" Agricultural education is still overwhelmingly about change and innovation, and "disruption," not what is sustainable and what will work in the long run. From the modernizing perspective, the student in my hay meadow was right. The current economics of farming are such that almost no genuinely sustainable farming is profitable at present. Farming for nature is economic suicide. Produce meat at a greater cost than intensively produced chicken or pork and you are considered an anachronism on the supermarket shelf.
    I have to ignore my accounts in this bid for good husbandry and hope the rest of the world comes to its senses someday soon. Of course this is no basis for a sound system, but I decided years ago that if I had to work off the farm to top up our income, to enable me to look after our land properly, than I would. There is nothing new in having to adapt and earn a crust away from the farm. I know that if we are too proud, too stubborn, and too unbending, then we will be finished. "

― James Rebanks , Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey