Excellent, thank you. Heigh-ho, it's off to Abbeys I go.

No Australian outlet?

I've seen that often with Australia's Welcome Swallows. I interpreted it as playing. Some species of birds seem to spend a lot of time playing, and swallows seem to be the playful type.

True. Although corporations have only recently recognised the greenwashing potential of what had formerly been farmer-based movements.

All those trends introduced new ideas and perspectives on land management to new generations of farmers, and they all had/have value. The mistake, I think, lay in making them each 'this thing' instead of being a suite of principles that can be revised in the light of new knowledge and circumstances.

Australian red meat producers, also with no discernible subsidies, also doing quite well out of the US. www.mla.com.au/news-and-eve...

...which is not the case with plant-only systems or lab-grown 'food'.

I'm glad you're doing the work you're doing, but we're exchanging across a deep divide. I'm from a pastoral culture where you eat your sheep and cattle because that's what the land gives you. If you can give back to the land, as @herdyshepherd.bsky.social is doing, then you have a virtuous cycle...

There should be no place for gratuitous cruelty to animals. There is a place for a more indigenous view of our place in nature, in which we are embedded in life-creates-life cycles, rather than sitting outside it eating lab-grown sludge.

There’s a lot of nuance between meatflakes.

Some care intensely about sustaining and enriching life - eg @herdyshepherd.bsky.social To do that in agriculture, you need animals, managed with care and respect. No animals = more diesel, more chemicals, less biodiversity.

Yes please

Looking forward to this! I've been intrigued by Matthiessen since reading The Snow Leopard in Nepal on a tissue-paper pirate edition. A man who chose his own paths in life and work.

And equating any ag that is not hi-input hi-output with the ag of yesteryear is making a false equivalence.