A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future

Attenborough begins the chapter by discussing the fundamental differences between industrial farmland and wild habitats: “Farmland and wild habitats function in completely different ways. Wild habitats have evolved to sustain themselves,” while we have to work to sustain industrial farmland (160). The impact of the growing landscape of industrial agriculture is a loss of biodiversity, and Attenborough concludes that “we cease the expansion of our industrial farmland” (161). This means, in effect, to rethink how land is developed and utilized for the needs of humanity. As Attenborough points out, farmers will need to produce unprecedented amounts of food in order to feed the continually growing human population over the next decades.

He provides examples of what more sustainable farming might look like. For one, in the Netherlands, farmers were forced to rethink their methods, in part due to the repercussions of World War II. Thus, their farms are largely wind-powered or run by geothermal sources; they rely on “automated climate-control systems” in greenhouses and the like; they make use of rainwater collection; their crops are planted “not in soil, but in gutters filled with nutrient-rich water”; and they ceased the use of pesticides in favor of “natural predators” (162). This model is one that large industrial farms across the globe might follow.