In his paper in The Land magazine (Winter 2007-8), Simon Fairlie asked the question ‘Can Britain Feed Itself?’ (Fairlie 2007). So far as the authors are aware, this question had not been asked in print since 1975, when Kenneth Mellanby wrote a book of the same name (Mellanby 1975). Fairlie identified and evaluated six possible scenarios by which the nation might attempt to feed itself. He dismissed conventional organic livestock production on the basis that it is too hungry in its demand for land, and the two models that emerge as most viable are ‘Livestock Permaculture’ and ‘Vegan Permaculture’. This paper focuses on ‘Livestock Permaculture’ because it is felt to be the most socially acceptable of the two. He states some of the key elements:

• Feeding livestock upon food wastes and residues
• Returning human sewage to productive land
• Dispersal of animals on mixed farms and smallholdings, rather than concentration in large farms
• Local slaughter and food distribution
• Managing animals to ensure optimum recuperation of manure, and
• Selecting and managing livestock, especially dairy cows, to be nitrogen providers rather than nitrogen stealers.

He acknowledges that this approach would require more labour, a more even dispersal of agricultural workers around the country, and a more localised economy with some degree of agrarian resettlement. As he puts it, the purpose of this model is:

… to go another step further and see whether the UK could become more self reliant, not only in food, fodder and fertility, but also in fibre and fuel? Our environmental footprint currently stretches across untold ghost acres across the world; if suddenly we had to shoehorn it into the 22 million hectares of non-urban land we have in this country, how would we cope? Could this be done organically, whilst keeping a reasonable amount of meat in our diet for those who wanted it, and ensuring that a reasonable proportion of the country is reserved for wildlife?
Fairlie 2007: 22

The ‘Livestock Permaculture’ scenario features the following elements:

• It aims to provide 2,767 calories per person per day
• Meat is produced to meet demand at 1975 levels (around 83 grams of red meat per person per day, for a family of four the equivalent of a traditional Sunday roast, as well as some chicken and fish, totalling around half of present meat consumption), resulting in a reduction in stocking levels, especially for cattle
• Agriculture is more localised, producing as close as possible to the point of consumption
• Production of milk is kept as it is today, but cows are grass-fed, rather than eating a grain based diet, and some eggs are also available
• Pigs are fed, as they were traditionally, using human food wastes¹, supplemented by grains
• The model allows for a doubling of woodland cover, mostly for increased firewood production
• Sufficient land is also factored in either for feeding working horses, or for the growing of enough bio fuels to power a tractor
• Land is also included to grow 7kg of fibre per person per year for clothing
• Fruit is grown in orchards which can also double as grazing land

The following table² shows this model in more detail:

On a national scale, this would produce an agricultural system whereby the UK “produces all its food, a substantial proportion of its textiles, and the energy for cultivating its fields on 13.4 million ha., a little over half the entire country” (ibid: 24). This paper explores whether Totnes and District could feed itself, and whether it could do so from its ‘foodshed’, that is, the land surrounding it, using the assumptions behind the ‘Livestock Permaculture’ model. It would be very useful, however, to repeat the modelling being undertaken in this paper for Fairlie’s other five models as well.

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