A chance meeting via Freecycle (donating my old greenhouse) brought me into contact with George Boden, sheep farmer and land manager, and a discussion on regenerative farming and the vagaries of trying to live on the land in Derbyshire in 2026. The thing that really piqued my interest was George’s comment that his grandfather got more for his fleece than farmers do today. Inflation? That would be nice. If you depend on farming income, prices stagnate while costs rise. Wool is now viewed as a waste product (think of those fleecy insulation materials you sometimes get with your fruit or veg box).
The challenges of wool
George explained he learned about the price of fleece from his grandfather’s records: “my grandfather’s pocketbook, his incomings and outgoings from the farm, I believe it was 1975 or 1976, 50 years ago. You’re getting approximately the same price now for the fleece. And as you can imagine, the cost of that is going up, the cost of actually getting the fleece off.” Plastics and polyesters are becoming more prevalent and cheaper, while “we are losing the ability to fashion these textiles as well, which is a shame.” The price decline, he says, is because “there are much cheaper ways to purchase wool on a large scale than buying English wool from an English farm. The reality is that wool is no longer treated as a commodity but as something to get rid of – essentially trash.” He also says large-scale farming means the practice of using the whole farm is dying: there is no regeneration.
George’s family have stopped farming: “We now consider ourselves land managers. We sell grazing rights to another farmer who owns the sheep.” George provides ecological practices, like tree planting and hedge-laying, to qualify for government payments. This was partly due to the amount of time and effort required to farm on a small piece of land and the lack of income it generated. He continues, “Our particular position has changed a lot in the recent past. I mean, not just because of Brexit, for many other reasons, but Brexit was certainly a major factor,” adding, “The last thing I want to do is to complain, because I realise what position I’m in, which is a great position to be in. But the way that farming and farmers have been treated post-Brexit is actually quite poor, in my opinion, and from my position.” He says it would take two people – two salaries – to run 80 acres, but 80 acres cannot earn enough to pay two salaries. So they manage the land and, he says, “We do some husbandry of the sheep, and we certainly have our eye on them in emergency situations, but they are owned by a different farmer, and he pays to be on our farm.”
Meat prices and markets
Sheep make meat as well as fleece. George explained there are two ways to sell: “It’s either a living animal, it’s livestock, or deadstock. Deadstock is sold based on price per kilo at market. So, you’re working with market rates that fluctuate just like any other rates that you’ll find on the London Stock Exchange. Despite being able to work out the best weight when they go to market, George says, “You can’t say I’m definitely going to get a pound per kilo in March, or August, or whatever, whenever you’re taking them. The reality is that you get what you get when you get there. How are you supposed to run a business when you don’t know exactly what you’re selling your product for? The reality for a lot of farmers is that the only way you can find yourself pricing according to your needs and your desires is if you’re selling on a small scale on your farm. Or in an artisan shop, that kind of thing, more local. For many farmers, they’re farming with their hands tied behind their backs a lot of the time.”
Unlike most trades, which factor in costs of materials, labour, and so on, meat prices are not based on a farmer’s costs but on market prices determined by the invisible hand of the market – specifically, those with market power: retailers and traders. This, George suggests, has been made more insecure by post-Brexit agricultural policies, with changes to subsidy systems affecting farm income.
George adds that processed foods also contribute to the problem by confusing customers about cheapness: “I think a lot of people will buy meat products, say, you know, chicken nuggets. And they’ll expect chicken nuggets and chicken to be the same price point because it’s got the word ‘chicken’ on it. Whereas, whatever is in the chicken nuggets isn’t chicken per se, it’s not flesh of chicken, it’s the extra bits. So you have a lot of people complaining on one side that meat’s too expensive. Because they’ve been conditioned to price chicken at a certain level. Unfortunately, I think when it comes to profit, the supermarkets have way more power than the farmers.”
And on farm shops and farmers’ markets, George cautions, “Not all butchers and farm shops are the same. Researching local businesses requires effort that busy people often don’t have. One thing people can do is eat less processed food, both for their own health and for the economy of meat production. Buying directly from the source gives producers more control over their pricing and allows consumers to know where their food comes from.”
Trade deals
In the bigger picture there are also issues. I asked George about post-Brexit trade deals with Australia and New Zealand. He said it was to be expected countries where farming is important (around 5% of GDP) would negotiate more astutely than the UK (where farming is only about 0.5% of GDP): “The rushed nature of post-Brexit deals likely resulted in unfavourable terms for British farmers.” George also questioned the logic of importing food from distant locations, adding, “It was something like six or seven years in the making, and by the end, we were rushing to get things done.”
Brexit also meant changes to farmer support: “The post-Brexit ‘public money for public good’ system was promising, as it paid farmers for environmental improvements such as tree planting or laying hedges rather than just for owning land.” He said his father was on the pilot scheme for five years, but the current Labour government has discontinued it. This has left farmers without the financial support they previously had for environmental management.
Regeneration
Still, farmers look ahead, and George sees a role for sheep farming in regenerating landscapes and biodiversity, arguing, “Sheep farming can help biodiversity if done within a reasonable scope.” In Britain, he says, sheep suits a lot of land: “That’s where livestock farming comes into its own, really, because we have a lot of stuff on the west side of this country which is quite difficult to farm. You know, it’s rocky, it’s mountainous-ish.” He says, “If you want to look after your soil and look after the future production, have a large mammal, followed by a medium mammal, followed by poultry, followed by pigs, followed by planting. That’s what we’re aspiring to on our farm; let’s just say that on a smaller scale, that’s what we’re aspiring towards.”
And on alternative land uses, like solar farms (where panels sit on fields) or agrivoltaics (where panels sit above fields and farming continues below them), George says, “These represent valid income sources for farms. With agrivoltaics, if production levels drop by 25% but farmers receive income from the solar panels, most would consider that worthwhile. The main challenge is social rather than economic – farmers with land near villages or neighbours would face community backlash for installing solar panels. This social pressure is significant, especially considering farmers’ already challenging social circumstances and high rates of suicide in the profession.”
Future
So what is the future of farming? “Many farmers have a grim outlook and are too busy working long hours to think much about the future. The ordinary consumer should try to understand what a farmer’s life is like and treat them with respect rather than vilifying them as wealthy landowners. Farmers have very little control over their circumstances. If consumers and farmers could better understand each other, people might vote in ways that help farming, which would ultimately improve the nation’s health.”
George concludes, “I think one thing that people can do is to not eat so much processed food, both for their own health and for the health of the economy as a whole, in terms of meat production. But again, it comes down to effort and expense, and it’s not always easy to do.”
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