In Yorkshire, England, especially in the uplands, farming is not for the faint of heart.
The Moffat Family prepares six Bluefaced Leicester sheep for auction. Each animal gets a quick shear around the edges, a good scrubbing with green liquid soap and a new ear tag.
Auctions themselves are a whirlwind of activity and sound. Just the subtlest flick of a pinky or nod of a head ups the bid.
Hundreds, or even thousands, of British pounds are on the line for these farmers, and their chance to cash in can be over in a matter of minutes.
This is the way of life for traditional upland farmers. They raise hundreds or thousands of sheep on rolling hills and wet, rocky terrains to sell for meat and breeding. Many have taken on their farms from previous generations and are hoping to pass them on again. But the political, economic and environmental landscape has been changing under the farmers’ feet.
Carol Moffat is taking over the farm from her dad, and she notes a dramatic change just in the last few decades.
“So even, even in my, even in my sort of generation," Moffat said, "I've just, we've seen massive shifts in technology, and, you know, adaptability and intensiveness, perhaps, if you'd like to call it that.”
The U.K. government used to reward farmers to increase their herds and maximize the number of grazing sheep. This practice degraded the landscape and decreased biodiversity. Now, government subsidies reward "public good" farming like tree planting, peat restoration and other interventions.
Today, farmers are looking to the upland peat bogs –- mossy, wet hills that were degraded by grazing –- to conduct landscape-scale peat restoration throughout the region. Beth Thomas is a manager at the Yorkshire Peat Partnership. She points to the delicate balance between farm productivity and preserving landscapes.
“One thing that drives farmers," Thomas said, "is that they're producing a product which they consider to be an important part of what they do. Of course, it's everything, it's everything they're doing. And do they consider the production that project product above all other things, you know, as in the most important thing, or do they also value the state of the land that they're managing and recognize that if they degrade the land too much, they've got nothing to graze their sheep on in the first place?”
This has left farmers working harder for the same outputs and feeling more vulnerable. Matt Trevelyan is an officer for the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. He helps farmers to grow their businesses and access additional funding. He explains that some farmers worry that with shrinking herds comes a loss of culture.
“In lots of the language in the north of England —the dialect — it's all linked to sheep farming, and particularly that kind of regional upland sheep farming," Trevelyan said. "It's all very special. And I think there's a fear that we're slightly losing it. As sheep get removed from the moors, there's a loss of that culture. And it's very particular; it changes a little bit from valley to valley. So it's quite precious.”
In another part of the region, massive estates are completely rethinking their relationship to sheep farming. For centuries, estates in the region rented land to sheep farmers, who would graze intensively.
Some estates like Broughton Hall are working to undo the impact intensive sheep farming has had on the land.
Over the past three years, they've replaced sheep with cattle and pigs, planted hundreds of thousands of trees and let most of their grazing fields grow.
The land is almost unrecognizable from before the restoration work, according to Kelly Hollick. She manages the restoration project on the estate.
“And you can see there's habitats," said Hollick. "There's different colors and structures and textures and life buzzing around. And that's what I mean about you can't go back.”
The vision for the transformation goes beyond sheep farming. It’s about increasing natural areas, biodiversity, and healthy ecosystems in England, which is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
In fact, studies from the University of Leeds are starting to show that alternatives –- like replacing sheep with cows or removing grazers entirely -– actually does increase biodiversity.
These dynamics might seem half a world away… but here in northern Illinois, people are asking similar, complicated questions.
Illinois is a major producer of corn and soybeans. Farmers apply nitrogen fertilizers to the fields in the millions of pounds. Farmers and environmental advocates alike are worried about these fertilizers running off of fields and into nearby waterways. Mark Gebhards is the Illinois Farm Bureau’s Chief Strategy Officer.
“Aside from the environmental impact," Gebhards said, "no one wants to lose the nitrogen. It's very expensive to put that nitrogen into the soil, so they want to make sure it stays there. And so, they are very interested in doing anything they can to maximize, again, the return on their investment.”
Farmers can apply for cost-sharing grants through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to offset costs of conservation practices, like cover crops and buffer strips. Gebhards notes that these funds are important for more sustainable farming:
“We've seen a significant increase in the amount of cover crops utilized in Illinois, again, some of that due to the cost share funds that might be available," Gebhards said. "I think one of the bigger challenges for our folks is especially with the Illinois funds. They, they run out pretty quickly. So, if farmers don't access those very quickly when they first become available, they're not there in a large enough quantity for maybe the number of farmers that want to try and utilize it.”
In the U.S., the federal Farm Bill expired in 2023 and remains in limbo. Funding from it supports crops as well as conservation and research programs. Like in England, sheep farmer Carol Moffat says having funding tied so closely to policy creates uncertainty for farmers.
“It is hard to keep up," Moffat said, "because you're following the sort of policies and things that are set out by government, and then all of a sudden, there's a new government, and there's whole new set of goal posts [that] have changed how the scheme works. And... farms have adapted to it. And I think, because we are a very resilient industry, we just go with it. We go where we're supposed to. We have to jump through all these loops in which to get money. We're having to adhere to the rules as well, which is the same for lots of different countries, I suppose.”
- Reporting for this story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.