Opinion: Progress is made on the land, not in a laboratory
© Drepicter/iStockphoto In the north-west of Skye is a sea loch whose sprawling arms reach into the island’s interior.
Not far from our croft, on a southerly shore of one of these arms, sits an ancient kirkyard. It’s the resting place of many people who were born, lived and died within these few square miles.
And they were all related to the land.
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On the shore opposite their graves, patches of old runrig – a type of strip farming – occupy the rocky hillside from 100m down to sea level.
Sheep now graze among steep stripes of bracken, which takes advantage of the once-productive free-draining soil.
That this difficult land needed to be cultivated at all speaks loudly about the tough lives of our predecessors.
It’s a time that can feel remote from modern life. But just as that aged kirkyard sits next to a newer cemetery where some of my husband’s family are buried, the runrig sits within a modern sheep farm.
In the Highlands and Islands, the past colours the present more than in any other place I’ve lived.
The ever-visible contrast between old and new is something I think about when considering policy changes in our sector.
Was rural life harder then or now, and how would our forebears feel about the pros and cons of change?
In some ways, the past was a simpler place. But everyday crofting life on Skye is physically easier today.
I don’t have to use an iron pot over a peat fire for cooking, nor oil lamps for light.
I don’t need a cow in the byre to get milk for my porridge, and I don’t have to spin my own yarn to knit jumpers.
This is the natural progression of agricultural improvement and a more equal society.
Disconnection from the land
But pondering the opinion of an urbanite I once knew who believes the countryside is backward, I’ve been reconsidering the meaning of ‘progress’.
That city-dweller said that lab-grown meat is the sustainable next step in human advancement.
He thought farming as we currently know it would become obsolete, just like runrig agriculture and soil-sprung blackhouses – and that would be an excellent result.
Like many people who, through choice or circumstance, have become disconnected from the land, he viewed human life as being entirely separate from soil and place – things we bumpkins consider indispensable.
In that laboratory mentality, old brackeny runrigs on remote hillsides are meaningless. Piles of lichen-grown stones that once housed milk cows and the families who needed them are irrelevant.
The seasons, each with their specific agricultural tasks, become redundant. But if that’s progress, what is the ultimate end of humankind?
Reading the brief summaries of lives carved on gravestones in the lochside cemetery, the common theme is the land itself.
Fully isolated from it – and our past – we’d lose ourselves entirely. We’re defined by our place in the human community within nature’s local web.
After all, food and culture are ecosystem services.
And for something to be truly sustainable, it must tick all three boxes of environment, economy and culture – so in reality, that laboratory idea of progress is regressive.
Allowed to undermine the ancient links between land, food and people, it would diminish our essential identities.
True progress needs fresh air and one foot in the past – you’ll not find those in a lab.