In 2017 she moved to Suffolk and, together with her husband, took on the management of his small family farm, an experience she wrote about in her book Rooted: Stories of Life, Land and a Farming Revolution. For those in the farming community who are feeling skeptical about the benefits of rewilding farmland and the financial impact it might have, this book may be of interest. But the interesting thing about regenerative farming is that there seems to be a renewed enthusiasm amongst the younger generation, who are getting into farming again. The Knepp project is probably the UK’s most famous rewilding site at this point, so, for those familiar with the site, you might imagine that you’ve heard it all before.

Rooted by Sarah Langford | Waterstones Rooted by Sarah Langford | Waterstones

After living in London, barrister and author Sarah Langford left for the countryside to go back to the farming life she had grown up in.

Without giving too much time to the obvious topic of his family (brother of Joseph, relative of Ranulph Fiennes), Jake launches into a matter-of-fact tale that explains his slow evolution from gamekeeper to rewilder. Regenesis aims to be a gamechanger, and indeed it already makes ideas once thought radical seem tame. The acclaimed TV forager and adventurer brings British woodlands to life in this romp through the native trees of our green and pleasant land. As a farmer’s daughter and an environmentalist, I find myself in the middle of what is often a fierce culture war about how to respond to climate change and biodiversity loss and what that means for the future of our land.

Rooted by Sarah Langford - The Royal Countryside Rural Reads: Rooted by Sarah Langford - The Royal Countryside

In Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet he presents a vision for the future of food production. Rooted is a brave thing: a book that prods into the ever-widening gulf between the binaries we increasingly use to examine the world. What is one thing that you’ve taken from your conversations with farmers that you think will stay with you as you continue experimenting on your farm?

Since my childhood in the 1980s, the curlews have declined in number and the arctic tern colony disappeared completely. I'll be "rooting" for Sarah next month when the Wainwright Prize winners are announced, though she's got some tough competition.

Rooted - Penguin Books UK Rooted - Penguin Books UK

Sarah Langford has been a practising barrister since 2006, both in London and around the country, principally in criminal and family law. With remarkable candour, Sarah describes eleven cases which reveal what goes on in our criminal and family courts: these are tales of domestic fall out, everyday burglary, sexual indiscretion, and children caught up in the law.The cost per calorie of meat in terms of land and carbon is compared unfavourably to that of vegetable protein.

About — Sarah Langford

She also shows us how our attitudes and actions can shape not only the outcome of a case, but the legal system itself.Not just in terms of having the right buses, train connections or economic ability to get to the countryside, but also the feeling that the countryside is for you, which is more a psychological problem than a practical problem. Instead, she saw farmers dealing with very different problems to those faced by her grandfather's generation: a hostile urban media, extreme weather and political changes. More than a memoir; Langford manages to contain and convey the whole scale of the coming agricultural revolution. Farmers can offer the solutions rather than being the problem because farming is about so much more than food. Both see the benefits of organic methods such as planting wildflowers as a means of controlling pests.