Thread by @Rosewood_Farm

Today I've been in the Lake District with @herdyshepherd1, he's told me little that is new to me but I'm happy to hear it because, as a far better writer than I will ever be, I know that many people will hear #EnglishPastoral and will join us in a new direction, getting farmers,

consumers and ecologists talking and finding innovative solutions to our world's increasingly apparent problems.

In reality I've been alone, pondering how my connection to farming the Ings is no less strong than James' connection to his upland farm, and how I'd give up .

many things before I leave this place, probably in a box, and even then I'm unlikely to actually leave, as three generations of my family are already in the ground, overlooking the meadows where my brother is right now baling hay, and soon the cattle will be grazing.

Which brings me back to the cattle, and one of the key questions that #EnglishPastoral raises - how do we make this traditional way of farming pay when bigger, better, faster, cheaper seems to be what the consumer is demanding at the checkout?

Well, I've not just been pondering, I've also been packing beef, which is the way we've chosen to help make it pay and with smaller, slower, more expensive, but, I would argue, much better cattle, we have to think of other ways to get more out of less, which is why I haven't

been packing fillet steaks or even mince, but the bones, fat & trim - the stuff that most people today turn their noses up at, preferring instead to bin the bones and forego the fat for something easier like a bottle of veg oil or, even, a McDonald's.

This is another way we can produce more food from this finite landscape by making more of the animal. Most people think this means eat more liver and other soft offals but, I’m pleased to report, these offals are now among my most popular cuts

and now, among my customers, the bones and fat are becoming more popular.

I'll never get rich from selling the bones, they're time consuming to cut, sort and pack, but they are food, and would otherwise go to waste while we grow yet more food to replace them. And the people who

first hunted wild animals and early farmers in this landscape would have gone to great efforts to smash open the hard bones to remove the rich, fatty marrow so I'm thinking if they went to all that effort without the tools to do so efficiently, then it's my duty not to waste this

highly prized food that our ancestors revered.

And that marks the end of my thought of the day...