James Rebanks is a farmer from a long line of farmers, managing the land on an small estate in the Lake District. English Pastoral documents the journey of the land from generation to generation, beginning with his grandfather's traditional approach to pastoral farming through to modern evolutions in agricultural science. Rebanks explores the impacts that developments in science and technology, as well as the application of economic principles to food production, have had on the national landscape, highlighting a need to step back as opposed to moving forward.

This is easily one of the best non-fiction books I've read not only this year, but quite frankly ever. Rebanks prose reads like a novel, so atmospheric and emotive. His arguments are clearly heavily researched and passionately fought. There is so much nostalgia in his writing, and yet also glimpses of hope for a sustainable future supported by concrete actions.

This is at times a difficult read, full of facts which will make your heart ache. It is also a book with a powerful and important message - a cry for help and call to action for the wildlife and the rural way of life of Great Britain.

I loved The Shepherd's Life for the way James Rebanks described his life as Lakeland farmer, it was one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read. In English Pastoral he shows his skill at describing a bygone farming world in the first paragraphs:
'The six ploughshares slice the earth into ribbons, and the shining steel mouldboards lift and turn them and roll them upside down. The dark loamy inside of the earth is exposed to the sky, the grass turned down to the underworld. The upside shines moist from the cut. The furrows layer across the field like sets of cresting waves sweeping across some giant brown ocean.'
This book is the perfect antidote for the urban dweller whose world has been turned upside down with the coronavirus pandemic. He takes you from a childhood, learning the skills of traditional farming from his grandfather, to a brush with 'progressive' agroculture, and finally taking over the family farm and the decision to work with nature while endeavouring to make a profit in a world that seems to be racing to the bottom, producing the cheapest food on the slimmest margins.
This is an easily accessible account of what it's like to be a farmer today, but more importantly it's a balanced view of how farmers can feed the population whilst protecting the farmland and environment.
In fact I would go as far to call this a seminal work which should be essential reading at school.
At the end James Rebanks poses the question:
'What will our descendents think of an age that became aware of the damage it was doing, but was too selfish or stupid to turn back.'

My thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher, Penguin Books, for the opportunity to read and review this fantastic book. For anyone with an interest in the countryside, in agriculture, in growing food, this is a 'must read'. The author charts his relationship with the land he farms, from his enthusiastic youth, tagging along behind his granddad, learning as he works, then later working alongside his father, to the present day, when he has responsibility for the land and is now the teacher, passing on his knowledge and experience to his own children. He describes how farming has become increasingly mechanised, remote and businesslike, discusses why and how the has happened and clearly sets out the consequences. Then he describes how he has reversed some of these improvements and made changes that will encourage the return of wildlife to his land.

The writing is just lyrical at time and this is an incredibly easy book to read. If you enjoy the countryside, if you worry about food standards and quality, this is such an interesting and rewarding piece of writing. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas with me!

Thanks to Netgalley and penguin for the opportunity to review. James describes the landscape so beautifully that the reader can almost hear the peewit. Farming is a hard and undervalued occupation especially in the harsh northern landscape. Should be on GCSE English curriculum.

A beautifully written and well-observed book. Heart warming and thought-provoking it made me feel closer to the land and more understanding of the challenges farmers face.

If you enjoyed the Lakeland Shepherd then this book will not disappoint. The beautiful prose of the author this time challenges modern farming methods, as opposed to the traditional Lake District farm ways.
These observations are founded on at least 3 generations of the author's family.
The book raises serious issues regarding modern farming methods that are destroying and altering landscapes and also biodiversity. We should all be concerned. The author's farm has become a microcosm of how things could be done. It points out the difference between proper smaller farms and the modern agribusinesses.
We could all make a difference by growing a few things ourselves and working with nature by following the seasons. Another thought-provoking book by James Rebank. Let us hope a few more people take notice of his wise words.

I absolutely loved this book. It's not my usual type of read - I'd normally choose a police procedural or occasionally a sci-fi novel. However, I fancied something a bit different and the description of this book appealed to me.

The author was brought up on a fell farm on the edge of the Lake District and his writing is brilliantly evocative of his childhood, he has a fabulous way with words and I felt as if I was there with him. I was lucky enough to grow up in a farming area - not on a farm but I knew a lot of people who lived and worked on farms - and with the help of the amazing writing, I was back in the 1970s. Now as an adult I can still look out of my bedroom window and see plenty of cattle and sheep grazing the hills. I'd never really thought about the work that farmers have to put in to keep their land fit for use though.

The book/memoir/autobiography/polemic can be split into three sections. The first third deals with the author's relationship with his grandfather, an old-school fell farmer, who teaches the author the old ways of working and with whom the author has a better relationship than with his father.

In the second part, the author deals with the relationship with his father and how farming has changed over the years.

The final part of the book relates to the future of farming, comparing new styles of working with the traditional methods.

This thought provoking book really opened my eyes to the problems faced by farmers, both in the past and the present - and the legacy they are leaving for the future.

If I have one criticism, it is that the final part of the book could have been more concise, it seems to be drawing to a conclusion then meanders off in a different direction - the author gets his points across, but he takes his time doing so. Nevertheless, this is a minor point and does not detract from the overall charm of the book.

I totally love and thoroughly recommend the book.

James Rebanks farms the same Lake District land that his father and grandfather did and hopes to pass the legacy on to his own children. The land, however, has undergone change over the years, not all of it for the good.

Farming on a large, industrial scale, has led to food being produced more cheaply, but often robbing farmers of a fair price for what they sell. Animals are kept inside in vast sheds, pumped full of antibiotics, and bred for maximum profit in the shortest time. Smaller farmers struggle to survive and are forced to diversify or risk going bankrupt.

Some of the numbers quoted were eye-watering. Over 50% of the milk produced in this country comes from cows kept entirely indoors. Contrast that with one of my great-aunts with a herd of dairy cows, of which she knew every one by name, often putting her arms around them and hugging them. She would have been horrified.

It's not just the animals that have suffered. The industrialisation of farming has led to soil deprivation, hedgerows disappearing, and with it a great number of native species and habitats. Ecological disasters and climate change have accelerated the need to find a way forward that restores the balance.

Rebanks makes a passionate case for a kinder, more sustainable way of living. His farm has now adapted to incorporate many of the practices that were around in his father's and grandfather's day. It is a way of life that he describes with passion and clear-sightedness. The pleasure in seeing his children take notice of and pride in the natural world around them is also self-evident.

This book's accounts of a way of life that needs to be relearned and cherished, so that we can continue to live in harmony with the natural world instead of fighting it, are worth reading time and again. It is descriptive and thought-provoking and deserves the largest possible audience.

I was sent an advance review copy of this book by Penguin Press UK (Allen Lane), in return for an honest appraisal.

This beautifully written memoir by farmer James Rebanks is also an education in the way traditional farming techniques have been overtaken by, not necessarily better, more productive and financially rewarding ones.
He explains his upbringing on his family farm, and how his grandfather and father taught him to love and respect the farm and its traditions. When he eventually owns his own farm, he uses his knowledge, alongside expert advice and support, to try to create a better balance between sustainable farming, the environment and food production. An enlightening account from an erudite and optimistic visionary.
Thank you to James Rebanks, Net Galley and Penguin for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Beautifully written and nostalgic but not sentimental. I haven't read "The Shepherd's Life" but I will do although i don't believe it is necessary to ted the books in order - this one certainly stands alone.

It is an incredibly timely release as politicians and the public alike are thinking so hard about food and farming practices and policy. Everybody who is even remotely interested in food production should read this elegy to the British way of farming life (and no doubt replicated outside of Britain) and to what this brave band of people are trying, against so many odds, to protect.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Author James Rebanks’ memoir, is written with a prose that’s so poetic, it’s fair to say it touches the soul, and was extremely moving.

On his Cumbrian farm, in the Eden Valley, James looks back with nostalgia to early memories, sitting on the back of his grandfathers’ tractor, plowing fields in the old traditional (but nowadays considered less efficient way), the gulls giving chase, their excited screeches filling the air, and then, their work done, heading homewards beneath a blue black sky filled with a million glittering stars.

His grandfather cared deeply for the land, and it’s difficult not to feel a deep sadness for him, defiant in his determination to carry on with the traditional way of farming, and he did so right up until his death, but eventually there comes a time when change has to be embraced, to modernise in order to survive, but what about the cost to families, and rural communities, animals and nature?

James’s grandfather was such an important part of his life, teaching him everything he needed to know about farming the land, in a manner that didn’t compromise the quality of the yield or destroy the environment. His grandmother too is remembered with fondness, as she toiled in the kitchen, looking after the menfolk, forever cooking, baking, making jams and chutneys, and I felt an immediate affinity, as I was reminded of my own grandma, who was a terrific baker - it took me down memory lane, right back to her cosy kitchen filled with love and warmth, with the most delicious aromas, and watching her slice generous chunks of her home made bread, still warm from the oven, smothered in golden butter, with a slice of creamy cheddar, or home made jams of various varieties - and her cakes and pastries, oh my! Apologies for that, got kind of carried away there!

Back to the novel, it was easy for me to share his nostalgia, and needless to say, I was somewhat moved by the whole experience. There were so many things that I loved about this book, not least the author’s passion for farming the land in a way that allows bees, pollinators, birds and beetles to thrive. To bring the natural system into balance, a new economy that is sustainable and respects the limits of natural resources and the functions of ecosystems is fundamental.

This is an extremely informative and absorbing memoir about the changes in agriculture across three generations. James shares some serious issues and concerns, and he relates where he believes things went wrong, and what he’s doing on his own farm to ensure a sustainable future, both financially and ecologically for his own children.


If you get the chance to read English Pastoral, grab it with both hands - it covers some serious issues that we all need to acknowledge, and the author’s passion for the land just radiates on every page.

English Pastoral is a memoir of the author's experience on his family's farm, both as a child and now as the owner. We get to see some nostalgia for how things were, some exploration of how things have gone off track with our relationship to food and how we get it, and finally how a farm can run more sustainably in this new world and how we can improve our awareness of convenient food and its true cost.

Beautifully written story about a family farming through several generations. They have a varying relationship with their land and animals. There are ups and downs. There is also the reminder that we need to be good to the land in order to maintain it.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Let's be honest: who hasn't been to Lake District or any other hilly part of England and gazed admiringly at the sheep and cows grazing peacefully and thought how amazing it must be to be the owner of such a place?! Turns out things are not as it seems and owning such a farm is not only hard word - as in having to work all day long, but it can also mean a huge financial burden. But hey, it is actually amazing!

English Pastoral is a mixture of autobiography, a look into farming from the traditional, rotational way of farming to the large scale farming of modern days. It is an ode to the pastoral farming, a manifesto for more sustainable farming systems and a plea for keeping traditions and rural communities alive.

James Rebanks has become my go to voice from the farming community for common sense and leadership around balancing the crucial priorities of mending our environment and putting food on our tables. I am excited by the emerging evidence around re-wilding our landscapes and the positive impact that this can have on biodiversity and species conservation, but am also aware that there is no single panacea when it comes to shaping the future we need to discover, as a successful species within a flourishing global ecosystem.

In Nostalgia, the first section of the book, James remembers his childhood growing up on the farms of his grandfather and father. They are relationships that he talked about in this previous book, A Shepherd’s Life, too. His grandfather took on the role of master and sage passing down his knowledge and experience to a young apprentice, whilst his father was weighed down with the pressing matters of keeping the farm and family afloat.

The middle section, Progress, recounts the changes that have taken place in farming during the author’s lifetime and the often destructive impact those changes have had, with consumers demanding cheap food with no thought for the consequences to a land they no longer feel connected to. James doesn’t hold back when it comes to his own mistakes and those of the people he loves, but he also makes it clear that we all share the blame in our refusal to pay what it costs.

Finally, in Utopia, James discusses the changes he is making to the way that he farms the land in order to ensure that he is able to pass on a sustainable inheritance, in both financial and ecological terms, to his children, who are now learning from him as he did his father and grandfather. This close connection to the land is, I believe, crucial to our futures and although we can learn from James’s experience we all need to discover some of the reality of that connection for ourselves, re-building our links to the food on our plates and the country we live in.

“The distinction between me and this place blurs until I become part of it, and when they set me in the earth here, it will be the conclusion of a longer lifelong story of return…. The modern world worships the idea of the self, the individual, but it is a gilded cage: there is another kind of freedom in becoming absorbed in a little life on the land. In a noisy age, I think perhaps trying to live quietly might be a virtue.”

The patriotism of politicians and opportunists is cheap, based on a flight of fancy, a fantasy notion designed to stir reaction in a frustrated man. The farmer’s patriotism, however, is much deeper, born from a commitment to his land, a day after day carrying of the burden of stewardship and an inability to walk away from something that is intrinsic to his own being. They are as different as a schoolboy crush is to a lifelong marriage.

As a society we must learn to re-value both the land and the people who care for it. Mass migration from the countryside to the city has been viewed as progress, but in reality it has broken our connectivity to our life force. Sitting in front of a screen has been deemed more valuable than bringing forth life and food from the earth, whilst an inheritance of banknotes is more valued than handing down a flourishing planet.

Where James Rebanks is so strong is that his passion embraces both the ecological and the economic. He has seen how farming has tried to make ends meet in a world that demands cheap, plentiful food but that is too detached to measure the damage that is done to deliver it. He has seen the damage to his land, to the ecosystems that have been wiped away and to his friends and colleagues. As a result his writing is both poetic, in his communication of what it means to live on the land, and prophetic, in its warnings.

“People left the land for towns and cities, and then, a generation or two later, when they were better educated and more affluent, they returned to it as a form of leisure and escapism, developing a new kind of relationship with the landscape. When we left, we were farmers. When we returned other people, tougher people, were the farmers, and we just loved ‘nature’. We had become free of the harsh realities and were then several steps removed from what others now did in our name to feed us. We found the old ways hard to stomach and sought to escape from slaughter and death. Such utopianism speaks to our better selves, but there is a very thin line between idealism and bullshit.”

We are surrounded by bullshit, we seem to be addicted to it from the way we elevate the most diarrheal voices, but as we face up to the reality of the mess that we have created we would do well to learn that real wisdom comes from those who know and love the land. Their agenda lives on well beyond life peerages and non-executive directorships to the inheritance of our children and grandchildren.

We need to restore our environment and we need to eat. We need farmers at the heart of both, alongside the scientists and the ecologists, with the rest of us learning from all of them how to also play our part. English Pastoral is an excellent place for us to start.

James Rebanks was taught by his grandfather to work the land the old way. Their family farm in the Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. And yet, by the time James inherited the farm, that landscape had profoundly changed. The men and women had vanished from the fields; the old stone barns had crumbled; the skies had emptied of birds and their wind-blown song. English Pastoral is the story of an inheritance: one that affects us all. It tells of how rural landscapes around the world were brought close to collapse, and how the age-old rhythms of work, weather, community and wild things were lost. But this elegy from the northern fells is also a song of hope: of how, guided by the past, one farmer began to salvage a tiny corner of England that was now his, doing his best to restore the life that had vanished and to leave a legacy for the future. This is a book about what it means to have love and pride in a place, and how, against the odds, it may still be possible to build a new pastoral: not a utopia, but somewhere decent for us all.

I will be honest, I absolutely adored "The Shepherd's Life" and was not sure this would appeal to me. However, I was so very wrong. Rebanks has written a book that is both informative and offers an insight into his family history. Rebanks really opens up to the reader about what his family life is like, how far they have come and how far they have to go. At the same time, Rebanks reflects on modern farming and the damage that has been caused, is being caused and could be caused in the future.

I cannot remember the last time I read a book that had such an impact on me. I found this absolutely fascinating and gave me so much to think about. In no way is this patronising and Rebanks can admit to his own weaknesses and downfalls. With this read you will learn about farming, natural history and family life, whilst at the same time be left with deep questions around the future of farming and of our world.

'English Pastoral' is a beautiful portrayal of an English farming family, this is incredibly enjoyable as well as being insightful. I absolutely loved this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Press UK for an advance copy.

I hadn't read Rebanks first book, but have long been a follower of his on Twitter where, as @herdyshepherd1, he shares everything from stunning photography of his farm's Lakes setting to commentary on sustainable food and farming policy. English Pastoral was really a perfect microcosm of the 'self' he presents on Twitter, being a beautifully written blend of memoir, farming history, and polemic. My only criticism would be that moving between the sections sometimes felt jarring, jumping from poetic exploration of belonging and family ties to the land, to drier examination of, say, soil erosion, and back again, with little to signal the changes. However, I think this was perhaps because of the formatting (or lack of) on the pre-publication e-galley. I'd love to see how this book will look in physical format, because if the cover is anything to go by, it will be stunning.

This book is written from the heart. James Rebanks owns a farm on the fells in the Lake District. It is land his family have farmed for generations. It is his passion, as much, if not more than his livelihood.
With the arrival of cut-price supermarket wars small farms were hit badly and big multi-national corporations put many of the out of business. New, and ultimately dangerous, farming practices risked the very soil in which crops were grown, and the land on which livestock grazed. The natural world was thrown into decline.
James Rebanks is now the guardian and protector of his land. His job is hard and not financially rewarding, but he fights on in good spirits, creating something new from something broken. I hope he succeeds and will write another book to tell us how he did it. This is a book of extraordinary value with a very clear message for us all.

English Pastoral is a farmer’s history of working the land over three generations, and an essay on the state of the food chain today.

It covers the outcomes of monocultures and industrial-sized farming, the havoc caused by numbers-based (not ecosystem-based) policies, the loss of biodiversity, nature’s vulnerability. It promotes support of local economy, genetic diversity and heritage crops. It also engenders gentle pride in Britain’s maritime climate and farming history to support livestock.

Rebanks’s prose tends towards the labouredly poetic and archaic. This is particularly evident when he writes of his family. As the emphasis shifts towards the health of the farming industry in general, the writing becomes crisper.

Nature writing which lobbies for the environment is certainly worthy of merit. In this instance, however, the two don't seem to connect, almost as though the latter half of the book is bolted on.

I would recommend this book to anyone oblivious to the source of the food on our plates, and to those unfamiliar with the basic arguments of environmentalism.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Press UK for the ARC.

English Pastoral

This is an important and timely book about nature and its relationship with farming. This is a history of his family’s farming in the Lake District and his own memories of theirs and his relationship with the land and their animals. It’s told from a farmer’s perspective as he looks back over his grandfather’s and father’s experiences as famers as methods change and his own experiences. English Pastoral also contains some of the loveliest and most descriptive passages that I’ve ever read. They are so visual that I feel that I’m there seeing the animals, birds, trees and plants through the author’s eyes.
He farms on his grandfather’s modest 185 acre Lakeland fell farm. Farming is in his blood and the book begins with his memories of riding behind his grandfather on his tractor while ploughing a field. Seagulls are squawking and jostling as they fight for worms turned up by the plough and then head off to their roosts in giant V shapes. Rebanks observes that ‘ they look to me like the bomber formation in war films,’ Then the book moves to the present day as his father’s will is read and they examine the deeds to his rented farm. The history of it and the countryside from generation to generation is held in their hands. However the fight between James’ dad and his grandfather and the new, modern farming ways against the older ones was always ongoing. Rebanks recalls being in the middle of Thatcher’s Britain and listening to ‘my grandfather’s tales from the 1930’s as the sun was beginning to set on his world.’
He comments on farming’s changing role often in the book. The drive for cheaper food has brought many farmers to despair. As I wrote this I saw a supermarket newspaper ad which quoted such low prices for produce that I wondered how the farmer and suppliers made a living. However Rebanks doesn’t gloss over the downside of farming. The suicide rate amongst farmers and the decline of the farming communities that once supported them is chronicled. He mentions how people like to retire to nice villages and by doing so change the nature of them. The village becomes more genteel and middle-class and the farmers are less welcome.
New and dangerous pesticides, the destruction of hedgerows and their once abundant wildlife, the coming of factory farming are all described in the book as well as their effects. When you see vast fields in a uniform colour stretching over the landscape from a train you don’t always notice the non existent hedgerows. These were once vibrant areas for wildlife that would forage in the field. He recounts how, out of excitement, he applied a new pesticide to a field of intransigent nettles and which had the desired effect. Unfortunately it also killed off a nest of robin chicks in a hedge that he had found earlier and felt ashamed that it was he that had done it with his new modern method. Eco systems are very fragile and if you disrupt one then the rest collapse.
Rebanks is good on the realities of farming and the price that he willingly pays to farm his way. He takes the reader by the hand as he walks around his farm. Despite their problems the soil quality is among the best and contains many unusual plants. He follows his grandfather’s methods of rotational farming which works best for him. However, it’s not mere nostalgia but a recognition that the old ways were worth keeping. After all ‘sheep shouldn’t hear the church bell twice in the same field as it means that they’ve been in the same field too long.’ On his farm the cows are let out into fields at Springtime to revel in the fresh air and grazing. As he worries about a cow about to calf she wanders off and gets on with it without him and he next sees them together sitting in a field, the calf fed and mum chewing her cud. He knows his animals by name and nature and frets about the farmer’s greatest enemy – the weather. I loved his descriptions of what he sees as he walks around; the insects, the animals, the butterflies, the wildflowers. But despite the beauty of the countryside and his love of farming he doesn’t gloss over the bloodier side. An old ewe has been blinded by crows that are waiting to attack her again and his grandfather has to kill her in the final act of kindness that he can do for her.
But the book is also a call to arms as Rebanks suggests building a new English Pastoral ‘not a utopia but a better, more decent future for all.’ This includes not accepting ‘every new technology and new ideology and care about some fairly simple old technologies, opt out of the cheap food dogma.’ The need for cheaper food is a tricky one especially if you’re on a limited budget and have very little choice. He also gives a history of the arrival of pesticides and their effect on the environment including the notorious DDT which was banned after the publication of Rachel Carson’s seminal work Silent Spring.
I loved this book as it wasn’t a sentimental account of the author’s family’s farming life but a realistic view of it. Last year I stood in awe of a field of barley as it rippled in a breeze admiring its colours and the butterflies flitting in and out. The nature writing in the book has the same effect as when he describes his grandfather showing him still warm curlew eggs from a nest in the field which they had just ploughed. He replaces them in the same spot and later they see the curlew sitting on them as if nothing had happened. Also the joy of the cows being let out of their winter quarters to graze in the fields.
It is his descriptions of nature that make this book such a joy as, for example, he recounts seeing the magical sight of a barn owl on the hunt when out with one of his daughters. An important book and a timely one and one I really enjoyed reading.