Matt Lobley – författare

The 2016 referendum resulted in a vote for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union. This has led to frenzied political debate across the whole spectrum of policy, and agriculture is no exception.For the first time in a generation, the future of agriculture is unclear and unfettered by the constraints and incrementalism of the Common Agricultural Policy. This book makes an empirical contribution to the Brexit debate, bringing a social dimension to agri-Brexit and sustainable agriculture discourses. Understanding the social in the context of farmers is vital to developing a way forward on food security and agricultural sustainability. Farmers are the recipients of the market and policy signals that link to global uncertainties and challenges. This book is a commitment to understanding farmers as occupiers and managers of land. Chapters in this book explore farmers’ own aspirations and knowledge about patterns of land use and production, which underpin discussions around the environment and sustainability.There is a deficit in understanding what kind of agricultural industry we now have, following years of restructuring and repositioning. This book is an attempt to address that deficit and will appeal to students and researchers exploring agriculture, food politics and rural sociology.

Offers a complete update and revision to the manual for agriculture, geography, and rural studies The 21st edition of the quintessential reference book on agriculture is filled with updated and new material that provides those in the farming profession with everything they need to know about today’s agricultural industry. Filled with contributions from top experts in the field, it provides not only the scientific explanations behind agriculture, but also a range of further reading . The Agricultural Notebook, 21st Edition features new chapters that address wildlife, the fundamentals of agricultural production, and the modern techniques critical to the industry. It offers new chapters on sheep, goats, ruminant nutrition, monogastric nutrition, and resource management. It also takes a more in-depth approach to plant nutrition, and greater attention to environmental elements. Other topics covered include: soil management & crop nutrition; animal welfare; crop physiology; farm woodland management; farm machinery; and more. •       Reflects recent changes in the world of agriculture, farming, and the rural environment•       Features a new chapter on Resource Management•       Offers separate chapters on goats, sheep, and applied nutrition•       Every chapter is revised by experts in their subject area The Agricultural Notebook is an essential purchase for all students of agriculture, countryside, and rural studies. It will also greatly benefit farmers, land agents, agricultural scientists, advisers, and suppliers to the agriculture industry.

As the largest group of natural resource managers on the planet, farmers are at the interface of the changing relationship between humans and the environment. Typically organised around what might be considered the most basic of social units, for generations the family farm has survived wide-ranging exogenous challenges, frequently preserving the line of succession to the next of kin. Now as we face major questions about how we use land and the impact of our land use on the global environment, farming once again faces a challenging and uncertain future. This book draws on the experiences of farmers in Australia, New Zealand, North America, Japan and the EU to examine the special features of family farms and, in particular, the tradition of succession which has enabled them to continue to have such a strong presence in the world today.

In recent decades agricultural commodity surpluses in the developed world have contributed to a mantra of 'land surplus' in which set-aside, extensification, alternative land uses and 'wilding' have been key terms in debates over land. Quite suddenly all this has changed as a consequence of rapidly shifting commodity markets. Prices for cereals, oil seeds and other globally traded commodities have risen sharply. A contributor to this has been the shift to bioenergy cropping, fuelled by concerns over post-peak oil and climate change. Agricultural supply chain interests have embraced the 'new environmentalism' of climate change with enthusiasm, proudly proclaiming the readiness of the industry to produce both food and energy crops, and to do so with a neo-liberal confidence in markets to determine the balance between food and non-food crops in land use. But policy and politics have not necessarily caught up with these market and industry-led changes and some environmentalists are beginning to challenge the assumptions of the new 'productivism'. Is it necessarily the case, they ask, that agriculture's best contribution to tackling climate change is to grow bioenergy crops or invest in anaerobic-digesters or make land over for windfarms? Might not there be an equally important role in maximising the carbon sequestration or water-holding properties of biodiverse land? What is Land For? tackles these key cutting-edge issues of this new debate by setting out a baseline of evidence and ideas.

The 2016 referendum resulted in a vote for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union. This has led to frenzied political debate across the whole spectrum of policy, and agriculture is no exception.For the first time in a generation, the future of agriculture is unclear and unfettered by the constraints and incrementalism of the Common Agricultural Policy. This book makes an empirical contribution to the Brexit debate, bringing a social dimension to agri-Brexit and sustainable agriculture discourses. Understanding the social in the context of farmers is vital to developing a way forward on food security and agricultural sustainability. Farmers are the recipients of the market and policy signals that link to global uncertainties and challenges. This book is a commitment to understanding farmers as occupiers and managers of land. Chapters in this book explore farmers’ own aspirations and knowledge about patterns of land use and production, which underpin discussions around the environment and sustainability.There is a deficit in understanding what kind of agricultural industry we now have, following years of restructuring and repositioning. This book is an attempt to address that deficit and will appeal to students and researchers exploring agriculture, food politics and rural sociology.

As the largest group of natural resource managers on the planet, farmers are at the interface of the changing relationship between humans and the environment. Typically organised around what might be considered the most basic of social units, for generations the family farm has survived wide-ranging exogenous challenges, frequently preserving the line of succession to the next of kin. Now as we face major questions about how we use land and the impact of our land use on the global environment, farming once again faces a challenging and uncertain future. This book draws on the experiences of farmers in Australia, New Zealand, North America, Japan and the EU to examine the special features of family farms and, in particular, the tradition of succession which has enabled them to continue to have such a strong presence in the world today.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.‘Panic buying’ at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic generated enduring media images of empty supermarket shelves and calls for food rationing. The fragility of the 'just-in-time' food system was seemingly exposed yet, as the pandemic progressed in the UK, there were remarkably few food shortages. This book reveals the changing patterns of food provision in the UK during that period, looking at how diets changed and how retail, processing, distribution and production businesses adapted. But beneath the apparent logistical success story, there were injustices as the more vulnerable struggled to access good quality food and some businesses received inadequate help. The authors consider the winners and losers in a time of rapid social change, the lasting impacts on the UK food system and lessons to be learned for a food system dependent on imports and large retailers and with a high burden of diet-related health issues.

An investigation into farming practices throughout a period of seismic change.WINNER of the British Agricultural History Society's 2022 Thirsk PrizeWINNER of the 2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award "This meticulously researched book gives a detailed and authoritative history of agricultural change in the second half of the twentieth century. The book skilfully weaves together the hitherto underexplored individual returns of the Farm Management Survey with oral histories of the farmers who enacted change on the ground to offer an incisive account of the complex technological, political and cultural developments which gave rise to some of the greatest changes in English farming history. It will stand as the key reference point for those with an interest in the history of agricultural change in Britain." Professor Mark Riley, University of LiverpoolAt the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 British agriculture was largely powered by the muscles of men, women, and horses, and used mostly nineteenth-century technology to produce less than half of the country's temperate food. By 1985, less land and far fewer people were involved in farming, the power sources and technologies had been completely transformed, and the output of the country's agriculture had more than doubled. This is the story of the national farm, reflecting the efforts and experiences of 200,000 or so farmers and their families, together with the people they employed. But it is not the story of any individual one of them. We know too little about change at the individual farm level, although what happened varied considerably between farms and between different technologies.Based on an improbably-surviving archive of Farm Management Survey accounts, supported by oral histories from some of the farmers involved, this book explores the links between the production of new technologies, their transmission through knowledge networks, and their reception on individual farms. It contests the idea that rapid adoption of technology was inevitable, and reveals the unevenness, variability and complexity that lay beneath the smooth surface of the official statistics.

An investigation into farming practices throughout a period of seismic change.WINNER of the British Agricultural History Society's 2022 Thirsk PrizeWINNER of the 2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Award "This meticulously researched book gives a detailed and authoritative history of agricultural change in the second half of the twentieth century. The book skilfully weaves together the hitherto underexplored individual returns of the Farm Management Survey with oral histories of the farmers who enacted change on the ground to offer an incisive account of the complex technological, political and cultural developments which gave rise to some of the greatest changes in English farming history. It will stand as the key reference point for those with an interest in the history of agricultural change in Britain." Professor Mark Riley, University of LiverpoolAt the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 British agriculture was largely powered by the muscles of men, women, and horses, and used mostly nineteenth-century technology to produce less than half of the country's temperate food. By 1985, less land and far fewer people were involved in farming, the power sources and technologies had been completely transformed, and the output of the country's agriculture had more than doubled. This is the story of the national farm, reflecting the efforts and experiences of 200,000 or so farmers and their families, together with the people they employed. But it is not the story of any individual one of them. We know too little about change at the individual farm level, although what happened varied considerably between farms and between different technologies.Based on an improbably-surviving archive of Farm Management Survey accounts, supported by oral histories from some of the farmers involved, this book explores the links between the production of new technologies, their transmission through knowledge networks, and their reception on individual farms. It contests the idea that rapid adoption of technology was inevitable, and reveals the unevenness, variability and complexity that lay beneath the smooth surface of the official statistics.