeps coming up time and time again, and water infiltration rates. So, Silas Hedley-Lawrence, who’s a brilliant farmer and a grazing expert, was talking about infiltration the other day and he said that when he first arrived on his compacted land in Oxford that he was told to take on, it was taking two hours for about five centimetres to go down. Now, after him being on the land for around three years, it was going down within thirty seconds! Last night, in Roots So Deep, there was this amazing comparison: the conventional farmer’s absorption rate in inches, because it was short grass (so, a short root-system) plus compaction from over-grazing, he had an infiltration rate of 0.21 inches, but the regenerative farmer achieved a rate of 1.6 inches using a longer root-system and things like chicory which have a deep tap root that creates that lovely fissure, all the microbiomes and everything which creates incredibly healthy, porous soil. As we've seen this winter in this country, how important is that? And one of the farmers in our film, Anna Jackson up in Lincolnshire, she was telling me that because they've been regenerative farming (arable farming with sheep in the rotation) for seven years, they were noticing that they didn't have any flooding on the land. This Winter, when Anna was already growing crops two months later, her neighbours were all still underwater! So, that's the sort of stuff that we need to be testing and showing, because it’s vitally important for farming in this country.  

Biodiversity’s becoming something that the government is targetting, but how important is it to regenerative farming? 

It’s a huge thing. Regenerative farming means mimicking nature, so that farmers can continue to produce food in conjunction with nature, rather than fighting it. I have seen so many studies recently where non-intensive integration of ruminants can result in three times more wildlife than conventionally-grazed lands. This is bird life – and bird life is one of the indicators of biodiversity, isn't it? Specifically in this country – in any country – but really, really evident here, where we don't have so many other species as some of the hotter climates. Because bird life indicates insects, which, in turn, perform a whole suite of ecosystem services for plant life.  

But I suppose someone that was a rewilder might argue that if you left that whole area completely ungrazed, could you get five times more? But, actually, there’s a real argument to be made that livestock actually boost biodiversity by their presence (if you’re careful), because their dung supports dung beetles which support other insects, producing a whole bustling ecosystem – obviously, they've got to continually move on, like a prairie animal, you can’t be over-grazing. But it’s clear that there can be additional biodiversity from agriculture. If you're growing a multi-species sward, for example, you've got increased diversity of plants, which means more diverse insects; it goes up and up the chain and then, the microbiology below is absolutely phenomenal. I think those are the conservations that need to be had. 

The sticking point is that if you still want to produce wheat and veg, you are, by necessity, cleaning and clearing. But someone working biodynamically with good companion planting, with flower margins, etc., you're getting that biodiversity alongside the arable farming, which means they won’t have to use sprays because they’ve got the beneficiary insects and that's when it works really well. So, I would say you can feed and plant and have it all together, but it's all about encouraging farmers to go that much further than just a margin – you know, farm conventionally here and just stick a margin around the edge. You have to bring the whole system in together and think holistically, systemically. But again, I think tech can help with that. 

In 2022, the government reauthorized neonicotinoids, a controversial move because those pesticides endanger pollinator species. What are farmers’ opinions on it? Are they struggling not to use pesticides? And what role do pesticides play in regenerative farming? 

A very good and topical question. The elixir of it is to be regeneratively organic but, at the moment, if you're going from a conventional system using pesticides, to quit cold turkey is a really hard place to be, the land doesn't like it – like any of us, if we've been on medication, we’re always told by the doctor to come off slowly. So, come off slowly, come off in a piecemeal fashion, and slowly rebalance. I remember Monty Don saying it takes two years for your garden to rebalance: it's going to be the same on the farm! Because your plants, they're reliant on the chemicals, they don’t have to do the work to extract the nitrogen from the microbes. So, it's rebuilding that balance up and weaning it slowly off, but observing the whole time - and again, this is where monitoring can come in. 

Pesticides can create real issues for farmers, because all sorts of pests and invasive species become resilient. Black grass, for instance, is one of the hardest things for farmers to fight, they're all fighting it, and it’s resilient to glyphosate! So, many places are forced to consider organic ways to get rid of it. The other day, I went to the Allerton Project, which is a regenerative farm where they’re doing loads of testing, and it came up all day. We discussed whether you might bring in livestock, because I've heard farmers say that helps to control it. Another brilliant farmer, Toby Simpson up in Peterborough, thinks you have to increase the rotational diversity to start breaking the cycle of those weeds that come up time and time again. So, really regenerating is really understanding, it’s observing and then working out. Does it work well to grow my oats with with a legume because that might release some nitrogen and bring in other beneficiaries? Will it make my oats healthier? It's all of these nuances, it’s a journey – and this is where people need support. We need governments, industry, innovation, technology, advisors. You know, Liz Genever, who is a very good farmer and advisor, told me that she doesn’t want to go out there and be holding someone's hand like an agronomist. She said that advisors should be giving the farmers confidence to make decisions – and many have lost that as they have relied on agronomists.