How we live, and in what numbers, and indeed whether we and our fellow creatures can live at all, depends very much on how we farm, and how we farm is determined to a critical extent by the economy. You might think, therefore, that in a rational world the economics of farming would be high on the agriculturalists’ and the government’s agenda, well worked out and well understood.But this isn’t a rational world. Very few farmers have a firm grip of economics or of accountancy, and neither – all too obviously – do most secretaries of state, put in charge before drifting off into the House of Lords or moving on to what are perceived to be higher things. So The Profitable Farm, which spells out the very basics of accountancy as they apply to farming, comes as something of a revelation. The subject is remarkably complex but is explained with clarity and easily followed examples.Chris Clark found, as so many have, that he could not make a profit or living from the 170-hectare upland Yorkshire farm he bought in 2005 – but his fortunes improved when he downsized. This was counterintuitive to the accepted narrative of “Get big or get out!” made popular by the influential Earl Butz, US Secretary for Agriculture in the 1970s. Puzzled, Clark consulted his friend Brian Scanlon, a business strategist, and between them they developed two big ideas.The first is that farming is basically an exercise in energy conversion. Sunlight (via photosynthesis) plus mechanical energy (tillage) are converted into stored chemical energy in the form of human food. But as energy is converted from one form to another, some is wasted. Solar energy into grass, via photosynthesis, is very energy-efficient. Grass energy into cereals or pulses for human food is also efficient. Grass energy into meat via grazing seems very inefficient. However, much of the land in the UK, is not suitable for large-scale crop production, so grazing is often the best option, especially in the uplands.But yields of meat from traditional breeds on ‘unimproved’ pasture may be disappointingly low. Therefore, it is tempting – and in recent decades has become the norm – to apply fertiliser and the rest of the agrochemical pharmacopoeia, and to swap old breeds for modern fast-growing and sometimes extra-fecund livestock to consume the increased yields. But it takes a lot of energy to produce the agrochemicals, and thus the whole process becomes much less efficient. Worse: about half of Britain’s home-grown cereal is fed to livestock for humans to eat. One more highly inefficient step. In the present economy, less energy-efficient doesn’t necessarily mean less profitable, but it often does. So it can indeed pay to produce less, more cheaply.Attempts to maximise yields with extra inputs take their toll on both the soil structure and the natural world, expropriating rivers and groundwater, and polluting soil, watercourses and the atmosphere. Clark and Scanlon have developed the concept of Maximum Sustainable Output or MSO: the amount a given farm and/or agriculture as a whole can produce without triggering environmental decline.The complications arise when we start to cost the exercise – an influx of balance sheets, profit-and-loss accounts, assets and liabilities and cash flow (which so often is the sticking point). The ideas of ‘term’ and ‘discounting’ – money changes value just by sitting around – complicate things further. The authors explain all this admirably, but some of it is unavoidably hard. Good accountants certainly earn their fees.Everyone with a stake in farming should read this book. Ideally that means all of us, since our lives depend on it. As the authors point out, though, there’s still a lot of thinking to be done. I wonder if any existing economic system, whether Marxist, neoliberal or anything in between, is really fit for purpose – if the purpose is indeed to provide all of humanity with good food without destroying the rest of the world. And if not, what do we need instead?
