New Leaf September 2019 Discussion • The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks

[issybird]

I also thought subsidies were the elephant in the room. As it is, I mentioned the price of that lamb once it hit the market, and that's with (unacknowledged) subsidies.

I'm quite sure Catlady isn't reading this, but from the point of view of the sheep, this seems to me to be pretty idyllic. They have a good life; they're largely left to live on their own but with built in protections against the vagaries of nature and, this is the key element, this is how they got to have a life. And for sheep in the wild, the end mostly can't be pretty, either.

But I digress. I suspect it's one of those situations where most of us prefer the middle option, but that we also don't examine our assumptions enough. We tend to deplore the totally mechanized society because of the toll it takes on the individual, but we can't sustain, either logically or economically, Marie Antoinette-style Petits Hameaux, either. So the key element is making it pay, in some form or another. In this case, it's tourism; in the case of farm subsidies in general there seems to be more of an element at least in this country of a nebulous sense of the noble farmer, the descendent of pioneers, although there's also the argument that it's important to maintain farms as a hedge against the unknown future. One thinks of Britain in WWII, for example, when it couldn't feed itself, or Germany at the end of the Great War when a starving population helped tipped the balance - and Germany learned from that for the next war.

[CRussel]

There are two factors that, to me, justify subsidizing Herdwick sheep that have nothing whatsoever to do with tourism.

The first is the important genes that the Herdies breed back into the broader sheep population as a whole. Yes, their fleece is no longer economically viable, but by crossing the Herdwick sheep back to the "softer" lowland breeds, those breeds are made hardier and more resistant.

The second, and perhaps most important in some ways, is the very real need to maintain biodiversity in a time of climate change. By protecting heritage breeds of animals, and heritage varieties of plants, we improve the chances for all varieties and breeds in a rapidly changing environment. Oh, and not insignificantly (close your eyes, Catlady), we improve the taste of the food we eat!

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

I'm quite sure Catlady isn't reading this, but from the point of view of the sheep, this seems to me to be pretty idyllic. They have a good life; they're largely left to live on their own but with built in protections against the vagaries of nature and, this is the key element, this is how they got to have a life. And for sheep in the wild, the end mostly can't be pretty, either.

Au contraire, I have been reading the comments. I will agree that if you have to be slaughtered, probably roaming around in a field (I assume) is better that being penned up and tortured on a factory farm, but they still end up killed for no good reason.

Originally Posted by CRussel

The second, and perhaps most important in some ways, is the very real need to maintain biodiversity in a time of climate change. By protecting heritage breeds of animals, and heritage varieties of plants, we improve the chances for all varieties and breeds in a rapidly changing environment. Oh, and not insignificantly (close your eyes, Catlady), we improve the taste of the food we eat!

So let's maintain biodiversity by not killing those sheep for food, and eating those nice tasty veggies instead.

Even before I was a vegetarian, I never ate lamb. It horrified me as a child--lambs seemed too real and cute.

Generally, the comments are making me quite glad I didn't read the book, beyond my aversion to animal slaughter. The author sounds like quite the reverse snob, with a dash of hypocrisy to boot.

[Victoria]

The term ‘tourism’ makes the endeavour sound a bit trivial. I would preserve traditional ways of life because I believe it’s important for us to understand human history and where we come from.

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I think there is an argument for subsidising industries, not just as stage-dressing or as a theme park, but because it gives decent honest work to people who would otherwise not have it. And that of course is very true of the UK, which now has had several generations of people in the north who have no work.

At least in North America, huge subsidies, structured to be largely invisible, go directly to big industry without benefiting regular people.

Originally Posted by issybird

. ...although there's also the argument that it's important to maintain farms as a hedge against the unknown future. One thinks of Britain in WWII, for example, when it couldn't feed itself, or Germany at the end of the Great War when a starving population helped tipped the balance - and Germany learned from that for the next war.

I think there’s a very strong argument for this. We came from very humble circumstances. My parents said few people in the Maritimes realized they were in the midst of the Great Depression, because not much had changed. But everyone had small gardens and ate quite well on what they grew and preserved. Not to minimize the overwhelming impact of the Depression, but just to echo the importance of self reliance.

Decades later, gardening here is experiencing a revival, because many families are struggling to give their children fresh fruit and vegetables. We have community gardens in city parks, vacant lots, etc. Given what is happening to the environment, carbon footprint & costs of transportation etc, these are important skills to maintain.

Originally Posted by CRussel

There are two factors that, to me, justify subsidizing Herdwick sheep that have nothing whatsoever to do with tourism.

The first is the important genes that the Herdies breed back into the broader sheep population as a whole. ...

The second, and perhaps most important in some ways, is the very real need to maintain biodiversity in a time of climate change. By protecting heritage breeds of animals, and heritage varieties of plants, we improve the chances for all varieties and breeds in a rapidly changing environment. Oh, and not insignificantly (close your eyes, Catlady), we improve the taste of the food we eat!

Excellent points. There’s no comparison in flavour between real fruit and vegetables, and tasteless stuff, bred primarily not to bruise, which is picked too soon, entombed in plastic and shipped thousands of miles.

Despite my sympathy for the ‘eat local’ movement though, I’m pretty spoiled & hypocritical. I hate to start the day without coffee imported from South America and tropical bananas on cereal

[gmw]

Bookpossum I think the risk with putting forward jobs as a justification for subsidies is that it may well turn out that knocking down rock walls and starting some other form of farming might employ more people. Or maybe we just put concrete down and build factories. It's happened elsewhere. And for those without jobs now, seeing shepherds subsided just because they were lucky enough to be born sons and daughters of shepherds must seem unfair. (Although, judging from what Rebanks told us in this book, he still needs outside work even with the subsidies.)

To some extent I'm playing devil's advocate, but I think the arguments are real enough.


As my earlier post suggests, I think tourism is a dangerous way to make this work, and I'm guessing from the pieces Rebanks gave us that these dangers are part of what his work has been about with UNESCO.

Victoria, you mention that referring to tourism seems to trivialise the activity, but I do completely agree that tourism is very important for many different reasons. The danger, at least in my view, is when tourism becomes the reason for existence (as seems to be happening in the Lake District), because this changes the rules: it's no longer about tourists coming to see what is, it is (or can be) adjusting what you are in order to attract more tourists.

But having said that, the Lake District seems to be in a fairly unique position of having been a tourist destination for pretty much as long as there have been tourists - and it's still working, so maybe there's hope.


I must say that I don't much trust government subsidies as a long term solution. If I were farming they would make me nervous because governments change, and the tide of public opinion changes, international treaties change and farmers are caught in the crossfire.


CRussel you speak of biodiversity, but we can also add that a large enough farming community retains industrial diversity. This overlaps with what issybird says about the "hedge against the unknown future". It's not just the farm animals, nor even the farmers, but all the supporting industries, government and social facilities, as well as infrastructure like roads and power grids. If you let farming diminish too much, you reduce all this diversity and this would be very expensive and slow to restart if the need does arise.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Victoria

Excellent points. There’s no comparison in flavour between real fruit and vegetables, and tasteless stuff, bred primarily not to bruise, which is picked too soon, entombed in plastic and shipped thousands of miles.

Despite my sympathy for the ‘eat local’ movement though, I’m pretty spoiled & hypocritical. I hate to start the day without coffee imported from South America and tropical bananas on cereal

And there is no comparison between the bacon you buy in the local IGA, and the bacon that I dry cure and hickory or applewood smoke from organically and sustainably raised Berkshire pigs from a farm about 75 km from here.

OTOH, I'll give you a pass on the coffee, assuming you choose fair-trade beans. The banana, however, you're going to have to give up. Every banana you have ever eaten, and just about the only bananas you can buy, anywhere in the world, are all the exact same variety, the Cavendish. The Cavendish is susceptible to the TR4 virus which is currently devastating banana crops pretty much everywhere. There just aren't going to be any bananas available fairly soon.

[Bookpossum]

Don't worry Victoria - you can come to Australia, as apparently our strict quarantine regulations have kept ours disease free in Queensland.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Au contraire, I have been reading the comments. I will agree that if you have to be slaughtered, probably roaming around in a field (I assume) is better that being penned up and tortured on a factory farm, but they still end up killed for no good reason.

They do end up being killed, but my point is that they wouldn't have a life at all if not for their end use. To me, better a good life with a controlled end than no life at all.

As far as efficient production of protein goes, the sheep seem relatively sustainable as they mostly feed themselves in the wild; it's the human labor that makes it so pricey.

But I certainly can't argue against visceral repugnance and I'm not trying to offend.

[Victoria]

Charlie - your bacon sounds divine!

Good for Australia Bookpossum. People here grumble about cross-border regulations, but we’ve also lost several iconic species via new insects and diseases. Since oatmeal requires banana, it’s to know Queensland is an option.

Coming back to the book, it led me to read a bit more about UNESCO’S cultural and nature conservation. That enhanced my respect for Rebanks’ efforts to preserve his heritage. A lot of our comments have been about personal aspects of his book, but he intended it to be more than a memoir. I would think that’s why it received the accolades it did - his larger purpose, and widespread esteem for the Lake District resonate with people.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Victoria

Excellent points. There’s no comparison in flavour between real fruit and vegetables, and tasteless stuff, bred primarily not to bruise, which is picked too soon, entombed in plastic and shipped thousands of miles.

Despite my sympathy for the ‘eat local’ movement though, I’m pretty spoiled & hypocritical. I hate to start the day without coffee imported from South America and tropical bananas on cereal

I'd like to eat local more than I do. The prices! I frequently go to the local farmers markets and end up buying less than I'd hoped because I can't justify it. In the end, flavor determines it; local tomatoes over those orange tennis balls they sell in the supermarket? Absolutely. But potatoes? I just can't. Big agro is so much cheaper. And I say that knowing that potatoes are among the dirty dozen, so there's really no excuse.

[Victoria]

I make same compromises. By late winter here the choice is often between soft local apples and Costco’s tasty plump apples from New Zealand for less money. It’s hard to be a purist. (And of course, local booksellers vs ebooks from the mega giants.)

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Victoria

Coming back to the book, it led me to read a bit more about UNESCO’S cultural and nature conservation. That enhanced my respect for Rebanks’ efforts to preserve his heritage. A lot of our comments have been about personal aspects of his book, but he intended it to be more than a memoir. I would think that’s why it received the accolades it did - his larger purpose, and widespread esteem for the Lake District resonate with people.

Victoria, I think you had an interesting point earlier that he is a work-in-progress. I read an interview where he said there is James the farmer and there is James the suit-wearer and that he has trouble reconciling that the two James are one and the same.

His way of thinking is that someone goes to an art museum and looks at a Picasso painting and sees culture but similarly going to the Lake District and looking at the sheep is also culture. He doesn't mention much in the book about his outside jobs that help him earn money beyond the farm (and the side of him that wears the suit and goes to business meetings). He has owned a consulting company since the early 2000s, and his particular expertise is how economics and cultural preservation meet up. This book has led me to read more about UNESCO too. The work that he has done with UNESCO for heritage preservation and sustainable tourism is very interesting, and I think that he has made a personal impact to other communities in England as well as across the globe.

His consulting company helped produce studies for the Lake District to become a World Heritage Site, and you can read the info online here.
https://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/cari...s/whs/benefits

Also the Lake District World Heritage Site is worth a digital wander. It has a section on Farming Heroes and Local Voices to learn more about the people and the community.
http://lakesworldheritage.co.uk

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I read this book as being about a particular place and a particular way of life. Rebanks doesn't talk much about Oxford because that's not what the book is about. That is, he is writing about life as a shepherd, not life as a student in Oxford. So yes, of course he touches on various aspects of his life, such as school, going to Oxford at a later stage, mentions UNESCO, and so on. But these parts of his life aren't what the book is about.

I don't think it is reasonable to berate him or call him blindly ignorant to other ways of life because he doesn't write about them. They aren't a part of his life as a shepherd.

As for astrangerhere's reference to the "other", I interpreted her as referring to another way of life from the way of life of the vast majority of us, living in cities, getting our food (wrapped in plastic) from the supermarket, and so on. That for me was certainly the real interest and enjoyment in this book: showing me something of a very different way of life from the one I know. While I don't like Rebanks' writing style, I did find the content interesting.

I had similar thoughts. It is about a way of life and not necessarily "my life as a shepherd." I read an interview where he stated that the book was "a letter to his father" and intended to show respect for his father and that he was very glad that his dad was able to read the book before he died and tell him how proud he was. I also read that his intent was to portray shepherding life as an insider. He wanted to contrast with the famous literature about shepherds written by outsiders.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

I had similar thoughts. It is about a way of life and not necessarily "my life as a shepherd." I read an interview where he stated that the book was "a letter to his father" and intended to show respect for his father and that he was very glad that his dad was able to read the book before he died and tell him how proud he was. I also read that his intent was to portray shepherding life as an insider. He wanted to contrast with the famous literature about shepherds written by outsiders.

I'm reading an excellent book right now, Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes, a history of women's lives in 1950s Britain, and while it's irrelevant to A Shepherd's Life, it helped me pinpoint something I found off about the book.

Rebanks was born in 1974. The schooldays described would have been late 80s to 1990-ish. But the whole flavor of them and of his homelife to me smacked of being much earlier. His illiterate father was probably born post-war (there might have been good clues to his age, but I've forgotten them). His grandfather? Smacked of those novels set earlier in the century where the men come home from t'pit for their tea, but again, his life was somewhat later than that (and what did he do in the war? I might have missed that, also.) While I was reading it, I had to keep doing a mental adjustment for what the actual year was.

I'm getting into highly speculative areas, but bringing it back around to his schooldays, I'm struggling with a 16-year old boy in 1990 being so unaware of the world and possibilities. Part of it might have been willed ignorance, but there's an element there that seems exaggerated for effect to me.

[gmw]

Yes, issybird, I found something like that too. I kept reminding myself that this was someone rather younger than I, growing up within spitting distance (from an Australian perspective) of London and then Europe. I couldn't quite work out whether the Lake District really had kept itself so isolated as to have this effect on its children, or whether the author was exaggerating. Given the long standing tourism of the region, the latter seemed more likely.