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UNCORKED

Why worms matter

by | Jun 14, 2017

The Farmer

Why worms matter

by | Jun 14, 2017

Vile murder has foul consequences. The shooting of Tristan Voorspuy in March this year was a totemic moment in an ongoing conflict. On 12 June, as reported in The Times, Raila Odinga, leader of the opposition in Kenya’s government, openly called for the dismantlement of white-owned ranches in Laikipia, previously one of Africa’s conservation success stories. Concurrently, recent rains, according to Martin Evans on the Ol Maisor ranch, have not caused the retreat of the criminal gangs bringing large herds of cattle on to the farms. The argument that drought is the problem no longer holds much truth. The death toll on both sides now exceeds 60; Kuki Gallman, the author and a fellow rancher, now numbered among the injured. Also in the Times report it was announced that Sosian, Tristan’s ranch, would close indefinitely. With its buildings razed, and cattle and wildlife slaughtered, no tourists will come and economic management of stock is no longer possible. Many good jobs will be lost. Laikipia is effectively a war zone, a piece of Eden brutalised.

While politics and colonial resentments are given as the motivations in this conflict, the ultimate cause may be argued to lie in the fragility of the soil. The Laikipia tragedy is the outcome of the mismatch between social needs and the capability of the delicate earth beneath their feet. Soil erosion caused by the over-grazing of nomadic herders enabled white ranchers to buy the land as useless dust bowls. Slowly, balancing a tourist economy with returning wildlife and very low intensity grazing, the ranches had begun to prosper, as vegetation helped soils recover. The recent invasions, with their hundreds of thousands of hungry cattle, are not just removing the ranchers but are destroying, once again, the fabric of the delicate dirt. It is mankind’s most widespread spiral of ruin.

At the end of his life, Charles Darwin wrote in great detail about earthworms. Some thought he was losing his marbles, yet his observations remain valid today. He calculated that worms in healthy temperate soils processed about 20 tons of topsoil per acre annually into a fine tilth, mixing organic matter with decaying substrate. Underestimating the number of earthworms per acre at about 53,000, recent studies of the very best soils suggest Darwin’s calculation is dwarfed by densities exceeding 1.5 million. That would be a weight of worms exceeding the weight of animals on the surface. These fun statistics serve to validate his comment that few other animals ‘have played so important a part in the history of the world’.

In Laikipia, where the soil and social structure are in a mutually reinforcing state of self-destruction, the value of land is plummeting. The investment made in sustainable business there is collapsing with the decimation of the dirt. On our farm on the marshes of East Sussex we also face economic equations founded on soil health. Like Tristan, 20 years ago we were able to get a lease on a farm because of exhausted ground. Deflocculating clays had caused waterlogging and dead patches, rendering wheat production no longer viable. For us, grazers not arable men, it was an opportunity to establish more grassland and extend a wetland nature reserve, so we took up the challenge. Today it grows rye grass and clover for our cattle and sheep, and is home to nesting lapwing, its physical recovery and economic viability funded through the European Common Agricultural Policy by Countryside Stewardship money. When I explained all this, several years ago, to Tristan, it caused him great envy. His death, tragically, demonstrates powerfully that civilisations who don’t care for their soil will fail.

Image (c) Adobe Stock

About Martin Hole

About Martin Hole

Martin Hole farms at Montague on the wetlands of the Pevensey Levels in East Sussex. Part family-owned and part rented, the 300ha organic enterprise provides a home to about 150 cattle and nearly 2,000 head of sheep, with a small diversification into residential property and a fledgling green tourism business. A former RSPB UK Lapwing Champion, Martin remains fascinated by the provision of wilderness whilst trying to keep the farm intact for three daughters.

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