Country diary: A novel way to farm this ‘black desert’ | Sara Hudston

Greinton, Somerset Levels: Instead of drying the peat to make it fit for agriculture, a small group of farmers have decided to work with the wetIt looks like nothing more than a few soggy acres of bulrush, brown and broken, edged by a striding line of electricity pylons. But this modest patch of reeds and weeds is at the forefront of a novel farming method that upends ideas about how to manage some of our wettest landscapes.For centuries people have worked to drain the Somerset Levels, transforming what was once a seasonal, shifting inland sea of islands, bogs and lakes into fertile pasture crossed by an intricate network of ditches, drains, rivers and rhynes. As usual in winter, December’s rain swept sheets of water across the lowest ground, leaving hedges and tracks sketched in broken lines on fallen sky. Continue reading…