Food producers working to heal their soils with such practices as those involved within Regenerative Agriculture are more resilient leading to personal health and wellbeing.
The key tenets of this can be termed as the integration of Ecosystem services along with agricultural production and therefore they can have pride in the fact that they are producing high quality nutrient dense food for the benefit of the consumer as well as improving the environment.
As we are easing out of the Covid lock down period consumers in a poll when questioned, want the government to priorities health and wellbeing over economic growth. There is a shift in thinking taking place which as food producers we need to respond to by the way we farm and the type of crops we grow along with the way we produce those staples of production here in Wales, milk, beef, lamb, pork, chicken, eggs, cereals, fruits and vegetables.
However it is becoming clear that certain groups of people may be more at risk as we come out of lock down, being the elderly and those with preexisting health issues and those who are obese with 73% of those getting the virus having those conditions. Being healthy is going to be a priority for everyone and what we choose as consumers is the key to high natural immunity and holistic health.
Farmers can respond to this shift by having a more diverse range of products coming off the farm which encourages the possibility of the need for a rotation of crops grown resulting in a more mixed enterprise business and this will lead to greater business resilience along with improving the soil Microbiome diversity.
The answer lies in the soil.
Jon thesoilexpert.co.uk
Email agriculturalmarketingwales@gmail.com
