Ego, Power and Money will ruin the Countryside

It is true to say that the countryside has an instrumental part to play in helping to sequest the amount of carbon that is in our planet’s atmosphere.? However, there is considerable competition for the usages of that land, which not only causes conflict from different viewpoints from the Rural to Urban focus, but also from sector to sector.

The Rural/Agricultural View is very much about producing food and the symbiotic balance of the countryside, but alternative perspectives are built up of many different factors, which can be summarised into three main categories:

1.????? POWER:

Whether it is the “Power” of Supermarkets, Soya Food Processors, Corporate Business, Lobbying/Influencing Groups, the Media, Governmental Policy, the Consumer, or access for the Public, the simple fact is that all these groups have a stake in the countryside. They have a voice which is very influential, especially as in 2022 the population in Urban Areas (people living in Towns, Cities and Built-Up Areas) where most of these groups orientate themselves, comprise of a massive 56.52 million people, against 10.45 million people living in Rural Areas being the countryside. The simple fact is there is too much Power being exerted onto the countryside with a bias which is not in its best interest, and can have adverse environmental effects.

2.????? MONEY:

How many times do we hear stories of a Music Icon buying massive amounts of land and rewilding the area, or a Corporate Business buying a farm to plant trees to offset their carbon emissions without trying to reduce their emissions from their production processes. Wouldn’t the money invested in buying farms for corporate purposes be better invested in business processes to reduce the company’s carbon outputs? On top of this the effect of buying these areas of land puts upward pressure on land prices by taking farm land out of the food supply chain, thereby increasing the pressure on existing land to produce more food to fill the gap, which in turn puts more environmental pressure on the land. In 2019 a well know firm of Land Agents released a report forecasting that 7% of farmable agricultural land will either be under concrete from housing or used for planting trees by 2050. This is mortifying as there is still the question of where will the food security come from? Unfortunately, too much money is having an adverse effect on the environmental considerations of the countryside.

3.????? EGO:

We all have an EGO of some description – there are very few people who are completely selfless and I am always concerned by people who are saying that they are doing things for the best interests of the Countryside.? I question if their interests are altruistic or is there a driver such as “Power” or “Money”. The motivator is frequently “Ego” as often there is a person trying to influence and manipulate the way the countryside is run. The next question is whether that Ego is ethical and has moral value? I am sure the Marketing and PR behind the Ego will say YES, but more and more we are seeing greenwash coming out of High-Profile Individuals, Corporate Business, The Government etc, etc, and as a result Ego can have an adverse effect on the Countryside. In Eckhart Tolle’s Book “The Power of Now” he writes “The collective egoic mind is the most dangerously insane and destructive entity ever to inhabit this planet. What do you think will happen on this planet if human consciousness remains unchanged?”

Finally, I am going to counter what some may say about this article and that perhaps these three points can also be aimed at farming – fundamentally agriculture is a reaction to the population’s need to eat and the downward market forces on Agriculture caused by pressure from the Government, the Consumer and the Food Supply Chain. The difference is that farming is a way of life, which has been determined over centuries and generations. There is a symbiotic relationship between a farmer and their land that very few can understand, especially with the quantity of anti-social hours that farmers work, and the range of pressures which farmers need to endure. Yes, it can be said there can be egos in the large size farms of today, but this is down to the fact that large farms have to be farmed utilising economies of scale and also as a device to mitigate the risks taken due to the weather and market forces.

Going forward there needs to be greater consideration over the competition for land use and anything that isn’t farming, needs to be controlled on the basis of moral and ethical value rather than POWER, MONEY and EGO.