Charlie Pye-Smith

Golden fields, ripening apples, lowing cattle: our idea of the landscape has been shaped by agriculture, as has the land itself. But in a fast-changing world, how does the great British countryside continue to provide the food we eat? Most people living in Britain today must go back several generations before they find an ancestor who worked on the land. How much do we really know about those who are supplying us with the most essential things in life: our daily bread and butter, meat and fish, fruit and vegetables? In Land of Plenty Charlie Pye-Smith travels the length and breadth of these isles to explore the little-understood world of British agriculture. From ultramodern indoor dairy units producing millions of litres of milk a year to small, old-fashioned farms making cheese with twenty or thirty cows, and from landowners whose families have farmed the same fields for centuries to tenants who have just joined the industry, Pye-Smith investigates the timeless connection between land and people in the twenty-first century. Revealing the dairy industry in Somerset and Gloucestershire; beef in the Scottish Borders; sheep in North Yorkshire; pigs and poultry in East Anglia and Hampshire; vegetables in Norfolk; and fruit in Essex and the West Country, Land of Plenty is a colorful and rewarding travelogue that gets to the very heart of modern British life

A Journey Through the Fields and Foods of Modern Britain

Land of Plenty

Richard North

Prosaic plea for a fundamental renewal of agriculture

Working the Land

Originally published in 2002, The Subsidy Scandal examines the subsidies spent by governments and the affect this has had on the environment. The book examines industries ranging from agriculture to mining, energy to transport and the subsidies spent on these industries by government. The book argues that these industries have had a negative impact on the environment, often funded through government subsidies derived from public taxes. The book suggests that these subsidies go to those who least need them – frequently to corporations and special interest groups which recycle some of the funds to support the politicians who keep the subsidies going. Based on research in North America, with examples from Europe and elsewhere, the book provides an investigative report into to the money assigned to environmental policies to find out where the money goes and what produces it.

How Your Government Wastes Your Money to Wreck Your Environment

The Subsidy Scandal

Chris Hall

This book offers a programme of reform to revitalise rural Britain and bring a halt to the many destructive processes (like the diminishing of public services and the industrialisation of agriculture) which make it less attractive to live in the countryside

Charlie Pye-Smith

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