The foodzones we have specified in the previous section are fairly crude, and represent our efforts to calculate the amount of land required to feed Totnes and its neighbouring settlements. In this section, we explore some of the yield calculation we employed in the model.

Vegetables and Fruit

The UK presently imports 60% of its vegetables and 95% of its fruit (Defra 2005). Feeding the area with vegetables is the easy part. Guy Watson of Riverford Farm¹ has stated²  that 1 acre of ground³ can produce, organically, sufficient vegetables to fill 30 vegetable boxes around the year (enough to meet most of a household’s vegetable needs). Given that the population of Totnes town is 8,416, a total of around 3,500 households, this suggests that around 47.35 ha. would be required, and that for Totnes and District, with its total of around 10,000 households, organic vegetables could be provided for all on around 142 ha. Oral history work conducted by Transition Town Totnes suggests that the three urban market gardens that the town used to have were able to produce around 60% of the fresh vegetable requirements of the town, supplemented by that brought in to local markets from nearby farms, and also during World War Two, the nation was able to achieve yields of up to 40 tons per hectare from allotment and back garden vegetable production⁴.

Given that Totnes and District contains 319 ha. of back gardens (ONS 2001), were these all to be adequately fertile, south-facing, unshadowed and accessible (that is, not covered in concrete slabs, gravel or decking), and were they to be in the hands of skilled growers reaching the kinds of yields achieved by World War Two allotment gardeners, they could theoretically produce 13,840 tons of fresh vegetables. Although all of the above would take a great deal of work, clearly supplying vegetables is not an impossibly onerous task, especially to feed a population eating more seasonal produce. Meeting demand for cereals is harder, and for meat, harder again.

Cereals

In 2004, 3237 ha. of land were dedicated to the production of cereals, mostly spring barley (Defra 2004). However, most of this is grown as feed for cattle eating a grain-based diet, an approach which consumes a vast amount of grain. One of this paper’s conclusions is that living within our foodshed will require our consuming significantly less meat than at present, which raises the possibility of much more grain being grown for local consumption. If the land currently dedicated to growing cereals were to instead grow for local, human consumption, it would be able to feed around 24,000 people (if they ate little else, and a lot more people if that wheat were part of a balanced diet). Cereals are hard to replace with anything else, but can easily be part of an organic rotation.

In terms of wheat grown for bread production, the damp climate of Devon doesn’t make it the ideal place, increasing the susceptibility to moulds and fungal diseases. Also, bread makers tend to prefer wheat with a gluten level above 12, whereas locally grown wheat struggles to get above 8. More research into other grains, such as spelt, is needed.

Meat

As set out above, this scenario requires the consumption of much less meat than is presently consumed. In particular, it requires a move away from grain-fed cattle, moving towards grass-fed animals, especially using systems such as foggage⁵, which require fewer inputs. Conversely, it needs more consumption of chickens and pigs, and their being used as part of integrated, mixed farming systems.

A significant proportion of the protein required, currently supplied by meat, could be provided instead by nut production. The Agroforestry Research Trust, based in Dartington, has been researching nut varieties and their potential productivity in a Devon context, and their research suggests that hybrid walnut and sweet chestnut varieties could produce, after 15 years, 1 ton of walnuts per acre, roughly equivalent to the organic production of wheat. This agroforestry approach carries the advantage that it can be worked in around current farming without requiring an overnight change in conventional farming practices, although it is an element that requires a longer lead-in time than other approaches. Furthermore, one ton of walnuts is estimated to yield 60% of its weight in edible oil (Crawford 1996).

Alcohol

There are no figures for the amount of land required to provide alcoholic drinks for Totnes and its surroundings, but Sharpham vineyard has calculated that its current level of production, were it to be focused purely on local markets, would provide 1 bottle of Sharpham wine per month for each of the 22,000 people within Totnes and District. Traditionally, the area drank more cider and beer. Many of the cider orchards have now been lost, and even when they existed, the area was still a net importer of apples (from Brittany) for cider production. Beer should be easier; 1 ton of hops and 100 tons of barley produces around 800,000 pints of beer. At present, however, little or no hops are grown in the area.

Dairy (milk and cheese)

Fairlie’s Livestock Permaculture model (see above) suggests that meeting a national, per capita demand for 568g per person of milk (slightly over a pint) per day, which is sufficient for milk and dairy products, requires 2,825,000 ha of arable land and 1,765,000 ha of permanent pasture nationally. This figure is for grass-fed, organic cows, which includes calves and heifers, so there would also be the potential to produce some beef from this. Scaled to a Totnes and District population of 23,914, this requires 1072 ha of arable land and 669ha of permanent pasture, making a total of 1741ha of land required for dairy production, which is about 1/13^th ha. per person. Devon has, of course, long been a milk-exporting part of the country.

Little remains of the infrastructure of local dairy processing that was once a feature of life in the area. Gone is most of the network of local creameries, local bottling plants and the idea that milk produced locally is consumed locally. Exceptions are a biodynamic farm near Totnes which sells unpasteurised milk directly into the town, and Riverford Organic Farm, who produce a range of organic dairy produce, sold within Totnes and District but also further afield. Riverford’s dairy has a throughput of 2,287,680 pints of milk per year, which equates to 96 pints per person per year, around one quarter of the area’s demand. The recent closure of the Dairy Crest milk processing plant in Totnes has led to a further demise of the capacity of the area to supply its own dairy needs. One interesting observation from Riverford⁶ is that its processing of the milk into skimmed and non-skimmed milks, yoghurt, cream and butter creates far more jobs than the actual milk production, emphasising the benefits to the local economy of more localised milk processing. Riverford state that their milk processing facility is currently only working at half its potential capacity⁷, so were more organic milk to be produced, they would be able to supply more than half of Totnes and District’s needs.

Timber for fuel

At present, only 585 ha. are dedicated to woodland in the Totnes and District area (Defra 2004). The woodland owned by the Dartington Hall Trust, if sustainably managed, is estimated to produce insufficient firewood even for the Dartington Estate’s proposed woodchip boilers, and the same is the case for the Sharpham Estate. The Forestry Commission (1988) estimate that yields from well designed coppice can range from 2 tons per hectare for most varieties (i.e. oak, alder, sweet chestnut) and up to 6 tons for poplar and willow. We have therefore taken an average of 3 tons per hectare for this paper. We do note, however, the probability that the impacts of climate change may well include increasing risks of pest or disease outbreaks and of fire, although for some species, yields may turn out to be higher, and plantings will need to take this into consideration.

The average house, retrofitted and with an efficient woodstove and solar thermal panels, using wood for central heating and backed up by solar panels for hot water, would require around 7 tons of dried timber per year. Totnes and District contains around 10,000 households, which at 7 tons of dried firewood per household, would need around 70,000 tons of firewood. At an output of 3 tons of firewood per hectare, meeting this demand would require 23,3000 ha. of well-managed coppice woods, of which around 22,750 would need to be newly planted. Unfortunately, Totnes and District only contains 23,443 ha. of land in total. There is clearly a major role for energy conservation, other technologies such as heat pumps, and also for anaerobic digestion (which could also play a role in cycling fertility). The answer to the question ‘Can Totnes Heat Itself?’ appears to be a resounding ‘no’. We have also been unable to establish figures for the potential timber output from the management of hedgerows, which may make a significant contribution in more rural areas.

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