Few of us really realise that the food we’re eating today is impoverishing the soil and contributing greatly to the tragic and catastrophic loss of biodiversity — we don’t realise because most of us are far removed from the fields that were once rich in topsoil, and are now desert and dust.

This is what needs to change. We need to once again become connected to the food we eat. The real cost of cheap food has been this disconnection from reality.

Food is at the epicentre of the debate about the non-intended consequences of our actions. As a result it’s become an ideological battleground. There are all sorts of tribes within this ideological war, from vegans on one end of the extreme, to paleos on the other. But they’re kind of all missing the point, as far as I can see, though I can see the beginnings of a bigger, more important conversation about farming practice that is starting to develop.