When it comes to challenging climate conditions, growers in the UK may not have traditionally struggled as much as those in many other parts of the world. Compared to those trying to make a livelihood out of producing crops in nutrient-poor soil, in the middle of a desert, or on the slopes of a volcano, the droughts and floods of Britain gain a bit of extra perspective. Yet we seem to face increasingly challenging climate conditions in the UK too and, according to researchers, methods used in far-flung places are highly relevant, even on our shores.

“The approaches they use in Australia are definitely relevant here,” says Dr Julia Wright, director of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security Grand Challenge Initiative at Coventry University. “Farmers there suffer prolonged periods of drought and have had to go to extreme measures to survive. They haven’t got access to the same subsidies as in the EU, so they’ve had to be more innovative,” she explains.

One approach that has served the Australians well is keeping the soil covered to avoid evaporation. Another is practising species diversity. “We’re not talking about maximising production, but optimising it,” stresses Wright.

“The total yield will be sufficient if you don’t just focus on one crop. Rather than having rows of crops with a lot of bare space in between, you want a high density of plants. It’s about keeping the fertility levels high so that there is a lot of nutrition in the soil, i.e. applying the principles of permaculture to production.”

Wright has used the same approach in Cuba, a country that also suffers badly from drought. The simple but effective method builds up the soil’s capacity to retain water, as does having trees in the field landscape.

Since Wright and her colleagues began their work in the Holguin province, in the eastern part of the country, the communities have seen significant increases in their vegetable production. “It doesn’t have to be varieties that are resistant to drought – if you increase the capacity of the soil to retain water, drought becomes less of an issue.”

Given that the south east of the UK sometimes suffers from drought, are these methods ones British farmers should also adopt? “We are used to the monoculture system here, but that’s a bit passé really, it’s about polyculture,” she says.

“In the UK as well as in places like Cuba, all kinds of innovative work is going on, but whether it is taken up on a national scale is a different thing because it’s not necessarily promoted; polyculture doesn’t always fit in with farmers’ contracts to supply companies with one particular crop,” explains Wright.

The academic’s work has taken her all over the world, not least to Africa where, thanks to agroforestry systems, farmers can feed themselves and make a living by growing vegetable crops in plots surrounded by Mesquite trees, which will grow where virtually nothing else will. “Once you have the trees growing you can start to grow other things as the trees stabilise the soil,” Wright adds.

Meanwhile, in the UK, The Agroforestry Research Trust in Devon is experimenting with novel vegetable crops – “things people think of as weeds”, as Wright puts it.

Since 2005 Wright has also worked closely with Afghan and Ugandan farmers, growing grapes for Fairtrade raisin production, imported into the UK by Tropical Wholefoods. “It’s difficult working in places like Afghanistan because of the physical conditions,” she admits.

“The farmers there risked their lives to keep their production going, watering their crops in the middle of the conflict. If British farmers knew about the conditions in these countries, where your driver could easily get shot while making a delivery, they’d never complain.”

Uganda was easier, she says, as there was no major conflict. Wright and her colleagues brought over blueberries, physalis and raspberries and the local farmers tried them out, with varying results.

The agricultural models Wright has studied around the world certainly raise some interesting questions. As the UK gets wetter, apart from implementing the principles of permaculture and agroforestry, should we perhaps be looking at places like Sri Lanka, where vegetable production is made trickier by the occurrence of regular tsunamis?

“People say we are getting more extreme weather conditions,” says Wright. “The truth is the climate is never static. What we have to do is make more resilient growing conditions. That means having different root inducts, conserving water in the landscapes and growing and maintaining soil fertility.”

Wright is keen to point out she is not politically minded, but says she would like to see more support, both from government and the EU.

“The government is going to have to pay out millions in compensation for flooding over the years. If we took more of a holistic angle and invested more in preventative measures, we could save a significant amount of money,” she concludes. —

WASHED AWAY

Last year was the UK’s third-wettest year in almost six decades, with a total of 931.3mm of rainfall, representing 129 per cent of the 30-year average. Recent debate in the media regarding annual rainfall totals has centred around potential changing rainfall patterns both in terms of amount and timing in the context of climate change. According to research by the James Hutton Institute, there has been an increase in average annual rainfall of 32.1mm over a 50-year period.

The truth is the climate is never static. What we have to do is make more resilient growing conditions, including growing and maintaining soil fertility