First, a little history
Many new to the County of Lancashire are surprised by just how much countryside surrounds the more well-known old industrial towns. That land has a big tale to tell, in terms of the valuable resource underneath – soil. 95% of our food comes from soil. The sun fuels the plants and soil provides all the 17 vital ingredients for plant growth, along with the water to keep them erect.
In the industrial age, factory workers had to be fed. Their diet was dominated by high-carbohydrates, cheap, and filling foods to sustain long hours at work. Key staples included oatcakes (thick, coarse oats), potatoes, bread, and potato pie with fat or bacon. Dairy was sparse, meat was limited to bacon or cheap offal, and water was avoided, because it was unsafe, in favour of small beer or tea.
The mill towns are surrounded by small farms and the urban-rural exchange was a vital lifeline that transformed the Lancashire countryside into a massive ‘pantry’ for the growing industrial towns. This exchange was not just about food moving into cities but moving our waste back to feed the fields.
Various areas specialised their production to meet the specific ‘bulk’ needs of factory workers: South-West Lancashire (around Ormskirk and Warrington) became a powerhouse for potatoes and vegetables. Potatoes were the ideal industrial crop because they were cheap, filling, and grew well in the region’s high quality reclaimed ‘moss’ or ‘peat’ soils. Upland areas and small farms on poorer soil closer to towns focused on dairy, especially milk and cheese.
As towns like Barrow-in-Furness and Preston boomed, farmers shifted from beef to dairy because fresh milk was in constant demand by urban families. While the south and east of England grew wheat for white bread, Lancashire farmers stuck to oats, which were hardier for the northern climate and provided the primary staple for the workers’ oatcakes and porridge. In Victorian times there were extensive orchards in an area to the west of Chorley and around the southern fringes of Preston and the apples and pears were taken to the markets of many rapidly growing northern towns.
What changed, and when?
How this food actually reached the workers changed drastically in the early 1800s. Canals like the Leeds and Liverpool Canal were the “superhighways” for food. Bulky, non-perishable goods like grain, potatoes, and even apples from the “cider counties” were hauled by horse-drawn barges into town centres. In a grim but efficient exchange, another soil, “nightsoil”, our human waste from the crowded mill towns, was often transported back to the countryside on the same canal boats that brought in food. It was cheap, potent fertiliser for the very crops the workers would later eat.
It is hard to be accurate, but likely over 80% of the perishables and staples consumed by Lancashire mill workers were produced within the county or immediate surrounding regions; 95% of the staples – potatoes and oats, 100% of dairy. While millworkers lived pretty well on Lancs food, there clearly was one important part of their diet that cannot be grown here In Lancs, tea. But nor can you grow it in Yorkshire, despite the branding of our neighbours’ Yorkshire tea, giving the impression that it is grown nr. Malham. (PS the whole distribution of crops is another story of ‘science and skullduggery’). Lancashire was lucky that its varied soil enabled such a good balance. West Lancashire/Fylde is where we find Grade 1, 2, and 3a land and it holds the largest concentration of top-quality farmland in the west of Britain. East Lancashire is dominated by lower-grade agricultural land (3b & 4) with the moors being rated 5.
What land classification tells us about the ground beneath our feet
What does this land classification tell us about the soil below? Land classification is part of the valuation of any land, along with things like ‘slope’ ‘access’ , ‘climate’ and the soil below. Estate Agents will know to a detailed degree the value of the land, while knowing virtually nothing about the state of the soil below.
In North Lancashire (Morecambe Bay & Bowland Fringe), brown earths are found around the hills of Morecambe Bay; these well-drained, loamy soils often used for high-quality pasture. In the lower ‘fringe’ areas, we find slowly permeable and seasonally wet clayey or loamy soils. South Lancashire, West Lancashire Plain & Southern Pennines, are dominated by heavy, poorly-draining clay soils. Peat or ‘basin peats’ in the south of the River Ribble are our ‘black gold’. East Lancashire is dominant in organic/peat soils. Highly stratified soils are found on the acidic, gritstone moorlands like Bowland Fells and those overlooking Bury, Bolton and Blackburn. West Lancashire (Coastal Plains & Fylde) are mostly naturally wet soils found on coastal flats and marshes (e.g., salt marsh soils). And, of course, the mills and factories of the Industrial Revolution were built around shallow “mountain mines” and collieries in East and Southern Lancashire where we find coal made from peat over 300 million years ago; just shows how much energy there is in that thar peat.
But the industrialists wanted cheaper food. Cheaper food meant they could suppress wages, although the stated aim of the mainly middle-class Anti-Corn Law league was to end feudal control. Clearly that did not happen. This led to the famous Repeal of the Corn Laws, led by Robert Peel – whose brother’s family still owns land next to the King’s in the Hodder Valley and farms in the old style. We cut the taxes (tariffs)on imported wheat, so many of our farms went by the way in the 1870-80s. By cutting tariffs on Australian and New Zealand meat, we are doing the same now. In 1870, Lancashire had roughly 350,000 acres under the plough. By 1914, this had dropped by around a third. Nationally, by WW1 the UK was producing only a quarter of the food it ate.
To compensate, permanent pasture in Lancashire increased from approximately 450,000 acres to over 580,000 acres. Many arable farms ‘disappeared’ as they transitioned into specialised dairy farms to feed the growing industrial populations of Liverpool, Manchester, and Preston. This would have been quite good for the soil, as the ‘plough’ reduces soil life (by about a half nowadays) while animals put the dung back in.
Much of what is grown here now is not that different from 150 years ago. I could look over Lancashire 40 years ago from the fells behind our farm at the back of Slaidburn and not see many changes. But now, I see the lack of cows out to graze. The fields are a patchwork of yellow and greens depending on when they were last slashed or slurried. I can see the large barns hidden away, the hidden cattle eating home-grown silage and maize, but also imported grains from the other side of the country (a million of tons a month of wheat) or world (£1.5b maize and soy from the Americas). I wonder what it is doing to the soil, but nobody seems to be monitoring it.
Can Lancashire now be food secure?
It isn’t too fanciful a notion. Lancashire soil could, biologically-speaking, provide a pretty good balanced diet. Maybe no grains, but staples like potatoes are a well-adapted crop for Lancashire’s varied soils, from the ‘mossland’ peats in the west to the loams in the north. Biologically, they are ideal because they grow underground, protected from surface frost and excessive rain. Traditionally Mediterranean specific frost-resistant varieties of sweet potatoes (e.g., “Beauregarde”) are now being grown successfully in British soil using mulches to maintain soil warmth. We could produce enough grass-fed meat and milk on the hills.
Brassicas (kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts) laugh in the face of frost and are highly resilient to the wet and windy conditions of the North West. Varieties like purple sprouting broccoli are particularly well-suited for early-season growth. Leafy greens, like chard and perpetual spinach are highly reliable as they do not “bolt” (go to seed) and provide new green crops. Root vegetables (carrots, beetroot, parsnips) thrive in cooler soils and become naturally sweeter after a frost as their starches turn to sugar. Field vegetables like celery, onions, and lettuce also do well. Soft fruits such as raspberries, gooseberries, and currants flourish in Lancashire’s cooler, damp environment. And we used to grow apples round Chorley and still grow damsons in Cumbria. Anybody willing to have a go, contact the Northern Fruit Group.
There are two well-known vineyards – one near Morecambe another near Carnforth. This is the crop to grow to save on food imports costs (running around £40 Billion), with wine accounting for about a tenth of that (£3.7B). To make all of these worth growing – biologically sane but market mad – we have to reverse the Anti-Corn Law mentality and stop importing so much food. See my short trip across NW showing how this could be done ‘Just Grow’
Lancashire reflects well on UK agriculture overall (except grains), so we could talk about food – and fuel – security. In our new more volatile world, we may be in a relatively good position here to show the way – again. Much of the soil round the Mediterranean and other parts of Europe either goes up in smoke or washes to the sea. Our soil is relatively stable, especially if we look after moors better. East England farming is likely to suffer first at the hands of high energy and fertiliser costs but there is also the loss of 2 million tons of UK’s best soil eroding into the North Sea. If we could forge more links between our Lancashire towns and the countryside, we might feed our people better with fruit and vegetables and hold back the wave of obesity caused in the main by ultra-processed foods, so much of which is coming from America. We are getting fat on the same stuff in Peel’s law, only now it is its syrup which coats the crap. Bring back the tariffs!
The new oil – Soil!
Soils hold as much energy as all the coal and oil reserves together. Remember, coal was made from our soil (peat) over 300 million years ago. Oil comes from the sea.
Some of that energy is being tapped by biofuels – crops grown that can be converted to ethanol. The British Sugar Corporation facility at Wissington in Norfolk can turn 3 million tonnes of sugar beet into 75 million litres of ethanol, subsequently blended into transport fuels. President Trump of the USA is on to it. Because of rising prices of fertilisers – likely to stay – and grumpy soy farmers whose exports have crashed, US farmers are being encouraged to grow corn (maize) for biofuel. In an Executive Order last month, the Trump administration provided incentives to grow more biofuels -provided that it is done regeneratively. This means stopping soil disturbance, so leaving the soil healthier to do its work without the use of those increasingly expensive energy-intensive fertilisers. I explained and expanded on this while authoring the first Masters degree in this country on Regenerative Farming. While he is shutting down any projects mentioning ‘organic’ or ‘climate change’ he is backing the best way to protect soil health – which will probably help the planet more than many ‘net zero carbon capture’ projects. The pumpkin has planted some seeds, but don’t tell him.
These biofuels are part of wider use for crops – called ‘biomass’ where the whole aboveground plant biomass is harvested and used for a range of purposes including heat and electricity, fuel for transport, platform chemicals (to make plastics and solvents), and a range of construction, packaging, and cosmetic applications. Biomass crops are fast-growing, with a high potential energy content or calorific value and can be grown here.
We here in NW do not have the growing conditions here to grow sugar beet, but we can grow Elephant Grass (Miscanthus) a tall, woody perennial grass – a non-food biofuel crop. Its stalks are rich in cellulose, which is broken down to produce fermentable sugars. It is exceptionally resilient in damp, cooler conditions and requires minimal fertiliser or chemical inputs once established. It can be grown on the hills, preferably south facing and not too clayey – like Ribble Valley or West Lancs, and then supplied as dry biomass for industrial power plants. Forage maize could also be grown for anaerobic digestion, rather than road-fuel ethanol. The North West, at present, heavily features livestock and dairy farming – having the same local soils and climate to produce biomass and feed rather than milling-grade crops.
We hear that many people have to choose between food or fuel. In Lancashire we have looked after our soil relatively well and with our climate can produce both locally. If our soil could feed the industrial revolution, it can feed the next green revolution. The answer lies in the soil, not in markets.
More information on soil use can be found on the World Soil Day website.
The book on the evolution of soil by Mr C Clutterbuck can be (pre)ordered here.
