Latest / UK Column Radio / Unearthly Interference- The Corruption Of The Organic Movement—with Sir Julian Rose

Transcript

Unearthly Interference- The Corruption Of The Organic Movement—with Sir Julian Rose · UK Column Radio

0:07
Hello, I'm Charles Mannett and this is a UK Column interview. There will
0:11
be notes and any relevant links posted below this interview at ukcolumn dot org.
0:18
Today I'm delighted to be joined by Sir Julian Rose, who is a front
0:22
running pioneer of the organic movement in farming, and he has put his money
0:27
where his mouth is by having carried out the very practices that he espoused for
0:32
a long period of time, and in particular he concentrates on the small scale
0:37
production of food for a local market. So, Julian, I'm delighted to
0:43
have you on today and thank you very much for joining. I think for
0:47
the viewers and listeners that perhaps aren't so familiar with your work and your background,
0:52
what I'd like to do is just set the scene. So could you
0:55
just describe your introduction, as it were, to organic practices and where your
1:03
philosophy came from, and how you saw the sort of the economic and practical
1:07
viability of conducting agricultural practices in that way. Certainly I'll try to do that.
1:15
Well. It came from a very unlikely direction. Actually, I inherited
1:21
the hard wicker state when I was nineteen years old on the death of my
1:26
father, and I was interested in the arts and fact I was thinking I
1:34
was going to be involved in acting and directing in theater and in television,
1:38
and I was in my early twenties. My mother was able to continue the
1:46
management as a hardwicker state and she wasn't really particularly involved in farming, so
1:52
she hired experts as they're called, and they all told her you have to
1:57
use chemicals. You really won't be able to make anything work unless you use
2:01
chemicals. I, in the meantime, was following through my interest in my
2:07
career. It was initially Australia where I worked on a very large cattle ranch
2:14
in Queensland, thirty thousand cattle, being moved from water hole to waterhole during
2:21
the winter and working with the Aboriginal people. It was an extremely interesting experience.
2:27
It was my first really hard experience of farming. When I came back
2:34
to England, I became involved in developing my instance in theater and went to
2:38
the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where I studied stage management. I worked after
2:45
that in repertory theater for about six months, after which time I traveled around
2:51
America and out of that experience. When I returned, I realized that the
3:00
state the future of the estate was becoming critically important in my mind, and
3:06
I needed to take over from my mother. And I was searching around for
3:12
what it would be that would draw me, so to speak, emotionally,
3:17
into feeling good about taking this on, because actually, you may know your
3:23
audience may know that there are many incidentss when younger sons take over estates where
3:30
they feel overwhelmed and they can't manage. I was very fortunate at that point,
3:37
and I was working in Belgium at the theater company I was working with
3:42
set up in Belgium in Antwerp, and we developed a teaching system using the
3:50
arts and academic studies to teach children and young adults how to express themselves.
4:00
While I was there, a lecturer came to give us a talk from England
4:05
from an organization called the Soil Association. It's in nineteen seventy five, to
4:12
give a talk about something called organic farming. I didn't really know what it
4:16
was, but when I heard it was about an environmentally friendly approach, I
4:20
became very interested and I went to this lecture. At this lecture, a
4:26
man called doctor Devin who came from a college in South London. He was
4:30
a biologist, explained something about the laws of the land, and that was
4:36
actually the title of a BBC documentary which he showed about organic farming in England.
4:44
Now we're talking about nineteen seventy five, a long time ago. When
4:48
I saw this film, and when I heard the words of the board members
4:55
of the Soil Association, I was utterly convinced that this is what I had
4:59
to do. It was overwhelming and I was overjoyed actually, and I bought
5:06
books and pamphlets and everything I could to try and catch up on the approach
5:13
that was necessary to achieve the certification actually of organic organic farm foods. And
5:21
I said to my mother on my return to Hardwick Hearts after this conference,
5:29
you know, mother, we're going to do something called organic farming. We
5:31
won't be using any chemicals. And I alwaysn't remember her answer, Oh,
5:35
I'm so glad. I hate those chemicals. So, while she was going
5:43
down that road, because she was advised by people who supposedly knew that it
5:47
was the only road to go down, she was particularly pleased to hear that
5:51
I was intending embarking on a completely different trip. So that's essentially how it
5:58
happened that I got involved, and from that moment on, I started converting
6:04
the farm, and I actually did it slowly over a period of about eight
6:09
years, bit by bit by bit, because I couldn't afford put the whole
6:12
thing into organic farming. What I did was I rented out too. I
6:17
started with the home farm area, which was about thirty acres, and I
6:21
rented out the rest of the land, which is on the farm side of
6:26
hardbigger estate, around about three hundred acres. The estate's just on a thousand
6:31
acres. It's divided between forestry and farmland fifty to fifty. And I rented
6:39
this out to a neighboring farmer, and I said, on one condition,
6:43
I charged you a lower rent, which you're not to use any nitrate fertilizer
6:46
and you're not to use pesticide. And he agree, and actually he got
6:51
very good yields because that land hadn't been plowed and sown for a very long
6:55
time. So that's how it started. That's a fascinating insight. Actually it
7:00
takes me forward to some of the things that I was going to bring up
7:03
later on, but now seems a good opportunity when one speaks about this,
7:08
even to those who are interested in making that change, which of course an
7:11
awful number of people have not done for all sorts of reasons. First of
7:14
all, you talk about it as being really an emotional decision, you know,
7:17
wanting to be doing something that felt right, and clearly you came up
7:23
with a practical solution to that, which I think seems to be the biggest
7:26
of all the stumbling blocks, particularly where finances are concerned. Is the model
7:30
that you crafted one that you've seen used elsewhere or I mean, how is
7:35
it that you see Is there any one way to make that transition, particularly
7:41
from a financial point of view? Very good question. Well, the point
7:45
is you have to recognize that in those days when I started, there was
7:48
no premium for organic food and no one knew what he even was. It
7:54
was right at the start, so I was one of the pioneers really,
7:58
so I couldn't There's no point in having my head in the clouds. I
8:03
had to be very pragmatic and very realistic. And the way that most people
8:09
in the last twenty or so years have moved into conversions, in my view,
8:16
is too extreme. They tend to take the whole farm immediately and put
8:22
it into conversion process. At least people I know quite closely, I don't
8:28
obviously, I can't speak for the majority. I simply don't know. People
8:31
may have many different methods of doing this, but I think in many cases
8:37
they go straight in. You have to have appeared of minimum two years if
8:43
you've been using oga chemicals, and of course they will have been. Why
8:48
you follow the land and just let any residues go down and disappear from the
8:56
top soil there in minimum two years. Some cases it's longer than that.
9:01
And this is all overseen by the Soil Association, which is responsible for certifying
9:07
organic food, and that was not yet happening when I was first started.
9:13
There wasn't any certification process happening yet, but it developed fairly quickly after I
9:18
joined. I became a board member of the Soil Association, incidentally in nineteen
9:24
eighty four, which is when I was about halfway through the process of converting
9:30
the farm. So my advice would be to people who want to go in
9:37
to organic farming from conventional farming is that you do take it slowly. Actually
9:41
initially, you should look at the results you get on a small area because
9:48
some people are skeptical. Even though they go ahead, they still go ahead
9:50
thinking, oh, no, thing's going to work. Well, you don't
9:54
want to put your whole farm into a situation where you're skeptical it's going to
9:58
work. Obviously, that's going to get your money, is going to go
10:03
down the train completely. So you should start with a small amount if you're
10:07
sure. If you're not sure, and you watch what happens on that piece
10:11
of land, maybe an atypical piece of land for your farm, and you
10:16
observe, and if you see the results being good, well you can then
10:20
proceed. But you shouldn't rush into it. It would be a mistake.
10:24
Absolutely, Yes, I think that's a very critical part of it. There
10:28
are two bits from what you've just said that I'd like to explore a bit
10:31
further. The first is results, because I think a lot of people would
10:35
would like to have clearly defined exactly what you mean by that, because of
10:37
course, in the mechanized agrichemical sort of industrial era, results really have tended
10:45
to mean yield by volume and not necessarily by nutrient density or by soil health
10:50
or any of those things. So would you just give a sort of detailed
10:54
qualification of what you mean by the results that you would see. Yes,
11:00
certainly, well, basically you have to take into account both these issues.
11:05
Everyone's interested in volume, you know, that's the year we live in.
11:09
They don't think about mostly they don't, especially in the early days of going
11:13
organic. They don't think too much about nutrition that comes from nutrition lists.
11:16
You know, everything's divided into different segments these days of expertise, and the
11:22
farmer isn't even expected to know much about it that level. However, you
11:26
know, if you're emotionally involved, you'll want to know about it. You
11:31
know, you're fascinated. And the point being that it shouldn't be money lad,
11:37
it should be heart lead and head lead. It should be a combination
11:41
of heart and the head. So obviously you're interested in the yield, but
11:45
in the first phase of growing organic food, you won't be able to ascertain
11:50
the yield because you will get a result based on the condition of the style
11:54
at that particular point in time, and it's kind of be pretty poor.
11:58
Probably if you've been using agrochemicals for the last twenty or thirty years or whatever,
12:03
and nitrate fertilizers, obviously it's going to be poor. So you can
12:09
look at the yield and you say that's very disappointing you. And when it
12:11
comes to the nutritional side, you will simply say to yourself, well,
12:18
I'm glad that this is a product which hasn't which won't contain pesticide residues or
12:24
residues nitrate, because I've learned in the course of my research that these are
12:28
very bad for health, and not only for human health, it's very bad
12:33
for the soil health. Soil health depends upon organic matter being recycled continuously and
12:39
on earthworms, particularly having an active distance, and all the various micronutrients that
12:46
exist under the soil being stimulated to work. So if you were used to
12:52
putting nitrate on your fields, they didn't have to work because you were giving
12:56
them a luxury intake, which meant that it went straight into the veins,
13:01
as it were. It's like when people shoot up with drugs. That's how
13:07
agrochemical farming is. It's a drug problem of plant life. So it's not
13:13
going to happen for at least three or four years that the style is going
13:18
to be brought back to life sufficiently to produce what you might call a yield
13:24
which would be near average for organic farming. And then the next but very
13:30
much related issue, is you described how back at that period there was no
13:35
premium on organic produce because of course nobody understood what it was or what it
13:39
meant. Yeah, given that that obviously has very much changed over time,
13:46
how do you think the public perception of entry into organic farming has changed?
13:52
And I talk specifically with regard to the premium. Is it seen as something
13:58
that might now be more of a business opportunity than an emotional connection with the
14:05
land. Well, that largely depends on the size of the farm. You
14:11
know, there are a number of large organic farmers who proceed with their organic
14:16
farming and very much the same spirits as they did when they were operating monoculture.
14:22
That hasn't changed, that doesn't change, but they see that it works,
14:26
and they see that it does produce an income which makes their farm viable
14:31
in some form. So you save for the very large farmer, that's still
14:37
the main consideration the economics. But the majority of organic producers are on which
14:46
a brant called middle sized family farm holdings mixed organic farms. And then there's
14:54
an increasingly large number of what we call growers. We tend to separate the
15:00
and the organic movement grows people growing vegetables from market garden scale and small scale
15:05
field like, for instance, up to ten acres fifteen acres. This is
15:11
a much more close up view of how organic farming works, so people working
15:18
the ground themselves with hose and all the rest of it now not on big
15:24
tractors where the ground is a distant view from the cab. The people who
15:31
really work the land tend to be the market gardeners and the small scale farmers
15:37
who are still doing rotational farming, and which they have to do. If
15:39
you're going to be organic, you need the animal manure return to the land.
15:43
You need your rotational your crop rotations. In fact, you particularly need
15:48
them uncertified organic farming because you have to have a fertility building period. If
15:54
you're going to grow let's say you're going to go wheat, barleon oats,
15:56
so you grow them, so you grow wheat, barley and oat in succession
16:00
and one year then you'd have to put your fields down to be very typically
16:07
grass clover lay to build fertility. And that would be on my land,
16:14
which is not the best land. It's pretty poor quality. I always used
16:18
to do three year on high quality soil. You could get away with two
16:22
years, and ideally you would then graze that grass clover lay with sheep or
16:27
cattle, possibly even put hans on if you have three range hands, and
16:32
that way you add obviously further nutrients and you create a better mix for the
16:37
soil. So when it comes to the the financial results of this and the
16:51
question of the premium, what you find, and I'm bringing this way up
16:56
to date now, is that a lot of the smaller people have given up
17:00
on certification. It's expensive, it's very time consuming. The rule book for
17:07
organic farming is now a sort of bible. It's very thick and there are
17:12
very very precise rules and regulations and you have to conform to them if you
17:18
want to maintain your certification. And in order to sell organic food into the
17:23
marketplace, you have to have a certified food if you're going to call it
17:27
organic. I think there's been one or two trial court cases where people have
17:33
sold organic without being certified and judges come down in favor of that being illegal.
17:41
So people have got the message. So I'm a rather ambilo ambivalent about
17:45
this because I was involved, and I for many many years on the Soul
17:49
Association board, and I was even involved in setting standards, creating standards from
17:55
the very beginning. So I recognize the necessity for them, but I sympathize
18:00
with the very small farmer who finds it all too much and simply wants to
18:06
get on with the job. Now, I think what you'll find is that
18:11
in the modern in the modern movement, as it were, quite a few
18:15
people have with ten fifteen twenty acres are not certifying, but are going on
18:19
reputation. They're contacting their local public. They're selling direct or through farm shop
18:26
or through a box scheme which is written more popular and is quite all farmer's
18:30
market. And in those situations they won't be able to say this is organic,
18:36
but they'll be able to say it's growing without any esicides, herbicides,
18:40
funger sides, or nitrate fertilizers, and you could call it organic. You
18:45
know, you can say that and the public will sympathize. And actually I
18:49
think that they welcome usually the public onto their farms, these sort of people,
18:53
and sometimes even pick your own. The public get involved in picking the
18:57
strawberries at the end of the season. Whatever so you integrate your local public
19:02
into your farming and I think that's the future. I think certification will be
19:07
just the big boys, the big boys if there is substantial progress made at
19:15
a governmental level and encouraging large scale farmers to convert to organic. Okay,
19:21
that on mean certification events very much at the center of everything, but it
19:26
will be aded divided world. I'm afraid there'll be the small and the medium
19:30
sized getting involved locally and there'll be the big boys going directly into the marketplace.
19:37
You used to advise the British government. No, to what degree do
19:44
you think it's likely that there would be a push by the government towards organic
19:49
practices or practices that you would recognize as being genuinely organic. Interesting question,
19:56
Well, you know about Green New Deal. I presume so it's actually under
20:02
the auspices of the World Economic Forum at the moment, and government can actually
20:07
just pass the buck in that direction. Or you could say Agenda twenty thirty
20:12
Sustainable Development Plan for the UK and then that that is an identic kit with
20:19
the wuf's Green New Deal, So there's no difference between the two. However,
20:26
when you start examining the smaller print about what the Green New Deal is.
20:30
You discover that it isn't green, nor is it a deal. It's
20:34
a very dark non deal, and it involves going down a route which has
20:40
very little to do with what we're talking about. In fact, it involves
20:42
pretty much getting farmers off the land and replacing them with robots. And then
20:48
it's actually in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. If anyone wants to buy Klaus Schwab's
20:52
book, he wrote a book called Green New Deal, but he also wrote
20:56
another one about Fourth Industrial Revolution and all the tales or in the Fourth Industrial
21:00
Revolution. That's because it's a move to it's me it's a move towards AI,
21:07
artificial intelligence and robotics. And they propose that food should be grown in
21:15
laboraches petra dishes in the case of meat, fake genetically modified meat, and
21:22
in the case of dairy products. There are already two nage laboratory factors in
21:30
England producing synthetic genetically modified milk, and that's what Schwab recommends. Quite obviously.
21:41
The reasoning behind it from the standpoint of the Green New Deal is it's
21:45
the only way to achieve net zero by twenty fifty. Yes, I wrote
21:55
an article about net zero, saying what now it is? What is net
22:00
zero? Actually me you know that neither of those words mean anything. It
22:04
sounds like something to do with accounting net instead of brutal zero net zero zero,
22:14
So zero accounting is that what it means. It's all gobbled, it's
22:18
all complete nonsense. So the thing is that under the Green New Deal and
22:22
under the Fourth and Nustrial Revolution, the plan is to get farmers off the
22:26
land, and say cows and livestock in general, because they give off methane
22:33
have to be excluded, because methane is a contributor to global warming according to
22:38
the government or according to the International Panel for Climate Change, and all these
22:44
pseudo scientists, frankly are pushing in that direction, and that ultimately lands up,
22:52
although we won't be discussing that today, in a transhuman scenario where even
22:57
human beings become connected up to computers and our brains are basically used to pile
23:07
information at a very high and intense level, and we become semi robotic as
23:11
a human race. This is the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It's very extreme.
23:17
Most people find it difficult to believe, but by now I hope many more
23:22
people do believe it because it's being pushed harder and harder. So really it's
23:26
a long way of answering the question what will government say about organic farming.
23:33
Our government will say, yes, we've included this. We are proposing actually
23:38
to create twenty five percent of UK as organic farms. It's part of the
23:45
Green New Deal. And there are unfortunately a few people out there who believe
23:52
them and who think, oh good, we finally got the government interested.
23:57
Where they don't realize that just under the surface of the thin is this nightmare,
24:03
dystopian scenario. This looks much worse than anything George Orwell conceived of in
24:07
nineteen eighty four. That's very well pertin, as you say on the AI
24:11
transhumanist agenda. Will perhaps return to that another time. There's a lot of
24:15
ground to cover today. But I think one thing that you do bring out,
24:19
which is very pertinent is what could be perceived as the hijacking of what
24:26
starts out as an initially positive campaign for the right reasons. And I would
24:30
cite say that, you know, a sort of legitimate environmental movement having been
24:34
captured by the notion that there's a climate emergency and so forth, going back
24:41
to the Soil Association. Is there any suggestion that the Soil Association and sort
24:45
of affiliated bodies that have in the same way being captured. I mean,
24:49
you know, with reference to what you're saying about the governments suggesting that they
24:53
want to put twenty five percent of farmland into organic and then I think,
24:56
you know, I'm reminded of to rease coffee while the minister was suggesting that
25:02
even glyfhasate had a part to play in regenerative farming. So so really,
25:07
I mean, I just wonder what you have to say about the danger of
25:08
these initially positive movements being subverted or hijacked. It's already been subverted in hijacked,
25:18
There's no doubt. I already resigned in two thousand year two thousands from
25:25
my role in the Soil Association board because I saw it being hijacked. Even
25:30
then, yes, people were getting interested in supermarket as the main sales point
25:37
for organic food, and my view was no. And the founders of the
25:41
Soil Association back in nineteen forty six were very remarkably erudite and thoughtful people.
25:49
The founder was a woman called Lady Eve Balfour, who was a soyle scientist,
25:56
but She had a very remarkable board at that time, made up of
26:00
homeopathic doctors, nutritionless socil scientists, farmers experimenting with many different sorts of livestock
26:11
combinations, very progressive people. And what came out of this was the position
26:19
real food, organic food should be sold fresh and local. End of story,
26:26
end of story. Now, I actually believe in that, and I
26:30
think if the Song Association had stuck to that principle, we'd be far further
26:36
down the line of local food for local people at the highest quality end of
26:40
course. Whereas I'm afraid my colleagues and my colleagues and Soil Association were captivated
26:47
by the concept of supermarkets actually saying we'd be interested in taking some of your
26:52
organic food, and it was like, wow, you know, Tescos wants
26:57
to take organic and it was they couldn't resist. They said we must do
27:02
it. And then a theora was developed you can't grow the organic movement unless
27:07
you've sell in supermarkets, and it just became a sort of buzz buzz phrase,
27:12
you can't grow the organic movement unless you've sell in supermarket and it was
27:17
gone, it was gone. I'm afraid now, well, yes, it's
27:25
similar to what I was saying about certification. Actually, the smaller scale people
27:30
tend to look at it more holistically because they recognize that selling direct is the
27:37
only way to makeen our income. You couldn't anyway go through a third party
27:41
and into a situation like a supermarket sale where anyway they reject usually fifty percent
27:48
of what you offer them in terms of fruit and vegetables because don't look right.
27:52
That's all they really care about. What it looks like. The nutritional
27:56
value of stuff in supermarkets is rubbish. Of course, travel halfway around the
28:00
world was about a week old, and you know, all the rest have
28:03
been through about six temperature changes, and by the time people buy stuff in
28:07
supermarkets, all the vitamins and nutrients and energy is gone. But it looks
28:12
nice, Yes, it does look nice. So organic farming has fallen into
28:17
this trap. And I'm afraid it's just a learning process. It's a very
28:21
steep learning process for people. They realized later that they got it wrong,
28:25
but we aren't quite there yet. This is it, and I think for
28:30
the vast majority, I mean obviously I would be you know, very interested
28:34
to hear or view of essentially the sort of the psychological and practical and financial
28:41
trap that farmers have found themselves in. And of course you've just spoken about,
28:45
you know, Lady Balfur back in nineteen forty six, just before the
28:51
nineteen forty seven Agriculture Act, and then and then again you're you know,
28:55
your transition in the in the seventies at the same time as the nature of
28:59
subsidy was justing with the European Economic community and all that sort of thing.
29:03
So of course the argument now, the counter argument to what you're saying is
29:07
well, effectively it's too difficult. You know, how on Earth are people
29:11
going to find a market supermarkets although the relationship isn't good and the Groceries Code
29:18
Adjudicator is useless and all that sort of stuff. How do we actually get
29:22
out of it? What's the incentive for farmers to change what they're doing?
29:27
Well, I mean, we are talking about larger, medium size and large
29:34
farms, as I keep pointing out, because on the smaller scale, supermarkets
29:38
won't even take food from smaller farmers. They're not interested. They want a
29:44
very large volume supplied by one or two farms. You're in that league,
29:51
and the incentive would probably be that there was either a scandal on a level
30:00
which was as national, if not global, about the results of having fruid.
30:08
It has been covered with pesticides and nitric fertilizers and will investment and some
30:15
health factor emerged which was critically important. That's one, but it doesn't look
30:22
lightly at the moment, although you never know what's around the corner these days.
30:26
The second would be that the supermarkets let the farmers down over and over
30:32
and over again in terms of what they will pay. That's much more likely
30:36
this scenario, and the farmer's squeezed just like conventional farmers are today. You
30:42
know. That's why there's so many farmers are are upset because they have paid
30:48
a tiny percentage of what the end prices for that product. You know,
30:53
for a loaf of bread, I think it's only about four pence out of
30:57
the tope. So the financial issue again comes around and looms strongly in the
31:06
foreground of why someone would say we can't go on this way, but the
31:11
options might not be available to them yet to be able to sell locally.
31:18
Because I'm in my farm is near Reading, twenty five miles from Reading in
31:22
cyp Oxygshire, and I'm surrounded by consumers and you know, quite affluent consumers
31:32
quite obviously in that part of the world. But you might be stuck somewhere
31:36
else in England, and highly likely you would be where you're not surrounded by
31:40
times and villagism and mother affluent consumers. So what do you do then,
31:45
this is a major question. The possible solution would be the development of cooperatives,
31:52
and they do exist and they are increasing, and they are potentially a
31:56
very good solution where a number of farms would sell into a cooperative set up
32:02
in the regional and the farm would be just and the projects would be distributed
32:07
from the cooperative and people would be able to go to the corporate before sit,
32:10
buy and bulk. That's about the only light on the horizon I think
32:16
for large farms at this point in time. Of course, the third option
32:22
is to keep going as one is and beg for subsidies. Now, the
32:30
thing is, the way organic farming is now subsidized is very complex. There
32:35
are about seven different tranches of payment and they are based on conditions of environmental
32:45
and insect friendly and bird friendly and hedgero friendly and all the rest of the
32:52
conditions. So you know you will have different payments based on how far you've
32:55
got on these various diversification on the environmental and the subsidies pretty significant. My
33:06
guess is that most organic farmers on that scale are at least fifty percent subsidized
33:12
already. The thing is, when you're gone down that road, you're a
33:16
slave. Of course, Unfortunately, you simply have no way out other than
33:23
a major breakout, and that would be only possible if you viewed your farm
33:29
in the following spirit. It's too big, there's very few people running it.
33:32
I can hardly afford to pay the wages. I'll break my farm down
33:37
into ten different units for people who want to grow on a smaller scale and
33:43
who are enthusiastic about environmental issues, of quality food, all the rest of
33:49
it. And I'll let people start on that land at a low rent,
33:57
possibly a very low rent. But you would have any expenses as a land
34:00
rule of very few. You might be responsible for putting up fences originally,
34:06
possibly putting in a water supply if that didn't exist, but not much else.
34:12
You might be kind enough to put a shed up for the incoming person,
34:17
but you wouldn't be obliged to do that, depending on the incomer's financial
34:22
position. This way, a landowner would be free of the expenses. A
34:28
capitalization of a modern farm is absolutely huge. There's nothing under two million quid
34:35
to get started these days. If you're a large scale, say you wanted
34:38
to hurd a sixty to seventy cars and whatever it might be. So I
34:44
think that would be the most intelligent route to go down. But I haven't
34:47
got any evidence of anybody doing it yet, but I'm throwing it out there
34:52
on this program in case that's a farmer who's interested. I think it's a
34:57
very interesting prospect. And what's more, it kills too words of one stone,
35:00
because it helps young aspiring farmers who haven't got really any money to get
35:07
on the land, to get on the farming ladder, as it's called.
35:10
And you know, that person might become very integrated onto one's estate or onto
35:15
one's big farm. Eventually you might find extremely useful and the thing would work
35:20
both ways and you would start to get a revival of the rural economy based
35:23
on breaking vast monocultural farms down. It's a small scale, environmentally friendly,
35:30
high food quality small farms run by keen entrepreneurial people. I think the audience
35:38
would share your hope that there might be people listening that would exactly, you
35:44
know, sort of chime with what you've said. The unfortunate reality is again
35:49
exactly like you said, that subsidy does create slaves, and the slaves therefore
35:53
must do what the what the holder of the purse strings dictates. And so
35:59
of course we find, you know, we're in the situation where there are
36:02
certainly protests about all sorts of things across Europe and more recently, to a
36:07
limited extent, in Wales, but at the moment the nature of the protest
36:14
seems to be about the specifics of the system that they're already trapped within.
36:21
We're told that the United Kingdom has you know, produces approximately sixty percent of
36:25
its own food. I'm not sure of the veracity of that statistic, but
36:29
bearing in mind all these land management schemes, and as you say that the
36:31
sort of the influence of the Green New Deal if more and more land is
36:36
to be taken out of production and there are still very few people who are
36:40
understanding things in the way that you are. Realistically, where do you see
36:45
things going? Well, look, you know, this is a Green New
36:51
Deal, Fourth Industrial Revolution, this is the plan between you and me and
36:55
your audience. It is the plan that is then a gender is to take
37:01
land out of production. Now, I think, person this is the personal
37:07
view, and I've done quite a lot of research into this, that organic
37:09
farming will not be considered a problem. Organic farmers will be supported and kept.
37:19
In fact, the elite who want to be maintain the positions of power
37:27
on the planet all want and already eat organic food. I don't know whether
37:34
this is still the case, but twenty odd years ago there was only organic
37:38
food being served in the House of Commons restaurants. You see what I'm getting
37:44
at. You see, the point is that they would like most farms taken
37:51
out of production. They would like to rewild trees, they would like to
38:00
photovol take panels on in an industrial scale, on wind turbines and on an
38:05
industrial scale, and then concreting more urban development, new housing, and they
38:12
would like to make it possible for consumers to have access to very beautiful bits
38:15
of countryside which will be undoubtedly maintained under the AONB Area Outstanding Natural Beauty and
38:23
all the other regimes like that, and farming and farmers in the sense that
38:30
we're discussing them and exist still now would be out, would be out.
38:35
So that makes you ask ques, well, what do people eat? Is
38:38
that to come back to, I'm afraid it's unfortunate scenario where under for instance,
38:44
Bill Gates's view of the future, we'll be eating insects. In fact,
38:49
here in Poland where I'm sitting at the moment, because i'm the I'm
38:53
the president of the International Coalition to Protect Polish Countryside, I'm very involved in
39:00
detecting the Polish small farmer. That's my main work. And what happens under
39:07
that situation is that the small farmer is really forced out by various forms of
39:19
legislation that say that is not possible under global warming measures. What you're doing
39:27
already in Oregon in America, they are closing down gardeners even and small farmers
39:35
who have chickens and cows and saying and they're using the excuse that they're taking
39:42
too much water from under the ground. This is small farmers, this is
39:47
not vast farmers using huge irrigation unit. And they're saying, oh lo,
39:52
the water is needed for local trout farm which is much more important than this
39:59
is to make money for the state and therefore small farmers have to be out.
40:05
So anything like that means the demise of the small farmer and the middle
40:10
sized what I call smeeth small and medium sized traditional mixed family farm under enormous
40:19
pressure at this moment in time. Already many bankrupt. Every two weeks a
40:23
farmer in that category commits suicide in England. Yes, they are on their
40:30
knees. The situation is dire, absolutely dire, but it's being forced on
40:37
and on and on down this route where everything is conciliated towards saving the planet
40:47
from global warming. Everything is under that ticket. I personally think a revolution
40:55
is needed. But I see them people these days, with our mobile phones
41:00
and their IT fascination. They don't seem to be able to use their brain
41:07
cells more than actually, we only use less than one percent of our brain
41:10
cells, even those of us who can actually think. I dread to think
41:15
of the people on spend half the time on their mobile phones. I glad
41:19
to think what they did. But you know, they've got us covered for
41:22
revolution point of view. They've got us covered because we're being completely brainwashed by
41:29
the bat the media, and by the tall talk the politicians and all this
41:36
and people seem to have less and less ability to resist. One of the
41:40
things that helps one resist, incidentally, is getting one's hand in the soil
41:45
and working the land and being with animals and things. When you come back
41:49
and you sit find a computer, you feel refreshed and human again. So
41:54
food's not only on the gender that's remaining human and first in the day in
42:00
the days of digitalization, algorithms on it, that's almost as important as food.
42:07
I think you've hit upon such an important point. You know, we've
42:13
seen over the last few years how terrifically pliable the public are in the face
42:17
of repetitive messaging from the media. You've just cited that, you know,
42:22
the climate emergency. It doesn't matter what it is, whether it's now going
42:27
to be zooonotic disease from animals or methane from cows, the chances are the
42:31
vast majority of the public are going to are going to swallow it. So
42:36
the question sort of could be, well, how do we how do we
42:38
change the messaging, how do we get it sort of into the public consciousness
42:43
that these are the dangers. But let's face it, the reality of achieving
42:46
that is, you know, diminishing. Ever diminishing as people spend more time
42:52
on their mobile telephones and a further divorced from reality, etc. Are so
42:55
I think, you know, for the audience who are of course listening and
43:00
watching this because they're interested in knowing what they can do. If we accept
43:04
perhaps that it is unrealistic to imagine that farmers are going to make those enormous
43:08
transitions, what do you think about, you know, the actions that people
43:12
can take at the individual family and sort of small group, small community level
43:16
in terms of whether it is acquiring land or just simply getting on with the
43:21
sorts of processes that could benefit both the environment and their food their own food
43:25
security. Yes, this is this is this is the you know, the
43:31
question that most people have on their minds. They don't have them sufficiently strongly
43:37
on their mind soever to work out the solution. I shouldn't have to say,
43:42
really, people can't be that stupid. I mean, if you can't
43:45
work out what you need to do in a situation which is moving in the
43:49
direction as long as you believe what I'm telling people about green New Deal and
43:52
the false industrial and if you don't read class Schwarm's book or simply get on
43:57
the internet, and do some research on alternative channels that Google and Chrome,
44:05
whatever it's called. I mean, you have to go into the area where
44:07
you can research your alternative view on what's happening on our planet. Otherwise you're
44:13
nowhere because all the rest of the stuff is completely controlled. Now you know,
44:17
surveillance is everywhere. You cannot put something out there which is telling the
44:22
truth without it being immediately This needs to be fact checked. This is not
44:28
true. I don't know the truth. Truth is very dangerous these days,
44:32
and that's what George Orwell said in nineteen eighty four. So within the context
44:37
of what I'm saying, it's obvious actually you should do two things quite immediately.
44:42
I would say. First of all, your diet is critical, so
44:45
you must get off the standard form of dart which is considered safe when it's
44:52
not. Because the health issue is long term. You won't see results in
44:58
ten fifteen years. You'll see them in twenty thirty years. With the sort
45:01
of problems we have with low nutritional food and pesticide residues and nitrate and all
45:07
the rest of the things, and genetically modified bits getting into it, plastics
45:10
now getting in all of thing. So you have to try and think about
45:14
the future of yourself and your family in terms of a diet which is healthy
45:20
and which is full of life from vitamins. That means you have to bypass
45:25
supermarkets. Now, this is a make problem for people because first of all,
45:30
they're totally addicted to the convenience factor of the supermarket, totally condict and
45:37
the fact that you can, you know, order stuff that will be delivered
45:39
to your home. You don't you have to move a finger, so to
45:43
suggest you have to go straight from that convenient scenario to one where you have
45:46
to go searching around for some farmer who you might be able to persuade to
45:52
grow some real food for you, or farm shops in your area that are
45:58
growing organic food or food at need with the minimum use of estecides. Because
46:01
it doesn't have to be only organic. It's a mistake to go down the
46:05
route of being too purest. You know, it's all right if you meet
46:08
a good farmer and you get a good vibration from them. You know this
46:13
person's cares about the way they treat their land and animals, So you don't
46:16
really have to demand organic. You simply have to know that they're taking a
46:21
caring approach and will only use the minimum of eesracid. If you can do
46:27
that and you can find someone, you might be able to set up a
46:30
situation where you can track that farmer to grow so many tons of food for
46:36
you a year, or act tons of to the gramds or whatever. And
46:39
if you've got together with a lot of other local people with the same concept
46:45
in our mind, you might be able to set up a round table discussion
46:49
between local farmers and local consuments and say to the farmers, we would be
46:53
interested in buying direct from you, no middle man. We'll pay a fair
46:59
price if you give us fair igh quality fresh local food. And any farmer
47:06
who's worth his sort and who is in financial travel must think twice about being
47:12
that proposal. Must because it's a lifeline. It's their only lifeline properly,
47:19
so they would directly deal with the general public, and the general public would
47:22
directly deal with them. But this is people who have to use the gumption,
47:28
get out the research, find out what's available and how to stimulate some
47:34
sort of possibility for the future. The other issue which comes up immediately,
47:40
of course, is the one of how much time and energy and perhaps even
47:52
money once prepared to put into the issue of food, because it's slipped over
47:57
the last fifty years from being third to being about seventh and importance now it's
48:04
I don't know, I may be wrong about this, someone may correct me,
48:07
but it's certainly slipped. I don't know where to so it's not on
48:09
top of the list, and it's like, oh god, we can buy
48:13
an instant something, the freezer thing, and there's suck it in the microwave,
48:15
and yeah, good, thanks, you know, now I can go
48:19
back to my Netflix. And then that's the modern day. But people who
48:29
are feeling nervous, irritable, somewhat fearful about the future should question the psychology
48:37
of their condition. Why are you feeling that? What are you feeling that
48:42
about? Ask yourself to these questions. Is it because you feel you have
48:46
almost no control over your destiny? Is it because you no longer trust the
48:52
politicians who claim to be representing you in parliament? Is it both those things
48:59
plus the fact that there's a very uneasy feeling on the world, with wars
49:05
going on and horrors like Gaza and Ukraine, et cetera, and all these
49:09
things combined makes you feel completely unable to feel that you have control over your
49:16
destiny. But if you do feel that, the first place to start from
49:21
this food, rebuild from food. Get out of the city if you possibly
49:27
can. I'm talking to people who still have the option to move. Try
49:31
to find someone in the countryside where you feel more relaxed and more better air
49:37
quality, and even the possibility you might have a small piece of land and
49:40
start trying to grow your own food. I'm talking about mostly people probably under
49:46
sixty, because you know it's unlikely if you're sixteen above that you'll be getting
49:52
out. There was your heir and your shovel and digging like crazy try and
49:55
grow enough food. But the allotments in England are overwhelmingly popular and as the
50:05
closest thing we have in the UK to a way of supporting yourself by growing
50:09
around food. It's a very traditional, long standing sing in England to have
50:15
an allotment. They're all in most places, they're all taken up. You
50:20
know you can't find one. But in some cases, unfortunately the counties have
50:23
sold them off, so you don't have that opportunity anymore, and that would
50:29
be the typical direction things will go in today. So people really must use
50:34
their brain power and do some research and make make a sort of them packed
50:40
with yourself to get onto a new foot, foot forward, put a foot
50:47
forward, and get involved with your food and your food production. And as
50:53
I said before, via cooperatives yes, farmshore yes, box schemes, yes,
51:02
farmers' markets yes. You know that's the starting point. Wean yourself off
51:07
the supermarket and the whole convenience thing, throughout your mobile phone and starting your
51:14
life. I think that the words to make a pact with yourself will will
51:17
really resonate with the audience, and I think that's that's a fantastic guidance.
51:22
I would also like to say, I'm sure there are many over sixty year
51:27
olds who would happily get out there with their if they shovel and go for
51:30
it. What I would like to do is just take you back a little
51:32
bit. You spoke about the consumption of organic food for the elite and whatnot,
51:38
which puts me in mind of the now King Charles the Third, with
51:44
whom you have worked over the years. I think anybody who's watched and listened
51:49
so far, or has been aware of your career to date, will believe
51:53
that your philosophy and your practices have been consistent right the way through. So
52:00
given his influence, and in particular I refer to the Terror Carta and the
52:06
suggestion that thirty by thirty thirty percent of the land mass of the UK will
52:10
be in nature recovery by twenty thirty and fifty by twenty fifty and all that
52:15
sort of thing, how do you perceive his part in all of this?
52:22
Ooh, I know this sort of thing can travel. When I start talking
52:27
about in Charles Well, he's he's split, is split. He is,
52:38
in his heart a believer and an example of someone who is converted to his
52:46
own home farm at High Grove to organic back in nineteen eighty six. And
52:52
he's an enthusiast. He's also an enthusiast for mixed family farms. Generally,
52:58
he's a traditionalistart for so, he's conservative. He's a traditionalist and he recognizes
53:04
quality when he sees it quite obviously. But on the other hand, his
53:12
role as the monarch and even when he was prince, and his background and
53:20
his education within royal to royal family, etc. Means that he's also trapped
53:28
by the status quo of the system, which maintains royalty as a voice of
53:37
the empire. I use the word empire symbolically because we don't have an empire
53:45
as such anymore, but that many of us, including me, were brought
53:50
up to believe that that was our role in life, to be said to
53:54
speak leaders of the empire and to be able to take decisions without having to
54:02
draw on one's emotions. So the King of England is split by these two
54:12
things. He would like to, I think, support the future of farming
54:20
and a mixed organic not necessarily of an organic traditional rotational farming or high quality
54:25
food sole directly public, but as monarch in a very powerful hierarchy at the
54:37
top of that pyramid. He sits next to Karus Schwab at Davos in the
54:45
World Economic Forum, and he agrees to the introduction of renew deer and Fourth
54:52
Industrial Revolution. In fact, he was one of the first people to announce
54:57
it. And you knew he reading a script when he did it. It
55:01
was obviously put in front of him and he was told to say this,
55:05
and he did it, and he does say it, and he even he
55:12
created an award for the best design of some innovative products. He's good at
55:20
this he likes to do this sort of thing. And what did it come
55:22
up with? A man who invented, a young man who invented a COVID
55:25
style mask to put over them the nose of cards to prevent methane coming out
55:31
of them when they chose a cud. And he was so thrilled by the
55:36
prince start he was there, there he wasn't it was already when he was
55:39
king. You know, this is this is an extraordinary hypocrisy of modern day
55:45
leaders. Actually, and let's say he's by no means unique. In fact,
55:50
he's one of many who are through and through caught in a sort of
55:57
trap which they don't seem to know how to deal with. And it does
56:00
involve ultimately outright hypocrisy. And what can one say about that? There is
56:07
a terrific degree of hypocrisy out there, which perhaps an increasing number of people
56:14
are becoming aware of or alive too. Now we've covered a very broad range
56:20
of topics. I think through the course of this discussion, what I'd like
56:23
to do is sort of begin to conclude. But in order to do so,
56:30
because I think, you know, you have articulated the issues as you
56:35
see them, But provided a way in which people can realistically get out of
56:40
it. Now, I think I'm right in saying the most recent article you've
56:45
published on your website is entitled Whom the Gods would destroy they first make Mad
56:51
in twenty fourth February. Now towards the end of it, you wright have
56:55
no doubt that an extraordinary reversal of fortune lies ahead, a gathering storm that
57:01
will sweep aside all that which so desperately attempts to thwart the rising tide of
57:07
human emancipation. I find those words very powerful, very inspiring. Just to
57:13
close out, will you just elaborate on what exactly you mean by that?
57:19
Well, thank you very much for quoting that. And then I'm delighted because
57:23
this is very close to my heart. What I really say in here is
57:30
in the course of history, and in the cause of the evolution of the
57:34
species, and in the cause of a higher form of existence which we are
57:42
all coming from, we have a source point of a divine being who we
57:52
are all beneficiaries of. Like sparks if you're like of a god, so
57:59
within us we have an extraordinary capacity to bring change in a very positive sense
58:05
and in a very deep sense spiritual sense, and spirituality is critically important.
58:10
It's not popular subject because it brings up too much of what's going the opposite
58:15
way. But when you do start talking about spirituality, you start recognizing its
58:22
act extremely simple. You know that there's a feeling of joy, beauty,
58:27
respect for people, love, creativity. All these things are one expression of
58:34
some direction which we all in common would like our planet to be moving in,
58:38
and our society and our locality. There's nobody, I don't think who
58:43
would deny that, apart from psychopaths and similar people who are sick, and
58:49
there's plenty of them unfortunately. So what I believe is that people who are
58:58
in positions of power falsely so because they don't possess wisdom. So you really
59:04
shouldn't be a leader if you don't have wisdom. I'm going to keep it
59:08
very, very simple. These people start becoming like the emperor who wore no
59:14
clothes. They are exposing themselves to people, ordinary people who still can work
59:22
with common sense, who still have feelings, We still have empathy towards other
59:27
people who are compassionate, who are just good heart led, simple strengthfuward people.
59:32
They are revealing themselves to those people as crazy, completely irresponsible. So
59:44
this is part of what in an Eastern philosophery is called karma. The people
59:50
who are doing all the damage will eventually have a terrific karmic burden and will
59:57
have to be exposed to I don't know how long the situation where they suffer
1:00:00
the consequences of what they perpetrated on other people. It's a law of physics.
1:00:07
It's not purely a spiritual law, although it's well known in particular in
1:00:12
the Eastern sector of the planet. It's a flaw of physics. This action
1:00:17
and reaction those who do harm to people who suffer harm. And what is
1:00:22
I think going to happen and is happening increasingly fast, is that people aren't
1:00:28
making sense who are in positions apart and for a while ordinary people say,
1:00:34
I can't understand them if they put the burden on themselves, I don't understand
1:00:39
what he was saying. But actually you should have reversed it and say he
1:00:45
doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. Ah, now, then now
1:00:49
we're progressing. You know, you're not just we're not just slaves sitting back
1:00:53
and oh dear, what was so stupidly aren if we could understand these.
1:00:58
On the contrary, we know far more. We can see what's going on.
1:01:02
And if we use that side of ourselves and give ourselves back the power
1:01:07
that we actually have and we were provided with by a divine source in all
1:01:15
our lives, they closes will fall off as emperors much faster, and we
1:01:20
will be able to point it out to them. I'm sorry, mate,
1:01:24
you're naked. We can see through you. It's rubbish that you're talking.
1:01:29
We've had enough of you out very well, pert, No, Julian,
1:01:34
before I let you go, please tell the audience where they can find out
1:01:37
more about what you are doing, what you have done, and anywhere that
1:01:43
you can point them towards to follow up. I don't have any social media,
1:01:46
I don't own a mobile phone, I have no television set. I
1:01:50
do have a website, which is www. Dot Julian Rose lower case dot
1:01:58
info ww W Julianose dot info, and there you will find my writings and
1:02:06
more about my past. I think there's a bio on there about my earlier
1:02:10
work and various other bits and pieces, so I think that's the best place
1:02:15
to look at. Don't go to WikiLeaks because of WikiLeaks not funny. I
1:02:19
use it. Don't go to Wikipedia because I had all my staff removed because
1:02:24
I didn't like it. They told me i'd have to readdo it in a
1:02:29
much more professional way, so I simply ignore it. It simply tells you
1:02:31
that I'm a baronet of Montreal and hardware. That's all they tell you.
1:02:37
So you know that now, so you don't need to look good. Well,
1:02:40
thank you for that. And as I said earlier, links and notes
1:02:45
to the interview will be published at UK column dot org, so please make
1:02:47
sure to share this interview very widely. I should also say that if you're
1:02:52
not doing so already, but you are in a position to support the UK
1:02:55
Column financially in order that we continue to bring interviews such as this to you,
1:03:01
then please go to UK column dot org and either donate or join as
1:03:06
a member. So it just remains for me to say to Julian, thank
1:03:09
you very much indeed for what has been an absolutely fascinating discussion, and I
1:03:15
hope we'll talk again at some point in the future, but we wish you
1:03:17
well and it's been a real pleasure. Thank you, Thank you very much,
1:03:22
Charles, and congratulations on your initiation into UK column, which I've been
1:03:28
following for many years and find it exemplary news broadcasting and long may you last
1:03:35
good. Thank you very much. That's lovely