2022

carrots, not sticks

Due to Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the Manor Farm in Frome in the southwest of England currently faces increasing prices for electricity, gas, feed and fertilizer. Since 2021 the government of the United Kingdom has been promoting a new payment scheme that rewards farms financially if they take environmental-friendly actions. This margin for manoeuvre presents the farmers with a difficult decision. Do they want to invest in sustainable measures out of ethical conviction and hope that these will bring in enough money to be able to continue the farm? Or do they rely on the upscaling of production that further pushes the milking potential of already overbred cows?

My documentary project, consisting of 15 images taken on Manor Farm, explores the highly complex topic of modern agriculture. The solutions, if there are any at all, oscillate somewhere between green utopia and profitable factory farming, depending on who you ask. The project takes an isolated look at one of the larger farms in the southwest of England and deals with the dilemma of the farmers to somehow meet the different demands of society, including those of their employees and their own.

Publication
330 x 286 mm, 46 pages, digital print