A full version of this article appears in the magazine.

 

With less than a dozen Welsh Black cows and fifty sheep, I am not economically dependent on my small farm. It pays its way with a host of non-material benefits, providing daily contact with farmers and with the wildlife with which I share my land. It also keeps me fit, gives me the pleasure of working with animals, and an endless supply of things to write about (while robbing me of time to do the writing!)

 

As on any farm, the animals have a job to do, or in our case, two jobs: they need to produce first class meat (and other products) for which there is a market; and we need them to graze our meadows, some of which are unimproved and a picture at this time of year. Abundant wild flowers include marsh and spotted orchids, lousewort, yellow rattle, bird’s-foot trefoil, meadow vetchling, tufted vetch, devil’s-bit scabious, betony and knapweed, which attract hosts of bees, and butterflies such as ringlets, meadow and hedge browns, small skippers and common blues.

 

Ours is an organic farm, and this greatly reduces inputs. I do not routinely spray, dip or inject my animals, saving me the cost of unnecessary preventative medicines. Our flock and herd are ‘closed’, increasing naturally, stocking levels are modest and disease is controlled through natural immunity and keeping a close eye out for any problems. I buy in some feed, especially for the ewes with triplets, and this is more expensive because it is organic; but organic standards encourage self-sufficiency and an energy balance – you cannot import fertility in bags, and it is not acceptable to export too much fertility either, in the form of hay sold off the farm, for example.

 

Last November I had a chance to visit a country with a genuinely sustainable agriculture born out of necessity. I went to Cuba on a trek raising funds for the wild plant charity Plantlife. This put our claims to be sustainable into perspective.

 

Cuba has the antithesis of a consumer economy – there is very little in the shops, but also no advertising, little noise, the few vehicles full of people (lorries are required to pick up hitch hikers, apparently), minimal greenhouse gas emissions and waste (everything gets used), and indeed a sustainable society which we found enviable in many ways.

 

The economic downside, in terms of real hardship, was not at all obvious. We saw evidence that Cuba has a ‘first world’ health and education system, everyone has a job and gets the basics. The people we met seemed to be happy and to take enormous pleasure in each others’ company. Well, with a climate like theirs…

 

The trek took place in the Sierra del Escambray, a belt of thickly forested mountains in south central Cuba. Flowers filled the forest, including the blooms of the national flower, Mariposa, a bulb related to ginger; and the spectacular birds included Cuban Emerald hummingbirds, Stripe-headed Tanagers and Cuban Trogons, Cuba’s national bird.

 

We followed rough tracks between farms, so every few kilometers the sound of barking dogs would let us know that we were approaching a hacienda. These farms within the forest were models of sustainable living, making use of recycled or natural materials, for example using palm leaves as a roofing material. Coffee is the staple crop, grown within the forest without destroying it. Horses are the main form of transport, pairs of oxen the main form of power, and pigs, sheep and goats, dogs and assorted poultry range freely in the forest. Life would clearly not be possible without livestock.

 

We visited farms and were able to contrast their farming and use of natural resources such as fossil fuels with our own situation. It is encouraging to realize that a good life based on limited resources is possible. Where Cuba leads, we in Wales may, of necessity, be forced to follow at some point.

 

My small farm is not as resourceful as those I saw in the forests of the Sierra Del Escambray, and I will try to do better. The wildlife at home is no less wonderful, and I hope politicians and those in positions of influence here really are committed to ‘sustainable farming’. The Assembly says it wants to see a change of direction for Welsh farming, with more emphasis on quality, on sustainability and the environment. The Minister has set up a group called Farming & Environment: Action towards 2020, which will report next year.

 

My farm should be working with the grain of agricultural policy, but it does not feel like that. Recently a local abattoir closed, adding to the already excessive ferrying of livestock around the country. I am waiting for the fine words and good intentions to percolate down to life on this small farm.

 

Will farming in the future bring real benefits to the countryside, its wildlife, its managers, and the consumers and purchasers of the many services it provides? I hope I will still have my little bit of paradise in 2020, and that by then politicians will have found a more sustainable path for the way we manage this beautiful country.

 

James Robertson edits Natur Cymru- the Nature of Wales and farms on Anglesey.