The world is burning. Much of the UK is suffering from drought and farmers are seeing yields plummet as the food system strains under the pressure.
If that were not enough, the Met Office says the “strongest El Niño in living memory” will lead to heavy downpours and storms when it rains again.
Into this scene has stepped Waitrose with a two-part YouTube series with National Geographic, showcasing the ‘regenerative’ farming at its Leckford Estate and the results of its Farming for Nature programme. According to the retailer, it serves as a rallying cry, laying bare the challenges facing the global food system.
This might be a stretch. The first episode is under five minutes long and serves as more of an extended advert. It’s beautifully shot, fronted by National Geographic explorer and photographer Matthieu Paley – but there is little effort to engage with Waitrose’s work critically.
That is important because with so many question marks around what regenerative farming even means – it has no legal definition – to say that producers want to reduce synthetic inputs could be misleading.
Having said that, it is really nice to see a supermarket championing farming that rebuilds “the living systems food depends on”. “When we protect biodiversity, we protect food”, we’re told. And “healthy soil grows more than food, it grows the future”. True enough.
But perhaps that is exactly the problem. It takes more than two short episodes – and some nice-sounding lines – to get to grips with such a big topic.
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