Review: Divide – The Relationship Crisis Between Town & Country, by Anna Jones

Description

This book is a call to action. It warns that unless we learn to accept and respect our social, cultural and political differences as town and country people, we are never going to solve the chronic problems in our food system and environment.

As we stare down the barrel of climate change, only farmers – who manage two thirds of the UK’s landscape – working together with conservation groups can create a healthier food system and bring back nature in diverse abundance. But this fledgling progress is hindered and hamstrung by simplistic debates that still stoke conflict between conservative rural communities and the liberal green movement.

Each chapter, from Family and Politics to Animal Welfare and the Environment, explores a different aspect of the urban/rural disconnect, weaving case studies and research with Anna’s personal stories of growing up on a small, upland farm. There is a simple theme and a strong message running throughout the book – a plea to respect our differences, recognise each other’s strengths and work together to heal the land.

My Review

Thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising this tour and to the publisher for sending me a copy of the book.

Living in a small, rural-industrial port town for most of my life, with farmers on my mum’s side of the family, I always thought I had a decent handle on the tension between town and country. I didn’t.

I have a marginally better understanding after reading this book. I want to give copies to everybody!

We all depend on farmers to produce our food, even those of us who grow a bit of food ourselves in our gardens and allotments. I don’t have the space to raise cows for milk, cheese and yogurt, chickens for eggs or sheep for wool. Not that I can actually crochet with sheep’s wool because it itches the crap out of me. I can’t grow enough wheat for bread or pasta; I can’t grow rice; there’s a linit to how much fruit and veg I can grow.  Most people aren’t able to feed themselves, and a lot of people don’t know how to. Raising animals and growing food are skills not taught to the majority of people anymore.

That means that we are disconnected from the realities of farming and the food distribution system. For those living in cities it’s easy to ignore the difficulties of farming, causing people to make assumptions about the realities of farming and farmers.

For farming communities, there is a feeling of being ignored and overlooked, despite their absolutely central place in national life, and a lack of understanding about why urban people might not eat meat or realise that supermarkets are fucking farmers over.

The premise of the book is that the different communities need to find common ground and understanding, and work together to improve things for everyone. The author talks about her home and family history, as the descendant of Welsh border farmers and butchers. Raised on a hill farm with a herd of sheep and a few cows, she has a familiarity with the reality of farming that most do not. After  leaving her home to go to university, Jones spends most of her time in cities, including Manchester and Bristol, where the food culture and politics is very different from those at home. She meets lefties and vegans (Shock! Horror!) and feels threatened in some nebulous way.

In the chapters, we learn about her personal history and politics, intertwined with observations and data on the current situation. The book was triggered by pandemic lockdowns and the author’s trips home, and time on her allotment, as well as extensive work in agricultural journalism. The interviews with farmers, whether they’re long-term farmers from a long line of farmers, or people starting new farms or taking over abandoned farms, are fascinating and insightful. The interviews with urbanites, who hold a variety of political positions, give us the view from the other side. These are also interesting, especially the Bristolian couple with the Corbyn banner.

The author attempts to bridge the divide she describes from her position as someone with a welly-clad boot in each community. She does a fairly good job.

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Author Biography

Anna Jones is a well-known journalist, broadcaster, blogger and Nuffield Farming Scholar. She is a familiar voice on BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today, On Your Farm, Costing the Earth, Food Programme and BBC World Service, and a freelance producer/director on BBC One’s Countryfile. She writes for the Guardian and farming trade press. Growing up on the Welsh Borders, from at least five generations of farmers on her father’s side and a long line of butchers and farm labourers on her mother’s, Anna’s heritage is deeply rooted in working class, conservative, rural values.