The Precision Farming Revolution Global Drivers Of Local Agricultural Methods 1St Ed 2020 Edition James E Addicott full chapter pdf docx

The Precision Farming Revolution:
Global Drivers of Local Agricultural

Methods 1st ed. 2020 Edition James E.
Addicott
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-precision-farming-revolution-global-drivers-of-loca
l-agricultural-methods-1st-ed-2020-edition-james-e-addicott/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
The Global History of Organic Farming Gregory A. Barton
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-global-history-of-organic-
farming-gregory-a-barton/
The Eukaryotic RNA Exosome: Methods and Protocols 1st

ed. 2020 Edition John Lacava
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-eukaryotic-rna-exosome-methods-
and-protocols-1st-ed-2020-edition-john-lacava/
The Digital Agricultural Revolution : Innovations and

Challenges in Agriculture through Technology
Disruptions 1st Edition Roheet Bhatnagar
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-digital-agricultural-
revolution-innovations-and-challenges-in-agriculture-through-
technology-disruptions-1st-edition-roheet-bhatnagar/
Digital Strategies in a Global Market: Navigating the

Fourth Industrial Revolution 1st ed. 2021 Edition
Natalia Konina
https://ebookmass.com/product/digital-strategies-in-a-global-
market-navigating-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-1st-
ed-2021-edition-natalia-konina/
The Russian Revolution as Ideal and Practice: Failures,
Legacies, and the Future of Revolution 1st ed. Edition
Thomas Telios
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-russian-revolution-as-ideal-
and-practice-failures-legacies-and-the-future-of-revolution-1st-
ed-edition-thomas-telios/
Financing the Apocalypse: Drivers for Economic and

Political Instability 1st ed. Edition Joel Magnuson
https://ebookmass.com/product/financing-the-apocalypse-drivers-
for-economic-and-political-instability-1st-ed-edition-joel-
magnuson/
The Praxis of Diversity 1st ed. 2020 Edition Christoph

Lütge
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-praxis-of-diversity-1st-
ed-2020-edition-christoph-lutge/
Abeloff’s Clinical Oncology 6th 2020 John E.

Niederhuber, James O. Armitage, Michael B. Kastan,
James H. Doroshow, Joel E. Tepper 6th Edition John E.
Niederhuber
https://ebookmass.com/product/abeloffs-clinical-
oncology-6th-2020-john-e-niederhuber-james-o-armitage-michael-b-
kastan-james-h-doroshow-joel-e-tepper-6th-edition-john-e-
niederhuber/
The Palgrave Handbook of Agricultural and Rural

Development in Africa 1st ed. Edition Evans S.
Osabuohien
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-palgrave-handbook-of-
agricultural-and-rural-development-in-africa-1st-ed-edition-
evans-s-osabuohien/
The Precision Farming
Revolution
Global Drivers of
Local Agricultural Methods
James E. Addicott
The Precision Farming Revolution
James E. Addicott
The Precision
Farming Revolution
Global Drivers of Local Agricultural
Methods
James E. Addicott
Bath, UK
ISBN 978-981-13-9685-4 ISBN 978-981-13-9686-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9686-1
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore
Pte Ltd. 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover image: James E. Addicott
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore
Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
Preface
Precision farming systems were marketed to local farmers on their abil-

ity to increase yields whilst reducing inputs and business overheads to
‘save planet earth’ and ‘feed the world’. But could autonomous, sat-
ellite-driven tractors and farm equipment help local family farmers
achieve these goals? Critics contend that self-steering and self-regulat-
ing farm equipment incorporated throughputs of commoditised data
which devalued the time-honoured knowledge accumulated by farming
families; autonomous control systems reduced farmers to the role of
nodes or conduits within control systems dominated by transnational
firms. This book is the result of four years of research conducted at the
University of Cambridge, and contains ethnographic research carried
out in the West Country of England within a cooperative of farmers
in rural village communities. It reveals the reasons why local farmers
were investing into autonomous systems and traces any outcomes of
adoption. It describes the driving forces in the fourth industrial revo-
lution in the lead up to Britain’s Brexit referendum, detailing local
and global drivers in revolution from the launch of Sputnik 1, world
population growth metrics, climatic and ecological crises, profit-driven
farming and government grants. Contrary to the claims that precision
v
vi Preface
farming system came with calculable cost benefits that would stand to
profit local farmers around the world, whilst at the same time making
industrial farming ‘green’, the book analyses precision farming systems
as one of a number of cultural methods to be found within Britain’s
multi-agricultural and countryside landscape. Intelligence, ideas and
thinking, new organisational powers and capacities, were precisely what
precision farming offered farmers and firms. The power dynamics of
industrial agriculture were reorganised and this book will offer readers
an understanding of how and why.
Bath, UK James E. Addicott

Acknowledgements
Gerald & Rosaline Addicott

Dr. Peter Dickens of The Department of Sociology:
University of Cambridge
Emily & Eddie, Charlotte and Rosa
The Bath District Farmers Group
Duchy of Cornwall
vii
Contents
1 The Precision Farming Revolution 1

1.1 Old and New Farming 1
1.2 Grounded Research 6
1.3 Precision Farming 10
1.4 Field Research 17
References 32
2 Global drivers 37
2.1 Population Pressure 40
2.2 Climate Change 43
2.3 Biodiversity 48
2.4 Technological Revolution 54
References 64
3 Economic drivers 69
3.1 Profit 70
3.2 Labour 81
3.3 Competition 93
3.4 Politics 118
References 126
ix
x Contents
4 Cultural methods 131

4.1 Precision 132
4.2 Virtual Farming 144
4.3 Knowledge 147
4.4 Skills 157
4.5 Family 165
References 175
5 Society and Nature 177

5.1 Globalisation 178
5.2 Localisation 187
5.3 Biodiversity 193
5.4 Environment 203
References 210
6 Farming futures 213

6.1 The Future of Farming 213
6.2 Material Drivers 214
6.3 Ideological Revolution 217
6.4 Immaterialisation 219
6.5 Embodiment 222
6.6 General Theory 224
References 229
Index 231
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 ‘Farm Forward’: set somewhere in the future, an America

farmer makes adjustments to his crops from his farm office
using computing and remote sensing technologies. Available
online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEh5-zZ9jUg
(Source Image clearance obtained from John Deere & Co.) 3
Fig. 1.2 Using soil management software, this field named Nettley
Piece was demarcated into three soil management zones,
indicated by the red lines, according to varying soil type 13
Fig. 1.3 A Normalized Difference Vegetation Index NDVI satellite
image. This is a field called ‘Nettley Piece’. The dark green
areas represent healthy plant growth (chlorophyll).
The lighter green areas to orange and dark red areas
indicate where more fertiliser is required 14
Fig. 1.4 A rough guide to the geographical region farmed by
the local cooperative farming group 19
Fig. 1.5 Drone aerial photograph taken of one of the family farms
during drilling season where ethnographic research was
carried out 22
xi
xii List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 A 100-year-old photo taken within the fields of one

of the farms in Somerset where qualitative research was
carried out. Taken in 1916, the image demonstrates
the kind of family-orientated workforce employed
in farming activities. This field is neighbouring to Nettley
Piece that appeared in the NDVI and soil zoning images
in Chapter 1. Two family members farm the same field
using machines and occasional contractors (agronomist,
biofuels and bailers) 61
Fig. 3.1 A farmer’s equipment market near Cheddar where old
tools, machinery and equipment were sold under auction 97
Fig. 5.1 A grain storage barn heaped up with barley until it almost
touched to roof. This caused the barn walls to crack under
the sheer weight. The farmers had considered that
the phenomenal harvest could be stored until the late
winter to hopefully fetch a better price 186
Fig. 5.2 A yield map captured by remote sensing satellites.
The farmer speculated that the red or extremely low
yielding areas (red/orange areas of the field) were caused
by wildlife interference, badgers in particular, flattening
the crops 201
Fig. 5.3 A field of barley that ‘went over’ (laid on the ground)
in each field of barley throughout the farm. Although
this is a very undesired outcome, it suggested to the farm
that variable applications were delivered with consistent
yield averages across the farm 206
1
1.1 Old and New Farming

During the Second World War, English farmers were employed in a
nationalised, state-imposed war effort to sustain the country’s food sup-
plies and such demands required that farmers work through the night—
especially if weather conditions were poor. Night work depended upon the
development of entirely unique set of physical skills, intuition and eye work:
Night ploughing, though never a very common practice, developed,

when necessary, its own special technique. It had to; for, even in daylight,
ploughing is a tricky business; you need a clear and confident eye for it.
But to plough at night is like a blind man walking a tightrope; shadows
deceive you at every turn, you lose your sense of direction, and to control
your machine and keep your furrow straight you need the instinct of both
owl and acrobat. But experienced ploughmen developed a sixth sense;
they got used to ploughing by moonlight, and when there was no moon
they worked to a special system of lights; one fixed low on the front on
the tractor and screened to light of the furrow, and another – a lantern
– hung in the hedge before them and moved after each cut to give them
direction. (Ministry of Information 2001: p. 20)
© The Author(s) 2020 1

J. E. Addicott, The Precision Farming Revolution,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9686-1_1
2
J. E. Addicott
Human labour power, and labour capacities such as knowledge and

skills, gathered from interaction with immediate local environments, is
what farming has been traditionally founded upon. Although this form
of work was clearly demanding and arduous, there was a supreme sense
of embodied skill demonstrated through workmanship, a noble crafts-
manship in labour, knowledge gained from physically interacting with
nature.
In an article in the farming press entitled ‘The Digital Revolution’,
the authors summarise an Internet video produced by one of the world’s
biggest tractor firms entitled ‘Farm Forward’, which presents the com-
pany’s vision for the future of farming:
We see an American farmer starting his working day: From his living
room, he logs into the operations center of his farm via a touch table and
a holographic screen. A digital voice greets him and asks him to priori-
tise the jobs for the day. An irrigation alert sounds; the farmer activates
the pumps from his computer. He gets a video call from his dealer telling
him that some maintenance work has been finished, then a message from
his agronomic advices about a new prescription map, which the farmer
transfers by sliding his finger on a computerised map of his farm, to the
relevant field… Then the farmer goes out for a walk in the field using the
camera on his smartphone, he analyses a handful of soil and the condi-
tion of a maize plant. (Leroy et al. 2016: p. 14)
It was the most peculiar marketing video since there was nothing par-
ticularly beautiful or glamorous about the company’s future vision
(Fig. 1.1). The farmer owner’s house was dimly lit, sparsely furnished.
He was dressed in grey, his persona droll and pensive. The weather out-
doors was stormy, and dense grey clouds over the farmland were almost
dystopian, if not apocalyptic. It seemed that all life, substance and soul
have been sapped from the poor American farmer. He had no face-to-
face contact with a wife or family. There seems to be only one farm
worker who is autonomously driven around the fields by a tractor in
absolute science. Without conversation, he was only engaged with his
computer or smartphone. Interaction took place using his eyes, ears and
fingertips. Knowledge was streamed through to him in visual forms.
1 The Precision Farming Revolution
3
Fig. 1.1 ‘Farm Forward’: set somewhere in the future, an America farmer makes
adjustments to his crops from his farm office using computing and remote sens-
ing technologies. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEh5-
zZ9jUg (Source Image clearance obtained from John Deere & Co.)
From his farm office he has the power to control and radically alter vast
agricultural landscapes. He responded robotically. Yet, this was the firm’s
pitch for the future of precision farming systems.
Technologies have demonstrated their transformative effects on
modern societies, which foster a new spirit of ‘technological optimism’
surrounding new agricultural technologies applied to conventional,
industrial farming systems. Technological optimism can be understood
as an ontology and corresponding political outlook that with the use
of science and technologies, human beings ‘should become increas-
ingly able to protect ourselves from formerly catastrophic threats from
nature: storm, floods, doubts, diseases, predators and so on’, and ‘nature
should become an indefinitely expanding reservoir for the satisfaction of
human desire’ (Benton 1994: p. 32). Some sociologists see that technol-
ogies such as satellites have radicalised modern culture, and as a result
reflexive knowledge about the harmful effects of industrial processes
and growing awareness about environmental risks has driven modernity
4
J. E. Addicott
into a new phase of development (Giddens 1990; Beck 1992; Beck

et al. 2003). Some have expanded on this theory, arguing that reflexive
knowledge about the harmful environmental effects of industrial sys-
tems can be fed back into industrial systems as inputs to regulate system
performances, delivering ecological modernisation to industrial sectors
of modern societies (Huber 2004; Mol 2003, 2008; Spaargaren 2000;
Spaargaren et al. 2006). Given that the modern industries are reorganis-
ing in environmentally sustainable ways, then a popular political theory
is that governments should financially support this green-tech revolu-
tion so that modern industrial societies can strike a harmonious, sus-
tainable balance with the natural ecosystems they are embedded within.
Technologies can help humans feed the world and save the planet.
Critics, namely historical materialists and critical realists, have for
a long time contended that unless the economic mechanisms that
caused unsustainable industrialism, poverty and famine or global
warming are somehow brought under control or arrested completely,
then green technologies represent another wave of temporary fixes to
more fundamental and catastrophic social and economic problems,
if not all out apocalypse (Benton 1996; Enzensberger 1996; Dickens
1996, 2004; Foster et al. 2010). Emerging knowledge economies,
driven by forces of capital accumulation, are entering into a new era
of cognitive capitalism, or cognitive materialism, in which material
capital is dematerialised and immaterialised whilst preexisting social
relations of class exploitation are not only maintained, but reinforced
and amplified (Moulier Boutang 2011; Zukerfeld 2017). The digital
revolution in agriculture and emergence of precision farming systems
enable transnational firms to substitute, appropriate and displace the
local, lay and tacit knowledge possessed by farmers around the world
and sell it back to them in a digitalised commodity form, extending
control beyond local farm gates to off-farm firms (Wolf and Wood
1997; Wolf and Buttel 1996). Such criticism suggests those not only
are ‘eco-modern’ or ‘green-tech’ brands green-wash ideologies, gloss-
ing over exploitative relations between ruling classes, working classes
and natural environments, but will also help big firms to attract tax-
yielded funding that push forward innovation and transition at a
greater rate.
5
Coming from a family farming background, with an interest in the

transformative effects of modern technologies, I wanted to know more
about this global revolution in agriculture. My research interests were
driven by my anxieties that what could come to pass as a result of the
revolution is a computerised agricultural industry, run off of inputs of
commoditised data captured from remote satellites and fed into farm
and field operations, with local farmers playing little more than the
role of nodes or conduits. In order to understand the way things were
going, it was important to find out how the industry was being driven,
and into what direction it was heading. If we accept that farmers play
an active role in any revolution, as economic agents in technologi-
cal change (Kline and Pinch 1996), thereby rejecting the position that
farmers are entirely structurally or technologically determined or forced
to use precision farming systems, then one would need to explore the
dynamics of agency that local farmers were expressing or exercising in
structural change or reformation.
Whilst working on my family farm, I told a service engineer that
I was going to start studying precision farming for my Ph.D. topic at
Cambridge University to which he responded: ‘well that’s the way
things are going, aren’t they?’ Which was exactly what I wanted to
know: why were things going the precision farming way? How was this
shift, transition or revolution occurring? What was causing the precision
farming revolution or how were autonomous farming systems emerg-
ing? What might be some of the outcomes of the revolution, given these
critical concerns about acquisition and displacement of farming knowl-
edge? Would more automation mean that farm work is slowly being
phased out, leading to the demise of agricultural jobs, as some sociolo-
gists have theorised to be the case? Would digital technologies help my
family and other farming families to strike a harmonious balance with
ecosystems and the global environment whilst feeding a growing world
population? Would precision farming systems not only replace the UK’s
dependence on European seasonal workers but might they also come to
substitute and displace roles of farming families such as mine? Would
the revolution encourage the kind of droll, office-based culture adver-
tised in the Farming Forward video? To address these broader questions
and concerns, the research question that drove my empirical research
6
J. E. Addicott
was: why were local farmers investing into precision farming systems
and what were the outcomes of adoption?
These questions were researched within my local, family farming
neighbourhood over the course of four years of Ph.D. research based
at the Department of Sociology: University of Cambridge, funded by
my farming family and carried out under the supervision of Dr. Peter
Dickens, and the outcomes are discussed in this book.
1.2 Grounded Research

My research has been concerned with getting to know more about this
Digital Revolution, New Green or Next Green Revolution, Fourth
Industrial Revolution (4IR) or ‘Agriculture 4.0’, or ‘Precision Farming
Revolution’ (Lowenberg-DeBoer 2015) was occurring from a local
farmers’ perspective. The revolution was often spoken of in terms of
a progressive, linear narrative; much like a story or a plot but seemed
too far removed from the farming landscapes I knew. It depicts the
forward march of agricultural development or modern progress. Once
there was The Industrial Revolution, then The Second Industrial
Revolution, after that The Green Revolution and then next in line:
The Precision Farming Revolution. There have been many revolutions
throughout world history and across different geographical locations.
In a political sense, there was the Glorious Revolution (1688), French
Revolution (1789–1799) or Russian Revolution (1917). Sociologist
Manuel Castells (1996) points out that in England there were at least
two industrial revolutions, the first characterised by ‘new technolo-
gies such as the steam engine [and…] replacement of hand-tools by
machines’ and the second, 100 years later, ‘featured the development of
electricity, the internal combustion engine, science-based chemicals, effi-
cient steel casting, and the beginning of communication technologies’
(p. 34). We could add to the list of relevant revolutions the Scientific
Revolution, Green Revolution (1800s–1900s) or Technological
Revolution to name but a few. In terms of progress and development,
there are also the metanarratives of modernity, Renaissance and The
Age of Enlightenment that could be taken into consideration as well
7
(Lyotard 1986). Monolithic theories of ‘A Revolution’ or ‘The Future of

Farming’ suggest all farmers, the world over, to be on the same page in
terms of adopting progressive farming technologies when this is simply
not the case.
The landscape of British agriculture is much more diverse that any
single theory of revolution would allow for. Cultural methods of farm-
ing could be ‘non-modern’ or ‘traditional’, such as the pre-industrial
farming methods described in historical documents such as the 1086
Doomsday Book (Wood 2005), ‘conventional’ or post-Green Revolution
agriculture, or ‘precision’ farming that incorporated remotely captured
data or satellite coordinates. As this book describes, Britain’s country-
side and farming landscape was very much like a patchwork economy
with farmers adopting various cultural methods and knowledge prac-
tices employing all kinds of tools, machines, equipment, and elec-
tronic devices or computing technologies from all different eras or
ages, as well as local farmers’ knowledge of tools, mechanics, electronics
and information technologies. In a newspaper article in The Telegraph,
Conservative MP Owen Paterson (2019) argued that the Brexit
would free British farmers from what he called the Europe’s ‘museum
of machinery’. Yet, a museum of machinery and human knowledge is
exactly what Britain possesses, and should pride itself upon. If we adopt
media theorist Marshal McLuhan’s (2001) evolutionary logic that ‘the
“content” of any medium is always another medium’ (p. 8), then con-
tained or combined within all new farming equipment would be equip-
ment and knowledge of agricultural histories. A combine harvester is the
mechanical combination of cutters, threshers and sieves still employed in
non-modern farming practices—also see Giedion (2013 [1948]) on the
absorption and embodiment of farm workers’ hands into agricultural
mechanisms. This book takes a multi-agricultural perspective, accepting
the precision farming is one of a number of cultural methods used for
farming and growing food.
To find out how the revolution was or was not occurring at a local
level, and document how precision farming systems were emerging,
then my research aimed to provide an honest account of the uptake and
uses of precision farming within my local farming community, whilst
documenting any outcomes of adoption. Qualitative social research
8
J. E. Addicott
took place between 2014 and 2017 within the cooperative group
of fifteen farmers spread over eleven farm units. Research methods
included four focus groups and two rounds of semi-structured, individ-
ual interviews. I also spent three harvests working in the role of a fully
immersed, participant observer and auto-ethnographer who worked on
local farms and attended trade shows, annual events, machinery demon-
strations and meetings between farmers and agronomists, experts and
politicians (2014, 2015 and 2016). There were resistance movements,
countertrend or alternative developmental avenues to the main indus-
trial push towards precision farming systems which offered a fascinating
economic and sociological dynamics to observe. The following chapters
describe various relationships between local farmers, farmland areas and
off-farm firms, politicians, government organisations, industry stake-
holders, consumer markets and so on.
My approach was interdisciplinary and mixed-methods, conversa-
tional and relational. At focus groups the farmers were presented with
semi-structured questions that worked more like conversation prompts.
The aim was to get farmers discussing various topics related to preci-
sion farming without overloading targeted questions with any of my
unconsidered biasness or personal assumptions. Focus groups were
digitally recorded with a microphone, transcribed then coded and cat-
egorised. Categories were normally formed by general topics of discus-
sion-generated focus group (e.g. ‘Technology’, ‘Cost Benefits’, ‘Trust’,
‘Knowledge’, ‘Integration’, ‘Investments’, ‘Standards’, ‘Markets’ and
‘Weather’). Codes and categories that then came out of individual inter-
views were then used to construct questions for semi-structured indi-
vidual interviews and focus groups. This ‘snowball’ process was repeated
throughout the research period until the conversations reached natural
conclusions or the category had become ‘saturated’ (Annells 1996; Birks
and Mills 2011; Charmaz 2006). Questions that were derived from
farmers’ interviews were merged with more conversational questions
that responded to news events or academic publications (e.g. Brexit or
academic research into ‘good farming’ symbolism). Individual inter-
views gave farmers a chance to offer their own individual account that
would contribute towards a more pluralistic account for the reasons and
outcomes of adoption.
9
In many ways the research discussed in this book offered a descrip-

tive account to an explanation question of why or how a revolution
was occurring. Assessing revolution in terms of causes and driv-
ers was made possible by adopting somewhat of a soft critical real-
ist approach with regard to tracing sources of causation or causality
in the emergence of precision farming systems (Sayer 1992: pp.
103–116; Dickens 1996; Elder-Vass 2012a, b). Where various factors
clearly possessed certain ‘causal powers’ (e.g. world population pres-
sures gave rise to food security concerns or, nitrogen fertiliser boosted
plant growth and yields) then attempts were made to analyse the con-
ditions these led to and the events that unfolded (e.g. climate change
research underpinned the UN recommendations for agricultural
technology funding, and subsequently farmers were offered grant-en-
abled equipment). Although rather speculatively it was possible to
observe things causing or driving other things to happen, matters
were extremely complicated at both global and local levels. For exam-
ple, how do we know that growing world population pressures offered
more or less of a driver in the innovation of precision farming than
56 million tonnes of CO2 emissions emitted by farmers in Britain in
2015—and how does a researcher assess how much of a causal fac-
tor either of these elements are, especially when a local farmer says
he invested for a bit of fun? How do we assess the extent to which
increasing land value (+187%) was causing a particular farmer to
invest into new technologies more or less so than the fact that tech-
nology was available on the market, or a government subsidy of 40%
was incentivising him to invest—particularly if the farmer informed
you during an interview that he invested into new farming kit because
he saved money upgrading the family car? Trying to explain various
interrelated causes of good or bad crops if what farmers for thousands
of years have attempted to do was difficult to explain why precision
farming was emerging any better than a local farmer could. Where
critical realist methods struggled to offer any strong or significant
form of causal explanation, then descriptive methods of actor net-
work theory (Callon 1998; Law 1999; Latour 2005) or anthropologi-
cal methods of ‘thick description’ (Geertz 1988) were employed to fill
significant gaps and voids. Ethnographic accounts were generated by
10
J. E. Addicott
way of describing or mapping out trade and distribution networks,

communication networks, society-nature or nature-culture landscapes
(Latour 1993).
Research into precision farming raised particular topics of discussion
between interviewees. It also captured closely related themes, opinions
or participant observations. These topics, opinions and observations
could be arranged into relational clusters. These relational clusters have
been presented in the oncoming chapters as keywords or umbrella terms
(e.g. population pressure, climate change, profit, labour, politics, ecosys-
tems, etc.). Local observations and interviews are discussed in sequential
terms of pre-adoption, reasons for investments and then post-adoption,
outcomes of adoption.
1.3 Precision Farming

At the forefront of this new Agricultural Revolution was precision farm-
ing systems—otherwise known as precision agriculture, site-specific
farming, smart farming, intelligent farming or satellite farming. Some
take precision farming to be a cultural method and argue that it is not
a technology, nor does it require technologies, satellite coordinates and
scans, or external data services. It can simply be adopted as a mindset,
mentality or way of thinking. Precision agriculture is farming accord-
ing to rational, scientific methods and principles, or ‘precision think-
ing’. Basing his definition on observations of research groups in Europe,
Africa, Asia and South America, Precision Farming specialist Simon
Blackmore argued that precision farming is not a set of technologies but
a ‘type of management or perhaps even a way of thinking’ that includes
a set of ‘ideas of managing spatial and temporal variability’. He sug-
gested there are eight principles of technology-less precision farming
that can be ‘applied to every crop in every country’. These principles are:
1. Precision Farming is a management process, not a technology

2. Measure the spatial and temporal variability
3. Assess the significance of the variability in both economic and envi-
ronmental terms
11
4. State the required outcome for the crop and the farm
5. Consider the special requirements of the crop and the country
6. Establish ways to manage the variability to achieve the stated outcome
7. Consider methods to reduce or redistribute the inputs and assess the
risk of failure
8. Treat crops and soil selectively according to their needs (Blackmore
2003: p. 28).
A leading precision farming expert, Simon Blackmore (2003) from Harper

Adams University, provides a non-technological definition of precision
agriculture as the ‘management of arable variability to improve economic
returns and reduce environmental impact’ (p. 152). The Swedish have a
word ‘lagom’ that translates into English as ‘not too little, not too much’
or ‘just the right amount’ and achieving this level of resourcefulness and
limiting external environmental impacts is precision farming’s overall aim.
The problem with this definition is that it could downplay the eco-
nomics of technological innovations. Technology-based definitions of
precision farming are provided by geographers Tsouvalis et al. (2000)
who define it as a ‘combination of various tools (such as yield meters,
satellite imagery, and specialist software) and techniques (such as yield
mapping, soil mapping, and precision drilling) whose overall purpose
is to control yield variations across a field’ (p. 910) or sociologists Wolf
and Wood (1997) who define it as the ‘use of digital, geographically-
referenced data in farming operations’ (p. 180). This book takes the
position that precision farming systems are the result of the establish-
ment of satellite networks that can organise and coordinate agricul-
ture in new ways. Defining precision farming as a new way of thinking
downplays the surge of economic forces pushing forward the precision
farming revolution—as detailed later in this chapter. For the purposes
of understanding how the precision farming revolution occurred then
economic drivers in change were important to be taken into consider-
ation, therefore the definition of precision farming this book runs with
is: the use of geographically referenced data in agricultural technologies.
Precision farming can also be viewed as a subsection of newly emerg-
ing ‘precision practices’ that included precision warfare, precision
astrophysics, precision engineering, precision landscaping, precision
12
J. E. Addicott
medicine, precision breeding, precision irrigation or precision pruning,

to name but a few. Precision practices have been facilitated by advance-
ments in computing, satellite and communication technologies, particu-
larly Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) coordination networks.
As we look towards the future, we should expect more precision prac-
tices to emerge as GNSS coordinates are embedded into production and
leisure activities—in-car satnav systems, automated aeroplanes, ships,
drones and automobiles, mobile dating apps or augmented realities are
early signs of more satellite-coordinated systems that will emerge in the
future. This book concentrates on precision farming as applied to arable
farming and wheat and barley production but these same systems were
also applied to the production of cotton, tobacco, forestry, vegetables,
fruit, football pitches and even golf courses.
Precision farming technologies can be integrated together to establish
precision farming systems, which incorporate remotely captured data
and GPS coordinates. Remote sensing satellites, sensors or drones cap-
ture data about soil and crops that can then be uploaded or fed into
auto-regulating farm equipment. ‘Soil zoning’1 is a method of meas-
uring soil indexes using GPS coordinates to demarcate various zones
within fields (see Fig. 1.2). ‘Variable-rate technologies’2 can be used
to apply fertilisers or agrochemicals at variable rates, rather than fixed
rates, according to where remotely captured data tells equipment more
or less is needed in crops (see Fig. 1.3). This automatically regulates the
distribution of fertilisers or agrochemicals precisely where more or less
is needed to reduce inputs, thereby reducing wasteful or over-exces-
sive applications and cutting back on costs. ‘Boom section control’3 is
a variable-rate method of applying chemical sprays or liquid fertilisers
to crops. GPS coordinates not only regulate the distribution of chem-
icals according to data remotely captured about the crop or soil health,
but distributors are automatically switched on and off at the start and
end of each run using satellite coordinates rather than drivers’ judge-
ments. ‘Yield-mapping technologies’4 are installed to combine harvest-
ers. These technologies capture measurements of the rate of grain as the
combine cuts a crop whilst driving through a field. Measurements of the
crop yields are then plotted onto a map (or ‘yield map’) according to the
position of the combine in the field as identified by satellite coordinates.
13
Fig. 1.2 Using soil management software, this field named Nettley Piece was
demarcated into three soil management zones, indicated by the red lines,
according to varying soil type
Free versions of precision farming are also available to download

for computer, smartphone or tablet technologies. In 2015 Ofcom
announced that in the UK, two-thirds of people own a smartphone and
it is predicted that by the year 2021, there will be 6.4 billion smart-
phone users worldwide. Lower cost computing technologies mean that
‘handheld technologies and smartphone apps’5 are more readily afforda-
ble to local farmers. There is a wide range of either free or subscrip-
tion-based agriculture applications (or ‘apps’) for smartphones or tablets
available for farmers and growers to use with access to smartphone
technologies.
GPS coordination networks ensure that deliver ‘auto-steer and con-
trolled traffic systems’6 which are deliver self-steering tractors, robots
14
J. E. Addicott
Fig. 1.3 A Normalized Difference Vegetation Index NDVI satellite image. This
is a field called ‘Nettley Piece’. The dark green areas represent healthy plant
growth (chlorophyll). The lighter green areas to orange and dark red areas indi-
cate where more fertiliser is required
and drones to farms. The same coordination networks deliver ‘telem-

atics’7 systems, or what could also be considered another aspect of the
‘Internet of Things’ (IoT), which by way of recording the performance
of machinery parts onboard a tractor, combine or piece of equipment,
can predict and distribute replacement parts prior to the breakdown to
minimise the distribution of work rates.
Precision farming systems could be considered precision farming’s
full-package: that would include a combination of soil sampling, soil
scanning data, variable-rate seeds, chemicals and fertilisers, in combi-
nation with auto-steer and yield-mapping technologies, remotely mon-
itored and controlled using smartphone and telematic technologies.
In such an ideal-type system, soil indices could be programmed into
variable-rate farm equipment. These could automatically regulate the
15
inputs of seeds or agrochemicals, applying more where needed, less

where soil nutrition or plant vitality levels are adequate, and none where
plants and crops do not require treatment. Auto-steering technologies
can ensure that these applications are targeted down to a 2 cm degree
of accuracy and eliminate any risk of human error. At the output or
downstream stage of the production cycle, yield maps could monitor
the effectiveness of these upstream processes. Calibrations or modifi-
cations could be made with these inputs of information collected over
time and space. Telematics systems or the IoT could be used to cap-
ture, store and process real-time information to optimise system perfor-
mance. Information could be shared with agribusinesses, agronomists,
crop advisors and dealerships to offer external service support. Any
results could be benchmarked with respect to other farmers to maximise
the system’s efficiency and outputs. Information could also be circulated
within government departments so that supply and demand rates, or
information about environmental impacts of industrial agriculture, can
be more closely monitored, forecast and regulated.
Current precision farming systems are set to evolve into more
advanced precision farming systems, and these seem likely to provide
the innovative, informatic and technological basis for future modes of
agricultural production. Two possible futures for farming were fleets
of agricultural robots or auto-farm factories. The futurological vision
of landscapes being farmed, twenty-four hours a day by fleets of agri-
cultural robots would perhaps be the point in time where physical
human involvement in crop production reaches an absolute minimum
(Pedersen and Blackmore 2008)—Harper Adams University devel-
oped a robotic farming system called the ‘Hands-Free Hectare’ at the
National Centre for Precision Farming. Control over production could
be carried out from a remote location using a laptop, tablet, smart-
phone or some other futurological innovation. In a BBC TV interview
with Simon Blackmore, he suggested that fleets of agricultural robots,
using laser beams would be able to ‘zap’ insects, rather than spraying
agrochemicals onto crops that damage biologically diverse environments
(BBC 2014). Manufacturing company AGCO/Fendt has been work-
ing with the University of Ulm, Germany, on developing their own
brand of autonomous robots. The Mobile Agricultural Robot Swarms
16
J. E. Addicott
or ‘MARS’ project aims to ‘increase the efficiency of farming tasks by

being able to work around the clock with higher levels of precision,
but less labour’ (Arable Farming 2016: p. 41). CNH Industrial (2016)
revealed their ‘concept’ design for their driverless tractor at the Farm
Progress Show in Bone, Iowa that would pull along cultivators or drills
without a tractor cab or driver.
The research and development of precision farming systems also
facilitate advancements in fully automated agro-factories. A current
plan for a closed-loop agrofactory is being implemented in Deltapark
in Rotterdam, Netherlands; this was a design for a 400-metre wide,
six-story high urban farm building that would grow vegetables and
keep pigs, chicken and fish within a closed-loop system of production.
Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS), in collaboration with The James
Hutton Institute have announced £2.5M plans to build the UK’s first
vertical farm in Dundee, Scotland. Another innovation auto-farming
innovation would be Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenAG
project. This aims to design a domestic ‘Food Computer’ that would
incorporate precision farming techniques. This is a ‘controlled-envi-
ronment agriculture technology platform that uses robotic systems to
control and monitor climate, energy, and plant growth inside of a spe-
cialized growing chamber’ (OpenAg 2015). In California, the FarmBot
Genesis offers a similar model for fully automated, micro-farms that will
grow a variety of different crops in someone’s back garden. The unique-
ness of the FarmBot is any digital data (design files, software source
code and documentation) is ‘open source’ and freely available to the
public online; an egalitarian effort to provide global food security and
environmental sustainability (see https://farmbot.io).
Current developments in remote sensing technologies and GNSS
coordination technology would catalyse these futurological forms of
agriculture. These laboratory-like growing environments aim to reduce
the number of external variables (for example, rain, cloud cover, weeds,
bacteria, insects, wildlife and so on) associated with outdoor farming,
to secure consistently high crop yields. The additional cost of using
technologies, data inputs or artificial lighting should be compensated
by the guarantee of efficient, secure and predictable yields. Advocates
of land-sparing environmental strategies consider that this industrial
17
strategy of building upward, rather than outward, may be key to eco-

nomically ‘depressurising’ farmland and ‘decoupling’ industrial societies
from nature, thereby sparing cultivated farmland areas for rewilding
purposes. ‘Ecomodernists’ Asafu-Adjaye et al. (2015) present the argu-
ment that by growing food in indoor agro-factories will ‘depressur-
ise’ landscapes so that they can be used for rewilding purposes. In the
future, there could be agricultural ‘hot spots’ where automated forms
of intensive production take place whilst surrounding natural environ-
ments are left to run wild.
1.4 Field Research

Global discourses on the precision farming revolution raised some criti-
cal questions on how precision farming would impact local family farm-
ing communities around the world. To address these questions then
four years of qualitative social research was carried out within a local
farming community in the West Country of England. My principle
aim was to discover why farmers were investing into these technologies
and then qualify any outcomes of adoption. These empirical enquiries
should feedback and inform broader debates and discussions about rev-
olutions and the future of modern agricultural industries. The research
contained in this book should be taken and understood as a ‘snapshot’
moment in a greater narrative of modern agricultural development, and
this chapter kicks off with a thick description of my research field.
This farming family background, my family’s lineage and my herit-
age, provided an access point or gateway into my social research field.
My grandfather was a War Agricultural Executive Committee, or War
Ag County Farmer during World War Two, and my father and uncle
became farmers too. My research field was a cooperative of eleven fam-
ily farms that father had helped to establish a cooperative of farmers in
the year 2000. Finding that they were struggling as independent farm
units, the farms decided to unit as a cooperative in order to increase
market presence with the aim of bulk-buying concentrated dairy feed,
dairy chemicals, fuels, agronomic services and mobile phone contracts.
This group of local farmers and family friends provided a rich source
18
J. E. Addicott
of knowledge that could be explored using qualitative social research

methods. Since the farmers trusted me by way of family association,
then this allowed a rather unique level of intimacy between interviewer
and interviews. Ethically, I have attempted to remain as objective and
unbiased as possible without wishing to betray any trust the farming
group invested in me.
Social trust bonds were incredibly important to farmers and the
farmers of the cooperative group were lifelong friends. Many attended
the Young Farmers Club together and as a result focus group with
myself were full of cheerful laughter and banter. The majority of farmers
were male tenant farmers aged between 55 and 65 years old. They often
inherited succession rights to farm The Duchy of Cornwall land from
their fathers, as well as the knowledge on gains from working alongside
one’s father all day. Many retired farmers, by then grandfathers, contin-
ued to work on the farm during retirement because of their passion for
farming. The farmers generally agreed that farming was not just a life-
style choice but also a lifetime vocation. They had a great passion for
nature and working in the great outdoors, as well as the flexible nature
of seasonal working, variety of jobs, freedom to be their own boss and a
family-orientated work life. We shall discover throughout this book that
trust was important to local farmers and many farmers were generally
loyal, hardworking and dedicated to farming to the best of their abili-
ties. Over half the group received college education and a minority were
university educated. Several of the farmers were still actively involved
in the Church of England, attending church weekly, whilst others con-
tributed to the Harvest Thanksgiving or Plough Sunday services at their
local Anglican parish churches.
Their farms could be found nestled in the valleys and rural villages,
which were tucked away from the main roads that interconnect the
surrounding cities of Bath, Bristol, Frome and the Mendip Hills Area
of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The geographical locations in which
these farmers work and live could only be described as breathtaking,
idyllic or sublime, especially during the high summer, harvest season.
In many ways, the great outdoors within which farmers worked still
looked incredibly similar to John Constable or John Linnell painting of
England’s ‘iconic’ countryside landscape. Summer work took place in
19
the haze of the English harvest sunlight; surrounded by rolling hills and
valleys; insects and butterflies; occasional sightings of wildlife such as
deer, seagulls, buzzards, hares and rabbits. The same landscapes became
sparse during the winter season and working in hurricane-force winds
or sleeting rain was a struggle (Fig. 1.4).
Within the cooperative group there were eleven farm units that were
family farmed. These family farms varied in size. The total area of land
worked between the cooperative was around 2630 hectares (roughly
6500 acres or 10 square miles). Collectively the group grew approxi-
mately 1620 hectares of arable crops. In terms of farm sizes, the largest
farm was around 567 hectares, dedicating 263 hectares to crop produc-
tion. The farms grew crops such as wheat and barley or specialist crops
such as beans, oilseed rape, linseed and quinoa. The largest scale arable
farm was a 486-hectare farm, growing 325 hectares of crops. The small-
est farm size was a 115-hectare arable farm. However this farmer had
recently partnered up with his neighbouring farmer to work an addi-
tional 202 hectares of contracted arable work (‘stubble-to-stubble’) by
Fig. 1.4 A rough guide to the geographical region farmed by the local cooper-
ative farming group
20
J. E. Addicott
jointly investing into higher capacity farm equipment. Of the eleven

farms, six were mixed farms, with livestock producing milk, beef and
poultry (eggs). The farms were ‘conventional’ in the sense that they
grew crops with the use of agrochemicals and synthetic fertilisers and
although some had previously tried they were not growing to serve
organic markets (Table 1.1).
By European averages these farmers were ‘large’ farms. They fell
within the 3% bracket of farms that operated at a scale of 100 hectares
and over throughout Europe (Schrijver et al. 2016: p. 13). In England,
these farmers fell into the top 25% bracket of farm units in England
operating at a size of 100–200 hectares and over. Such larger-scale farm
units are responsible for farming over 73.5% of England’s total farm-
land area. This is set in contrast with 56.6% of farm units that oper-
ated at a scale of 50 hectares and under. Small-scale farm units, which
are the majority, only covered 11.1% of England’s entire farmland area
(Defra 2016c).
Ground rent was generally understood as the bottom line for many
farming businesses and offered some degree of economic pressure for
farmers to expand or diversify farm businesses. The majority of farms
were tenanted with farmers paying rent to a landowner, with some extra
land either rented, owned or contract farmed. Apart from one farm,
where Mark Hayles’ father owned the land (Compton Farm), all other
farms were primarily tenanted, with farmers paying rent for the land,
farmhouses, barns and outbuildings. Within the cooperative group the
tenanted farms situated on The Duchy of Cornwall extensive estates,
which since 1337 have provided the Heir Apparent (presently HRH
the Duke of Cornwall) with an income, until acceding to the Throne
(Duchy of Cornwall 2016: p. 5). The rent of Duchy farmland tended
to fall in line with national farmland rent averages, which had for many
years been increasing. In England, average rent for full agricultural
tenancies increased from £136 per hectare in 2008 to £176 in 2014
(Defra 2016a). Going by these figures, we could roughly calculate that a
115-hectare farm has an annual rent of around £20,000 per annum. As
detailed in the oncoming chapters of this book, rising rent costs meant
that some farmers had to seek out ways of increasing farm incomes,
Table 1.1 Details of the farms and farmers
Farm Principle farmers Farm type Farm acreage Arable land
acreage
Acre farm Pat Banwell Arable 285 500
George Banwell (with contract)
Newditch farm Martin Jackson Mixed: arable and beef cattle 600 (>690*) 400
Hugh Jackson
Abby farm Jack Wilmington Mixed: arable and beef cattle 1200 800
Tom Wilmington
Dunkerton farm Rodger Bay Mixed: arable and beef cattle 500 730
(with contract)
Wheatsheaf farm Peter Willow Mixed: dairy cows and arable 900 600
1
Compton Dando Mark Hayles Mixed: arable and poultry 650 650 (contracted
farm to Farmer 7)
Marksbury farm Adam Hayeswood Mixed: dairy cows and arable 800 650 (contract for
Farmer 6)
Cotswold farm Charlotte Tilley Arable 360 340
James Tilley
Tyning farm Nick Hayeswood Mixed: arable and beef cattle 300 (>280*) 350 (with
contract)
Vicars farm Phil Clutton Arable 300 280
Thatchers farm Frank Joy Mixed: arable and beef cattle 900 775
*Farms 2 and 9 resized in 2015 as indicated
21
22
J. E. Addicott
such as expanding land areas, contract farming, diversification projects

or machinery and equipment investments, and so on.
In terms of the land prices and farmland value, the rising price of
land meant that some farmers were landlocked to farm scales and could
not expand, or tied into tenancy agreements rather than becoming farm
owners. The Knight Frank Farmland Index reported that the average
price of farmland in England had risen +5.182% in fifty years from
1964 to 2014, then +187% in the past ten years from 2004 until 2014
(Shirley 2014). Vacant and equipped, agricultural land in the South
West of England was valued at £18,525–£19,000 per hectare (Valuation
Office Agency 2011). There were reports of land on the outskirts
of London being valued at £1M per acre. With land prices being so
high, alternative business diversifications were sought, such as residen-
tial property, renting farm space or machinery and equipment invest-
ments for contracting purposes. Although it was impossible to quantify,
ground rent offered some degree of pressure for farmers to invest into
new machinery, equipment or technologies (Fig. 1.5).
Fig. 1.5 Drone aerial photograph taken of one of the family farms during drill-
ing season where ethnographic research was carried out
23
Farm and farmland markets were fiercely competitive and there were
significant market consolidation trends over the period of 2005 until
2015. Farms between 20 and 200 hectares were on a rapid decline. The
number of larger farms, over 200 hectares only increased marginally.
During that time, however, the amount of farms greater than 200 hec-
tares in size did not increase in number, but these farms were expanding
and taking on significantly more land areas (Defra 2016c). Those with
bigger farms could afford to expand farm sizes. The expansion of mega-
farm units (2000–4000 hectares and over) was not indicated in Defra’s
survey reports but, as discussed later in the book, the cooperative farm-
ing were feeling the economic pressure of market consolidation forces,
with expanding mega-farm units out growing smaller farmers within
and outside of the UK. As detailed in the oncoming chapters, many
farmers interviewed felt precision farming would deliver more cost ben-
efits to mega-scale farm units.
Within the cooperative group, the larger farm employed between
three and five full-time workers and two to eight part-time workers,
but these workers were employed mainly on the dairy side of the busi-
ness. Two of these employees were migrant workers who came from the
Philippines and had attained UK citizenship whilst employed for nine
years on a dairy farm. Agency-supplied employees also originated from
Latvia, Bulgaria and Poland but the majority of farm workers were born
in the UK. More often than not, the main tenant farmer and family
members (grandfathers, brothers, sons and daughters) were responsible
for driving, ploughing, drilling, combining and cultivation work. ‘Child
labour’ is sometimes considered quite exploitative phenomena these
days, but within farming families it is considered a right and a privilege
to let your children begin learning the ropes from an early age.
Tenant farmers of The Duchy of Cornwall were subject to a form of
soft governance that owner-farmers would not; thus ‘managerial control’
had some soft influence on farmers’ investment decisions. The Duchy
of Cornwall offices would occasionally exercise certain degrees of man-
agerial control over the farmers and farmland areas. One example of
the kind of control the offices could exercise was a set of amendments
introduced into farmers’ tenancy agreements that included a commit-
ment not to grow genetically modified crops (GMO)—although GMO
24
J. E. Addicott
crops were outlawed in the UK. Another example came in 2016, when
some Duchy land that had reportedly been poorly farmed by a contract
farming company. Subsequently, the patch of land was taken back from
the tenant and divided up between a few members of the cooperative
farming group. This was because family farmers were generally consid-
ered more knowledgeable and greater-skilled farmers, with demonstrated
histories of land care, from generation-to-generation, and therefore more
likely to tend to the land to a higher standard than temporary contract
firms. In this instance, upsizing or downscaling was more of a matter of
managerial decisions and powers exercised by the Duchy office, rather
than the ‘freehand of the market’, where farmers would have compet-
itively bid for land according to their financial budgets. The Duchy of
Cornwall also had a public reputation for high standards in farming and
countryside culture, with The Prince of Wales championed as a public fig-
urehead organic, traditional and biodynamic farming methods. Although
the Duchy offices gave farmers plenty of free reign to farm tenanted farms
how the local farmers decided was best, such tradition and cultural factors
should be taken into account as influencing farmers’ investment decisions.
The uptake of precision farming technologies was researched from
2014 until 2017 in the aftermath of the 2008 Financial Crisis and lead up
to the 2016 Brexit referendum and ‘Leave’ vote. During this time, there
was a surge in fertiliser prices brought about by high oil prices on global
markets and steady, as already mentioned these was a steady, long-term
trend of increasing rent prices for farmland within England. Many farm-
ers during this time period were selling milk, wheat and barley below the
cost of production, resulting in supermarket blockades, riots and protests
during 2015 and 2016. This was all pushed on with a ‘nudge’ by depart-
ments of the UK Government, led at that time by The Conservative Party
under the leadership of David Cameron and Theresa May, for a greater
adoption of agricultural technologies that would accelerate growth within
an emerging Agri-Tech sector, as a mean of helping the UK achieve car-
bon neutral goals agreed with the United Nations.
My research period ran from 2013 until 2017 and farmers were on
the cusp of a transitional wave. The majority of farmers had already
been using soil sampling and soil zoning techniques for a number of
years. At the start of my research, they had only just begun purchasing
25
satellite images measuring soil quality and plant leaf greenness from a
local, family-owned company. Some farmers were beginning to use
more advanced variable-rate technologies on their fertiliser spreaders.
Half the group had begun using precision farming for variable-rate
applications of fertilisers. Three combine harvesters were purchased
during the research period, two new and one second-hand. These came
installed with telematics systems and yield-mapping technologies. Other
investments included three tractors, two fertiliser spreaders and a chem-
ical sprayer. Newer machinery and equipment came with preinstalled,
retrofitted precision farming technologies. Brand names included
transnational firms of the Big-Six manufacturers, as well as smaller
European-based firms.
Good weather conditions led to good yields around the UK but tech-
nological advancements were credited for increasing production rates.
In 2015 the UK’s ‘agri-food chain’—combining farming, manufactur-
ing, wholesaling, retailing and catering—contributed £190 billion to
the UK’s gross domestic produce (Defra 2015b: pp. 6–9). Defra issued
a press release entitled: ‘Hard-working UK farmers praised for bumper
harvest’. It stated that ‘for the first time ever wheat grown in the UK
has exceeded 16 million tonnes for two years running’ and ‘UK farm-
ers grew nearly 3% more wheat on their land compared with 2014, up
from 8.6 to 8.8 tonnes per hectare’. Much of the reason for high yields
was attributed to fine weather conditions. Former Secretary of State for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Rt Hon. Elizabeth Truss MP
added that:
We have some of the world’s best farmers - it’s fantastic to see their hard
work and expertise rewarded with a bumper harvest of crops that will be
heading to our flour mills and distillers to produce some of our favour-
ite foods, from bread and beer to breakfast cereals. It’s a fitting celebra-
tion of the work done over the last year by those in the food and farming
industry - worth over £100 billion a year… From using GPS to increase
planting precision, to introducing new water-efficient crop varieties, our
innovative farmers are embracing technology to unleash their full poten-
tial. (Defra and The Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP 2015)
26
J. E. Addicott
During the same period of time, European farmers had taken their trac-
tors to the streets of Brussels and clashed with police riot vans in vio-
lent demonstrations over plummeting meat and milk prices (Ruddick
2015). In the UK, farmers used tractors to barricade supermarkets in
demonstrations over unfair and unsustainable milk prices in 2014
and 2015 (Weaver 2015). By the end of September 2015, feed wheat
prices had hit a devastating low of £100 per tonne, down from £200 in
2012. Feed barley prices were down to an unsustainable £90 per tonne
from £170 in 2012 (Defra 2016d). Total farm incomes were estimated
to have fallen between 2014 and 2015 by 29% (Defra 2015a). As we
shall see in local level observations, during this downturn farmers’ grain
stores were bursting at the seams with unprofitable grain. In July 2016,
Elizabeth Truss was appointed Secretary of State for Justice and suc-
ceeded by Michael Gove.
It was revealed in 2016 that global wheat supplies were running
into a surplus following four years of high yields in the global harvest,
with former Soviet countries outgrowing the United States and Canada
(AHDB 2016). To make matters worse, complications in implementing
Defra’s online application system for the Basic Farm Payment scheme
meant that area payments to many UK farmers were severely delayed
from 2015 until 2017. There were reports of farmers ‘being driven to
suicide’ as a result of the price slumps (Tasker 2015a). In autumn 2015
HRH Prince Charles’s charity, the ‘Prince’s Countryside Fund’ held a
summit with the aim of supporting family farms through the ‘farming
crisis’ in which farmers were ‘battling low commodity prices, erratic
weather and the prospect of delayed support payments’, The Farmers
Weekly reported (Tasker 2015b). If precision farming could help farm-
ers save money and generated higher incomes, such benefits would have
been greatly welcomed during such hard times.
At a national level, whilst politicians praised local farmers for
‘embracing technology’, there seemed to be very little indication that
fertiliser inputs were being noticeably or significantly reduced as a result
of farmers adopting precision farming systems. Overall, in 2015, the
UK’s ‘agri-food chain’ (farming, manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing
and catering) contributed £190 billion to GDP. During this time the
agri-food supply chain generated 70 million tonnes of CO2 emissions,
27
of which farming contributed 56 million tonnes Defra (2015b: pp. 6,

9). The Farm Practices Survey reported that more farmers were adopting
precision farming techniques. Numbers rose from 16 to 21% between
2012 and 2015 (Defra 2016b). From 2000 and 2015 application rates
of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilisers to grassland had shown an over-
all decline within the UK although reasons for this reduction remain
unclear (Defra 2017). The British Survey of Fertiliser Practice reported
that in 2016, the overall rates of total nitrogen usage had not decreased
but actually ‘increased between 2014 and 2015’ (BSFP 2016: p. 20). In
addition to this, the amount of land used for organic food production
had continued to steadily tail off from a peak in 2008 and the amount
of farmland in conversion to organic production had plummeted quite
dramatically (Defra 2016d).
Notes
1. Soil zoning: Soil zoning is a scientific method of delineating areas
within fields to capture data about soil textures and depths, stone con-
tent and organic matter, etc. This offers a different approach to viewing
a field as an entire unit. The aim of the soil zoning process is to identify
different types of soil within different field areas (e.g. light sand, shallow
gravel, silty clay). Information is also gathered about the depth of rock,
slopes, drainage and water levels. Global Information Systems (GIS) can
also add accuracy to such geographical information. IT experts can com-
pare field scan imagery with the knowledge farmers possess about their
land, soil and crops. After Soil Brightness images have been collected
using satellite technologies, soil samples are collected and sent for pro-
cessing in laboratories. In laboratories it is possible to identify phosphate
(P), potassium (K) magnesium (Mg) and acidity or alkalinity (pH) indi-
ces in particular areas of the fields. Index levels can lead to variations in
plant health and crop variations. So the aim therefore is to manage each
soil zone in particular ways to achieve consistency in soil and plant vital-
ity across cropped areas.
Fields were divided into soil management zones to attend to spatial
and temporal variations. Farmers noticing a lack of phosphate in a field,
for example, can make management decisions to apply more phosphate
28
J. E. Addicott
whilst fertiliser spreading. Identifying different soil zones and measuring

the different indices should mean that an accurate or targeted applica-
tion of required soil nutrients could be made. This should, in theory,
reduce the excessive application of unnecessary, energy-intensive fer-
tilisers to the soil and result in their more resourceful usage, thereby
tackling global warming issues if there is a strong correlation between
synthetic fertiliser usage and global warming. By applying exactly the
necessary amount, this should limit the amount of runoff into under-
ground systems and watercourses. Because fertiliser inputs can be
expensive, this scientific method should also cut back on the resulting
overheads. By increasing yields in this way, farmers should be able to
generate more grain for market and improve farm incomes. Increasing
yields should also produce more food to feed more people. More infor-
mation about the vitality of farmland soil should also help to prevent
soil erosion and sustain crop production in cultivated land.
2. Variable-rate technologies: Variable-rate applications (VRA) that
remote sensing technologies deliver are different from fixed-rate appli-
cations. The former is often compared to ‘targeting’ whereas the latter
is sometimes compared to a ‘blanket bombing’ approach. Remote scans
taken from satellites or UAV reveal different information about the soil
and crops. Green vegetation or plant vitality can be measured using
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) through processing
information from the different bands in the electromagnetic spectrum,
captured by radiometers on satellites or other remote sensing technolo-
gies. Farmers and agronomists can view these scans to give them some
idea of whether the crops are doing well or struggling. These data can
be processed and transferred to a control box in the tractor cab using a
USB device or wirelessly using cloud technologies. Auto-regulation can
occur once these data are fed into farm equipment. Onboard computers
then transfer data to seed drills, fertiliser spreaders or chemical sprayers,
where to dispense more or less material, according to GNSS positioning
coordinates.
In addition to self-regulating capabilities, the software used to manage
soil zones and nitrogen inputs, also includes AHDB and Defra’s RB209
soil nutrient management guidelines to ensure quality control and agro-
ecological sustainability. The RB209 document is an independent guide
on how to safely nourish their soils using inorganic nitrogen fertilisers,
informed by the research of 40 public and private research institutions.
29
Some precision farming software packages used with variable-rate plans

can automatically draw up soil zone management plans and embed this
within auto-regulating equipment, in accordance with official guidelines.
3. Boom section control: Agrochemicals are applied using modern, indus-
trial chemical sprayers. Typically, sprayers come equipped with incred-
ibly wide extension arms or ‘booms’. Using GNSS coordinates, boom
section control (or ‘automatic section control’) automatically switches
on/off each nozzle section on the sprayer boom. It is instructed when
and where this is needed according to boundaries set with GNSS coor-
dinates. This system of automation relieves the driver from making
a switch on/off judgement-call by eye across the entire width of the
sprayer boom. This technology reduces spray overlaps or patches of the
crop that are sprayed with chemicals more than once. The system can
also leave certain areas of the field that do not require spraying until a
later time. By reducing overlaps, applications of agrochemical should
be diminished through this targeted approach. A good analogy would
be colouring in a rectangle on a piece of paper so it is coloured, right
up to the edges of the rectangle, without drawing over the edges. This
technique ensures that every square metre of workable soil has been opti-
mised to maximum productivity and potential profitability. This should
minimise runoff or leaching into ground water. Other environmental
benefits include not randomly spreading nitrogen granules from the
spreader into the hedgerows. The end goal is a higher average yield across
the whole field, thereby increasing the overall yield throughout the farm.
By reducing these inputs, a more cost-effective pattern should emerge for
conventional farmers using agrochemicals. Again, this should save farm-
ers’ money by reducing the waste of expensive inputs, as well as reducing
the amount of pesticide sprayed into natural environments, a targeted
approach.
4. Yield-mapping technologies: Unlike variable rates, yield mapping takes
place during the harvest or at the end of the production cycle. Remote
sensing technologies such as digital weighing scales or infrared optical
devices capture information about crop yield, which is generated within
each square-metre of the harvested crop. GNSS coordinates from a satel-
lite navigation system locate or pinpoint the combine harvester in a par-
ticular area of the field. Once these coordinates correspond to the yield
rate data, which are captured by an onboard computer, yield-mapping
systems can record the yield within different areas of land. These data
30
J. E. Addicott
can be visualised as an image or yield map. Such data should indicate

farmers or agronomists which areas of their land need more attention,
more agrochemicals or higher seed rates during planting seasons, or areas
that are suffering from ground compaction. As a general rule, red areas
in yield maps corresponded with poorly performing areas of farmers’
fields.
Information gathered from yield maps should assist in management
decisions. Because yield mapping takes place at the end of the produc-
tion cycle, a feedback loop can be generated between the start and end of
the crop growing cycle. This loop should help the farmer or agronomist
to decide how to optimise inputs during the planting or growing sea-
sons, to generate greater yields in the following year’s harvest, or develop
a longer-term strategy to boost yields. For example, in terms of manage-
ment decision support, at the end of harvest farmers can compare the
successes and failures of a particular variety of wheat seed in a field, or
across a greater farmland area, against an alternative wheat seed variety.
Noticing that one variety has yielded better in certain types of soil, or
benchmarking yield results with respect to other farmers in the local
area, a farmer could then decide to grow the higher performing variety
the following year.
5. Handheld technologies and smartphone apps: Precision farming can
be conducted from farmers’ computers and smartphones. Precision
farming apps provide farmers the ability to map field boundaries that
can be achieved by walking around the parameters of the farm’s fields
and tracking these dimensions using GNSS coordinates. This process
would capture and store the dimensions of each field within the smart-
phone device. Other features allow farmers to store this collected data on
machines and implements, also record soil quality, weather conditions,
workforce numbers, labour inputs, yield outputs and current market
prices. As spatial and temporal data are collected and stored over time,
farmers can monitor variability in soil, crops, inputs and corresponding
yield rates at a relatively low cost. Since many of these apps are free, and
it is predicted that more and more people around the world will be using
smartphone technologies, such software applications could offer farm-
ers in developing regions of the world access to a low-cost or affordable
means of precision farming.
6. Auto-steer and controlled traffic systems: A very similar system is
used in autonomously steering farm equipment, as well as self-driving,
31
autonomous automobiles or ‘Google Cars’. A radio receiver positioned

on top of the tractor or farm equipment transmits and receives radio
signals from satellite networks. The degree of accuracy with which
equipment can be autonomously driven varies according to which sat-
ellite network farmers are tuned into. Free networks such as EGNOS or
GLONASS could deliver 1–2 m in accuracy. Alternatively, there were
premium services such as DGPS (10–30 cm accuracy), HP (10 cm accu-
racy), CORS (2.30 cm accuracy) and RTK (2 cm accuracy). In order to
use RTK or Real Time Kinematic system, a fixed base station is required
in the local area to provide triangulation between satellite networks, the
equipment and the base station transmitter. Controlled Traffic Systems
(CTS) was a far more advanced form of auto-steer system. A key aim
of auto-steer systems was to limit the amount of ground compaction
caused by heavy machinery to an absolute minimum. Driving in an
incredibly accurate straight line from point A to point B should reduce
any overlapping, speed up farm operations and reduce required labour
time. Auto-steer technologies should therefore go some way to reducing
energy-input levels in industrial agriculture and save farmers money on
fuel costs. This should in turn limit the use of fossil fuels and carbon
emissions that contribute to climate change or global warming.
7. Telematics: Telematic systems offer a fully integrated system of surveil-
lance, control and command. Fleets of machines, equipment and imple-
ments can be remotely monitored and farm activities can be coordinated
from remote locations using satellite coordinates. A live stream of infor-
mation about field areas, activity types, working data (e.g. number of
straw bales produced per hour), moisture content, yield per unit area,
work hours, energy and fuel usage can be sent to an online database.
This database can be used to inform multiple operational command cen-
tres, such as a farm office or regional distribution centres. Furthermore,
real-time communications generated by sensor networks within
machines and equipment can send alerts to regional supply centres. For
instance, supply personnel can be forewarned about worn belts or faulty
parts. Following a ‘just-in-time’ production model, a repairperson and
spare parts can be dispatched to meet the farmer in the field prior to a
breakdown occurring, thereby reducing the amount of downtime experi-
enced during a harvest.
32
J. E. Addicott
References
AHDB. (2016). Interesting Times: Exceptional Surplus Masks Vulnerability in
Global Grain Markets. Available at https://cereals.ahdb.org.uk/press/2016/
october/18/interesting-times-exceptional-surplus-masks-vulnerabili-
ty-in-global-grain-markets.aspx.
Annells, M. (1996). Grounded Theory Method: Philosophical Perspectives,
Paradigm of Inquiry, and Postmodernism. Qualitative Health Research, 6,
379–393.
Arable Farming. (2016). Fendt’s Robot Vision of Farms of the Future. Arable
Farming, 41. Lancashire: Farmers Guardian.
Asafu-Adjaye, J., Blomqvist, L., Brand, S., et al. (2015). An Ecomodernist
Manifesto. http://www.ecomodernism.org.
BBC. (2014). Countryfile: Lancashire. Countryfile. UK: BBC.
Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.
Beck, U., Bonss, W., & Lau, C. (2003). The Theory of Reflexive
Modernization: Problematic, Hypotheses and Research Programme. Theory,
Culture & Society, 20, 1–33.
Benton, T. (1994). Biology and Social Theory in the Environmental Debate.
In T. Benton & M. Redclift (Eds.), Social Theory and the Global Enviroment.
London: Routledge.
Benton, T. (1996). The Greening of Marxism. New York: The Guilford Press.
Birks, M., & Mills, J. (2011). Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide. London:
Sage.
Blackmore, S. (2003). The Role of Yield Maps in Precision Farming. National
Soil Resources Institute, Cranfield University.
BSFP. (2016). The British Survey of Fertiliser Practice: Fertiliser Use on
Farm Crops for Crop Year 2015. In The United Kingdom Statistics
Authority (Ed.), National Statistics. BSFP. https://www.gov.uk/government/
collections/fertiliser-usage.
Callon, M. (1998). The Laws of the Markets. Oxford: Blackwell.
Castells, M. (1996). The Rise of the Network Society: The Information Age:
Economy, Society and Culture (Vol. 1). Oxford: Blackwell.
Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through
Qualitative Analysis. London: Sage.
CNH Industrial. (2016). The CNH Industrial Autonomous Tractor
Concept (Full Version). Available at https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=T7Os5Okf3OQ-t=70.
33
Defra. (2015a). Agriculture in the United Kingdom. UK Gov. https://www.gov.

uk/government/statistics/agriculture-in-the-united-kingdom-2015.
Defra. (2015b). Food Statistics Pocketbook 2015: In Year Update.
National Statistics. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/
food-statistics-pocketbook-2015.
Defra. (2016a) Farm Business Survey Rent Data for England by Region: 2008 to
2014. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/farm-rents.
Defra. (2016b). Fertiliser Usage on Farm, England 2014/15—Dataset.
In Defra (Ed.), Farm Business Survey. UK Gov. https://www.gov.uk/
government/collections/farm-business-survey-documents.
Defra. (2016c). Survey of Agriculture: Numbers of Commercial Holdings and
Land Areas/Livestock Numbers by Size Group: England (Defra, Ed.). UK
Gov. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/structure-of-the-
agricultural-industry-in-england-and-the-uk-at-june.
Defra. (2016d). UK Weekly Commodity PRICES: Cereals. https://www.gov.uk/
government/statistical-data-sets/commodity-prices.
Defra. (2017). Agriculture in the United Kingdom 2016. UK: National
Statistics.
Defra and The Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP. (2015). Hard-Working UK
Farmers Praised for Bumper Harvest. Farming and Food and Farming
Industry. UK Gov. http://www.gov.uk/government/news/hard-working-uk-
farmers-praised-for-bumper-harvest.
Dickens, P. (1996). Reconstructing Nature. London: Routledge.
Dickens, P. (2004). Society & Nature. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Duchy of Cornwall. (2016). Annual Report and Accounts: Year Ended 31st
March 2016. UK: Duchy of Cornwall.
Elder-Vass, D. (2012a). The Causal Power of Social Structures: Emergency,
Structure and Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Elder-Vass, D. (2012b). The Reality of Social Construction. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Enzensberger, H. M. (1996). A Critique of Political Ecology. In T. Benton
(Ed.), The Greening of Marxism. New York: The Guilford Press.
Foster, J. B., Clark, B., & York, R. (2010). The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War
or the Earth. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Geertz, C. (1988). Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
Giddens, A. (1990). The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press in
association with Blackwell.
34
J. E. Addicott
Giedion S. (2013 [1948]). Mechanization Takes Command: A Contribution to

Anonymous History. London: University of Minnesota Press.
Huber, J. (2004). New Technologies and Environmental Innovation.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Kline, R., & Pinch, T. (1996). Users as Agents of Technological Change:
The Social Construction of the Automobile in the Rural United States.
Technology and Culture, 37, 763–795.
Latour, B. (1993). We Have Never Been Modern. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester
Wheatsheaf.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Law, J. (1999). After ANT: Complexity, Naming and Topology. In J. Law
& J. Hassard (Eds.), Actor Network Theory and After. Oxford: Blackwell.
Leroy, A., Hiron, J.-C., & Cooper, O. (2016). The Digital Revolution Is
Making Its Mark. The Furrow, UK.
Lowenberg-DeBoer, J. (2015). The Precision Agriculture Revolution: Making
the Modern Farmer. Available at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/
united-states/2015-04-20/precision-agriculture-revolution.
Lyotard, J.-F. (1986). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
McLuhan, M. (2001). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London:
Routledge.
Ministry of Information. (2001). Land at War: The Official Story of British
Farming 1939–1944. London, UK: The Stationery Office.
Mol, A. P. J. (2003). Globalization and Environmental Reform: The Ecological
Modernization of the Global Economy. London: The MIT Press.
Mol, A. P. J. (2008). Environmental Reform in the Information Age: The Contours
of Informational Governance. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Moulier Boutang, Y. (2011). Cognitive Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
OpenAg. (2015). About OpenAg. Available at http://openag.media.mit.edu/
hardware/.
Paterson, O. (2019). Sorry Mr Gove, but Theresa May’s Brexit Deal Traps
Britain in the EU’s Failing Museum of Farming. The Telegraph, UK.
Pedersen, S. M., & Blackmore, S. B. (2008, August). Agricultural Robots—
Applications and Economic Perspectives. In Y. Takahashi (Ed.), Service
Robot Applications. Available from http://www.intechopen.com/
books/service_robot_applications/agricultural_robots_-_applications_and_
economic_perspectives.
Ruddick G. (2015). Farmers Clash with Police in Brussels During Milk
and Meat Prices Protest. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
overthrow of the Angles were, as we have seen, cordial and friendly.
In this work he appears to have been assisted by the family who had
already evangelised the rugged district termed the ‘Rough Bounds,’
as the churches dedicated to them and him are found adjacent to
each other. Among the northern Picts, Adamnan’s principal church
was that of Forglen on the east bank of the river Doveran, in which
the Brecbannoch, or banner of Columba, was preserved; and
separated from it by the same river is Turriff, dedicated to Comgan.
South of the range of the Mounth Adamnan’s most important
foundation was the monastery of Dull in the district of Atholl, which
was dedicated to him, and to which a very extensive territory was
annexed; and closely contiguous to it was the district of Glendochart,
with its monastery dedicated to Fillan, whose name is preserved in
Strathfillan. Fillan again appears in Pittenweem on the south coast of
the peninsula of Fife; and in the Firth of Forth which it bounds is
Inchkeith, ‘on which Saint Adamnan the abbot presided.’[349]
A.D. 704-717. Adamnan, though, as Bede says, a man of
Schism at Iona peace and providentially removed before the
after death of coming Easter, when matters would have been
Adamnan.
brought to a crisis between him and his
recalcitrant monks, seems notwithstanding to have left a legacy of
discord behind him. For the first time since the foundation of the
monastery of Iona, we find in the successor of Adamnan an abbot
who was not a descendant of Conall Gulban. Conmael, son of
Failbhe, was of the tribe of Airgialla in Ireland, who were descended
from Colla Uais; but three years after Adamnan’s death we find
Duncadh, who belonged to the tribe of the patron saint, obtaining the
abbacy. Then three years after we have the death of Conmael as
abbot of Iona. After his death appears Ceode, bishop of Iona, who
dies in 712, and in 713 Dorbeni obtains the chair of Iona, but after
five months’ possession of the primacy dies on Saturday the 28th of
October in the same year. During the whole of this time, however,
Duncadh is likewise abbot.[350] The explanation seems to be that the
community of Iona had become divided on the subject of the Easter
question, and that a party had become favourable to Adamnan’s
views. As he had not succeeded in bringing over any of the
Columban monasteries, they were driven to obtain an abbot
elsewhere, and procured the nomination of Conmael; while the
opposing party having got the upper hand three years after,
Duncadh, the legitimate successor of the line of Conall Gulban,
obtained the abbacy, and there was thus a schism in the community
—one section of them celebrating their Easter after the Roman
system, who had at their head Conmael, Ceode the bishop, and
Dorbeni; and the other and more powerful section maintaining, under
the presidency of Duncadh, the old custom of their church. After
narrating how ‘at that time,’ that is, in 710, ‘Naiton, king of the Picts
who inhabit the northern parts of Britain, taught by frequent study of
the ecclesiastical writings, renounced the error by which he and his
nation had till then been held in relation to the observance of Easter,
and submitted, together with his people, to celebrate the Catholic
time of our Lord’s resurrection,’ Bede closes his notices of the
monastery of Iona by telling us that ‘not long after, those monks also
of the Scottish nation who lived in the isle of Hii, with the other
monasteries that were subject to them, were, by the procurement of
our Lord, brought to the canonical observance of Easter and the right
mode of tonsure. For in the year after the incarnation of our Lord
716, the father and priest Ecgberct, beloved of God and worthy to be
named with all honour, coming to them from Ireland, was very
honourably and joyfully received by them. Being a most agreeable
teacher and most devout in practising those things which he taught,
he was willingly heard by all; and, by his pious and frequent
exhortations he converted them from the inveterate tradition of their
ancestors. He taught them to perform the principal solemnity after
the Catholic and apostolic manner;’ and Bede adds, ‘The monks of
Hii, by the instruction of Ecgberct, adopted the Catholic rites, under
Abbot Dunchad, about eighty years after they had sent Bishop Aidan
to preach to the nation of the Angles.’[351] It is rarely, however, that,
when a change is proposed in matters of faith or practice, a Christian
community is unanimous, and there is always an opposing minority
who refuse their assent to it. So it must have been here, for in the
same passage in which Tighernac notices the adoption of the
Catholic Easter in 716 he adds that Faelchu mac Dorbeni takes the
chair of Columba in the eighty-seventh year of his age, and on
Saturday the 29th of August; while he records the death of Abbot
Duncadh in the following year.[352] We have here again a schism in
the community; and no sooner does Abbot Duncadh with his
adherents go over to the Roman party, than the opposing section
adopt a new abbot.
A.D. 717 The greater part, if not the whole, of the
Expulsion of the dependent monasteries among the Picts seem to
Columban monks have resisted the change, and to have refused
from the kingdom
obedience to the decree which Bede tells us King
of the Picts.
Naiton had issued, when ‘the cycles of nineteen
years were forthwith by public command sent throughout all the
provinces of the Picts to be transcribed, learned and observed;’ for
we are told by Tighernac that in 717, when Abbot Duncadh had died
and Faelchu remained alone in possession of the abbacy, the family
of Iona were driven across Drumalban by King Naiton. In other
words, the whole of the Columban monks were expelled from his
kingdom;[353] and there is reason to think that Faelchu had been at
the head of one of these dependent monasteries in the territories of
the northern Picts.[354] It is possible that the monks of the
monasteries recently established among the southern Picts by
Adamnan may have conformed; but those of the older foundations,
such as Abernethy and Cillrigmonadh, or St. Andrews, were
probably driven out; and thus with the expulsion of the family of Iona
terminated the primacy of its monastery over the monasteries and
churches in the extensive districts of the east and north of Scotland
which formed at that time the kingdom of the Picts.
252. Exceptis duobus populis, hoc est, Pictorum plebs et

Scotorum Britanniæ, inter quos utrosque Dorsi montes Britannici
disterminant.... Cujus (Columbæ) monasteria intra utrorumque
populorum terminos fundata ab utrisque ad præsens tempus valde
sunt honorificata.—B. ii. c. 47·
253. For an account of the remains on this island, see p. 97.
254. See Dr. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, App. I. p. 306.
255. Adamnan, B. ii. 23, 25.
256. Ib., B. i. cc. 24, 41; B. ii. c. 15; B. iii. c. 8. See ed. 1874,
Appendix I., for an account of the monasteries in Tiree.
257. Ib., B. i. c. 29.
258. Ib., B. i. c. 35.
259. Adamnan, B. i. c. 15.
260. Ib., B. i. c. 24.
261. See Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, App. No. I., for an
account of the remains on this island.
262. Vit. S. Kannechi, cc. 19, 27, 28.
263. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 17; i. 25; ii. 32.
264. See the edition of 1874, p. 274, for a description of these
ruins in Skye.
265. 592 Obitus Lugdach Lissmoir .i. Moluoc.—Chron. Picts and
Scots, p. 67.
266. Colgan, Tr. Th., p. 481. Obits of Christ Church, Dublin, p. 65.
267. Colgan, A.SS., p. 233.
268. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. 293.
269. Cetrar for coicait lotar hi martrai la Donnan Ega.
270. Book of Deer, published by the Spalding Club in 1869, p. 91.
271. 584 Mors Bruidhe mac Maelchon Rig Cruithneach.—Chron.
Picts and Scots, p. 67.
272. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 34.
273. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 201. Constantin reigned from 790
to 820 and Gartnaidh from 584 to 599, which places the foundation
of Abernethy during the ten years from 584 to 596.
274. Amra Columcille, by O’Beirne Crowe, pp. 29, 63.
275. Introduction to Obits of Christ Church, by Dr. Todd, p. lxxvii.
276. Vit. S. Cainneci in Archbishop Marsh’s Library, Dublin, cap.
19. The Breviary of Aberdeen gives his festival as ‘Sancti Caynici
abbatis qui in Kennoquy in diocesi Sancti Andree pro patrono
habetur.’—Pars Æstiv. for cxxv.
277. Blaan is mentioned in the Martyrology of Angus the Culdee,
at 10th August as ‘Blann the wild of Cinngaradh;’ and the gloss adds,
‘i.e. bishop of Cinngaradh, i.e. Dumblaan is his chief city, and he is
also of Cinngaradh in the Gall-Gaedelu, or Western Isles.’—Int. to
Obits of Christ Church, p. lxviii.
278. Adamnan, B. i. c. 3. Alither became fourth abbot of
Clonmacnois on 12th June 585, and died in 599.—Reeves’s
Adamnan, orig. ed., p. 24, note.
279. Adamnan, B. iii. c. 23.
280. This little hill is twice mentioned by Adamnan. In B. i. c. 24,
he describes the saint as ‘in cacumine sedens montis qui nostro huic
monasterio eminus supereminet;’ and on this occasion he has
‘monticellum monasterio supereminentum ascendens in vertice ejus
paululum stetit.’ If the monastery and Columba’s cell have been
rightly placed, it must have been the rocky knoll behind Clachanach
called Cnoc an bristeclach.
281. Vit. Columbæ, autore Cummenio, apud Pinkerton, Vitæ
Sanctorum, cc. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. Adamnan, B. iii. c. 24.
Cummene’s account is enlarged by Adamnan, and he has added the
visit to the barn and the incident of the white horse; but, as
Cummene wrote so much earlier, it has been thought desirable to
discriminate between the two accounts.
282. Adamnan’s word is ‘Ratabusta,’ an unknown word either in
classical or mediæval Latin; and it appears to have puzzled the
transcribers, as other MSS. read ‘Rata busta’ ‘Intra busta,’ ‘In rata
tabeta.’ The Bollandists propose ‘Catabusta.’ Bustum is used for a
sepulchre; and Ducange has Busticeta, which he defines ‘sepulchra
antiqua,’ ‘sepulchra in agro.’ Dr. Reeves thinks it is used here for a
coffin.
283. This frequently happens when the wind blows strongly from
the south-west.
284. St. Columba’s day was the 9th of June, and the year on
which he died is determined by the consideration of whether he must
be held to have died on Saturday evening or on Sunday morning. If
on Sunday, then the 9th of June fell on a Sunday in the year 597. If
on Saturday, then the 9th of June fell on a Saturday in 596. The
former is most consistent with Adamnan’s narrative, who places his
death after midnight, and states the duration of his life in Iona at 34
years, which, added to 563, gives us the year 597. Bede’s
statement, though made on different data, brings us to the same
year. He brings him over in 565, but gives 32 years as the duration of
his life after, which also brings us to 597. Tighernac seems to have
adopted the other view, for he says that he died on the eve of
Whitsunday, ‘in nocte Dominica Pentecosten,’ and Whitsunday fell
on the 10th of June 596; but this is inconsistent with his other
statement, that he came over to Britain in 563, and died in the thirty-
fifth year of his pilgrimage, which brings us to 597.
285. Montalembert’s Monks of the West, vol. iii. p. 269.
Montalembert accepts the whole of O’Donnel’s biography of St.
Columba as true.
286. Adamnan, Pref. 2. His expression ‘insulanus miles’ has been
entirely misunderstood by Montalembert.
287. Amra Choluimchille, by O’Beirne Crowe, pp. 27, 39, 49, 51,
53, 65.
288. Ib., p. 39.
289. Adamnan, B. i. c. 29.
290. Amra Choluimchille, pp. 43, 45.
291. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 14.
292. Bede, Η. E., B. iii. c. 3.
293. Bede seems to refer to this when he says, ‘in quibus omnibus
idem monasterium insulanum, in quo ipse requiescit corpore,
principatum teneret.’—B. iii. c. 4.
294. The expression, ‘whatever kind of person he was himself,’—
verum qualiscumque fuerit ipse,—has been held to imply that Bede
had no great opinion of St. Columba’s sanctity, or, at all events,
referred to traits in his character which were unfavourable, and Dr.
Reeves suggests that he may refer to current stories of the saint’s
imperious and vindictive temper; but the expression appears to the
author to refer to the immediately preceding sentence—‘de cujus vita
et verbis nonnulla a discipulis ejus feruntur scripta haberi’—which
surely refers to the Lives by Cummene and Adamnan. As Bede was
acquainted with Adamnan’s work on the Holy Places, he could
hardly have been ignorant of his Life of St. Columba; and probably
all Bede meant to express was that he had some hesitation in
accepting as true all that Adamnan said of him.
295. Adamnan, B. i. c. 2. It is unnecessary to follow Finten’s
proceedings further. He is the Finten, surnamed Munnu, who
founded Tach Munnu, now Taghmon, in Ireland, and to whom the
churches of St. Mund in Lochleven and Kilmund in Cowal were
dedicated.
296. 598 Quies Baethin abbatis Ea anno lxvi etatis sue.—Tigh.
Tighernac antedates the deaths of Columba and Baithene one year.
The Martyrology of Donegal records two anecdotes of him. ‘When he
used to eat food, he was wont to say Deus in adjutorium meum
intende between every two morsels. When he used to be gathering
corn along with the monks, he held one hand up beseeching God,
and another hand gathering corn.’—Mart. Don. p. 165.
297. Bede, Η. E., B. ii. c. 4.
298. 605 Obitus Laisreni abbatis Iae.—Tigh.
300. 611 Neman Abbas Lesmoir.—Tigh. 617 Combustio Donnain
Ega hi xv kalendas Mai cum clericis martiribus.—Tigh. Chron. Picts
and Scots, pp. 68, 69.
301. Dr. Reeves’s Adamnan, 1874, p. 294.
302. Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 168. Bishop Forbes’s Calendars,
p. 449.
303. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 1.
304. 623 Bass Fergna abbas Iae.—Tigh.
305. Bede, Η. E., B. ii. c. 14.
306. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. ii. c. 17.
307. Ib., B. iii. c. 3.
309. ‘Hanc mihi Adamnano narrationem meus decessor, noster
abbas Failbeus, indubitanter enarravit, qui se ab ore ipsius Ossualdi
regis Segineo abbati eamdem enuntiantis visionem audisse
protestatus est.’—Adamnan, B. i. c. 1.
310. 632 Inis Metgoit fundata est.—Tigh. Tighernac antedates at
this period transactions in Northumbria by about three years.
311. Bede in Vit. S. Cudbercti, c. xvi.
313. The title of the letter is—‘In nomine Divino Dei summi confido.
Dominis sanctis et in Christo venerandis Segieno abbati, Columbæ
Sancti et cæterorum sanctorum successori, Beccanoque solitario,
charo carne et spiritu fratri, cum suis sapientibus, Cummianus
supplex peccator, magnis minimus, apologeticam in Christo
salutem.’
314. The letter is printed at length in Usher’s Veterum Epistolarum
Hibernicarum Sylloge, p. 24, and in Migne’s Patrologia, vol. xxxviii.
315. According to the Irish method Easter in 631 fell on 21st April,
according to the Roman on the 24th of March.
317. Ib., B. iii. c. 3.
318. Keating’s History of Ireland, cap. ii. § 7.
319. 635 Seigine abbas Ie ecclesiam Recharnn fundavit. Eocha
abbas Lismoir quievit.—Tigh.
321. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iii. c. 17. 651 Quies Aidain episcopi Saxan.
—Tigh.
322. 652 Obitus Seghine abbas Iea .i. filii Fiachna.—Tigh.
657 Quies Suibne mic Cuirthre abbatis Iea.—Tigh.
324. 660 Obitus Finain mac Rimeda episcopi et Daniel episcopi
Cindgaradh.
661 Cuimine abbas ad Hiberniam venit.—Tigh.
325. Bede, H. E., B. iii. c. 25.
327. Ib., c. 26.
329. Ib., B. iv. c. 4.
A.D. 668 Navigatio Colmani episcop cum reliquiis sanctorum ad
insulam vacce albe in qua fundavit ecclesiam.—Tigh.
331. A.D. 669 Obitus Cumaine Ailbe abbatis Iea. Itharnan et
Corindu apud Pictores defuncti sunt.—Tigh.
332. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. iv. c. 3.
333. Eddii Vit. S. Wilf., c. xxi.
334. A.D. 671 Maelruba in Britanniam navigat.
A.D. 673 Maelruba fundavit ecclesiam Aporcrosan.—Tigh.
335. A.D. 673 Navigatio Failbe abbatis Iea in Hiberniam. A.D. 676
Failbe de Hibernia revertitur.—Tigh.
336. Bishop Forbes, Scottish Calendars, pp. 310-341.
337. Dr. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. 296.
338. A.D. 674 Quies Failbe abbatis Iea. Dormitatio Nechtain.—Tigh.
He appears in the Felire of Angus on 8th January as Nechtain Nair
de albae, which is glossed Anair de Albain—from the east, from
Alban.
339. A.D. 687 Adamnanus captivos reduxit ad Hiberniam lx.—Tigh.
Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. cli. Adamnan alludes to this
mission, B. ii. c. 1.
340. Adamnan, B. ii. c. 46. Boece states that the monastery was
rebuilt by Maelduin, king of Dalriada, whose death is recorded by
Tighernac in 690. He therefore reigned at the very time when
Adamnan was abbot, and this fixes the date of these repairs as
between 687 and 690.
341. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 15. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p.
clxi.
342. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 15.
343. Ib. c. 21. He calls him ‘Abbas et sacerdos Columbiensium
egregius.’
344. A.D. 689 Iolan episcopus Cindgaradh obiit. 692 Adamnanus
xiiii annis post pausam Failbe Ea ad Hiberniam pergit.—Tigh. See
Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 408.
345. Dr. Reeves’s Adamnan, ed. 1874, p. clvi. A.D. 697 Adamnan
tuc recht lecsa in Erind an bliadhna seo (brought a law with him this
year to Ireland).—Tigh.
346. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 15.
347. A.D. 704 Adamnanus lxxvii anno ætatis suæ, in nonas
kalendis Octobris, abbas Ie, pausat.—Tigh.
348. See Adamnan, Pref. i. and B. i. c. 3. Dr. Reeves considers
that it was written between the years 692 and 697, but it was more
probably compiled immediately after his return from England in 688,
and before his visit to Ireland in 692.
349. ‘Inchekethe, in qua præfuit Sanctus Adamnanus abbas.’—
Scotichronicon, B. i. c. 6.
350. A.D. 707 Dunchadh principatum Iae tenuit.—Tigh.
710 Conmael mac abbatis Cilledara Iae pausat.—Tigh.
712 Ceode episcopus Iea pausat.—Tigh.
713 Dorbeni cathedram Iae obtinuit, et v. mensibus peractis in
primatu v kalendis Novembris die Sabbati obiit.—Tigh. The 28th day
of October fell on a Saturday in the year 713. The passage recording
the death of Conmael is corrupt.
351. Bede, Hist. Ec., B. v. c. 22.
352. A.D. 716 Pasca in Eo civitate commotatur. Faelchu mac
Doirbeni cathedram Columbæ lxxxvii ætatis anno, in iiii kal.
Septembris die Sabbati suscepit.—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 73.
The 29th day of August fell on a Saturday in the year 716.
A.D. 717 Dunchadh mac Cindfaeladh abbas Ie obiit.—Ib. p. 74.
353. A.D. 717 Expulsio familiæ Ie trans dorsum Britanniæ a
Nectono rege.—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 74.
354. In the Breviary of Aberdeen is the legend of S. Volocus,
patron saint of Dunmeth and Logy in Mar, both in Aberdeenshire.
Volocus is the Latin form of Faelchu, as Vigeanus is of Fechin,
Vynanus of Finan, and Virgilius of Fergal.
MAP
illustrating History of
MONASTIC CHURCH
prior to 8th. Century
J. Bartholomew, Edin.
CHAPTER V.
THE CHURCHES OF CUMBRIA AND LOTHIAN.
A.D.573. Ten years after the landing of St. Columba in

Battle of Ardderyd. Iona the great battle of Ardderyd, or Arthuret, was
Rydderch Hael fought between the pagan and the Christian
becomes king of
parties in Cumbria; and the same year which saw
Strathclyde.
Aidan, who had taken part in it, inaugurated by
St. Columba as independent king of Dalriada, likewise witnessed the
establishment of another of the chiefs who fought in that battle,
Rydderch Hael, or the Liberal, as Christian king of Strathclyde, and
the restoration of a Christian Church to its Cumbrian population. As
Columba was the founder of the Christian Church among the
northern Picts, so Kentigern was the great agent in the revolution
which again christianised Cumbria. We are not, however, so
fortunate in the biographers of Kentigern as we are in those of
Columba. While those of the latter lived when the memory of his
words and acts was still fresh in the minds of his followers, Kentigern
found no one to record the events of his life till upwards of five
centuries had elapsed after his death. A fragment of the life which
had been used by John of Fordun and a complete biography by
Jocelyn of Furness are all we possess, but neither of them was
compiled before the twelfth century.[355]
Oldest account of The older life, of which a fragment only
birth of Kentigern. remains, states that ‘a certain king Leudonus, a
man half pagan, from whom the province over which he ruled in
northern Britannia obtained the name of Leudonia, had a daughter
under a stepmother, and the daughter’s name was Thaney.’ This girl,
having become Christian, ‘meditated upon the virginal honour and
maternal blessedness of the most holy Virgin Mary,’ and desired, like
her, to bring forth one who would be for the honour and salvation of
her nation in these northern parts. She ‘had a suitor, Ewen, the son
of Erwegende, sprung from a most noble stock of the Britons,’ but
she refused to marry him; upon which the king her father gave her
the alternative of either marrying him or being handed over to the
care of a swineherd, and she chose the latter. The swineherd was
secretly a Christian, having been converted by Servanus, a disciple
of Palladius, and respected her wishes. Her suitor Ewen, however,
succeeded by a stratagem in violating her in a wood, and she
became with child, upon which her father ordered her to be stoned
according to the laws of the country; but as none of the officers
presumed to cast stones at one of the royal family, she was taken to
the top of a hill called Kepduf and precipitated from it; having made
the sign of the cross, however, she came down to the foot of the
mountain unhurt. The king then ordered her to be given over to the
sea, saying, ‘If she be worthy of life, her God will free her from the
peril of death, if He so will.’ They brought her, therefore, to the firth,
which is about three miles from Kepduf, to the mouth of a river called
Aberlessic, where she was put into a curach, that is, a boat made of
hides, and carried out into deep water beyond the Isle of May. She
remained all night alone in the midst of the sea, and when morning
dawned she was in safety cast on the sand at Culenros, which,
according to sailors’ computation, is thirty miles distant from the Isle
of May. Here she suffered the pains of labour; and, as she lay on the
ground, suddenly a heap of ashes which the day before had been
gathered together close to the shore by some shepherds, was struck
by a gust of the north wind, which scattered around her the sparks
which lay hid within it. When, therefore, she had found the fire, the
pregnant young woman dragged herself at once, as best she could,
to the place indicated by God, and in her extreme necessity, with
anxious groans, she made a little heap with the wood which had
been collected the day before by the foresaid shepherds to prepare
the fire. Having lighted the fire, she brought forth a son, the chamber
of whose maturity was as rude as that of his conception. Some herds
found her there with the child, and while some gave her food, others
went straight to the blessed Servanus, who at that time was teaching
the Christian law to his clerics, with one accord saying, ‘Sir, thus and
thus have we found;’ to whom the saint said, A Dia cur fir sin, which
in Latin means ‘O utinam si sic esset,’[356] and the youths replied,
‘Yea, father, it is a true tale and no fable which we tell; therefore we
pray you, sir, come and see, that thy desire may without delay be
satisfied;’ and he also, when he had learnt the order of the events,
rejoiced with great joy, and said, ‘Thanks be to God, for he shall be
my dear one.’ For as the child was being born, when he was in his
oratory after morning lauds, he had heard on high the Gloria in
excelsis being solemnly sung. And after an address to his clerics, in
which he vindicates the manner in which the conception of the
blessed Kentigern had taken place, and ‘praises Him who alone
governeth the world, and hath, among others, blessed our country
Britain with such a patron,’ this fragment unfortunately terminates.[357]
Jocelyn’s account Jocelyn, whose narrative, as the Bishop of
of his birth. Brechin well observes, is here directed at
undoing the weird legend of the earlier life, which gives the
unedifying account of the conception of Kentigern, does not name
either father or daughter. He calls Kentigern’s mother simply ‘the
daughter of a certain king, most pagan in his creed, who ruled in the
northern parts of Britannia.’ Neither does he name the suitor who
betrayed her, but declares that she had no consciousness by whom,
when, or in what manner she conceived, and had possibly been
drugged. He states that, according to the law of the country, any girl
in her situation was to be cast down from the summit of a high
mountain, and her betrayer beheaded; that she was taken to the top
of a high hill called Dunpelder, and was cast down, but came to the
bottom uninjured; that she was then taken out to sea by the king’s
servants, and placed in a little boat of hides made after the fashion of
the Scots, without any oar, and, ‘the little vessel in which the
pregnant girl was detained ploughed the watery breakers and eddies
of the waves towards the opposite shore more quickly than if
propelled by a wind that filled the sail, or by the effort of many
oarsmen;’ that the girl landed on the sands at a place called
Culenros, in which place at that time Servanus dwelt, and taught
sacred literature to many boys who went to be trained to the divine
service. The birth then takes place as in the other narrative, and they
are brought and presented to Servanus, who ‘in the language of his
country exclaimed, Mochohe, Mochohe, which in Latin means “Care
mi, Care mi,” adding, Blessed art thou that hast come in the name of
the Lord. He therefore took them to himself, and nourished and
educated them as if they were his own pledges. After certain days
had passed, he dipped them in the laver of regeneration and
restoration, and anointed them with the sacred chrism, calling the
mother Taneu and the child Kyentyern, which by interpretation is
Capitalis Dominus.’ He then educates him, and the gifts of grace
manifested by the boy were so great that ‘he was accustomed to call
him, in the language of his country, Munghu, which in Latin means
Karrissimus Amicus.’[358] Kentigern is brought up by Servanus, and
the usual boyish miracles are recorded as evidences of his sanctity,
till, having excited the jealousy and hatred of his fellow-students, he
resolves, under Divine guidance of course, to leave the place. He
accordingly retreated secretly, and ‘journeying arrived at the Frisican
shore, where the river, by name Mallena, overpassing its banks
when the tide flows in, took away all hope of crossing;’ but the river
is miraculously divided to enable him to pass, the tide flowing back
so that the waters of the sea and of the river stood as walls on his
right hand and on his left. He then crosses a little arm of the sea
near a bridge, which by the inhabitants is called Servanus’s bridge;
and on looking back, he saw that the waters had not only flowed
back and filled the channel of the Mallena, but were overflowing the
bridge and denying a passage to any one. Servanus, who had
followed in pursuit of the fugitive, stood above on the bank and
endeavoured to persuade him to return, but without success; and
‘having mutually blessed each other, they were divided one from the
other, and never looked in each other’s face again in this world. And
the place by which Kentigern crossed became after that entirely
impassable; for that bridge, always after that covered by the waves
of the sea, afforded to no one any longer means of transit. Even the
Mallena altered the force of its current from the proper place, and
from that day to this turned back its channel into the river Ledone; so
that forthwith the rivers which till then had been separate from each
other now became mingled and united.’ Kentigern passes the night
at a town called Kernach, where he finds an old man, Fregus, on his
death-bed, who dies in the night; and ‘next morning Kentigern,
having yoked two untamed bulls to a new wain, in which he placed
the body whence the spirit had departed, and having prayed in the
name of the Lord, enjoined upon the brute beasts to carry the burden
placed upon them to the place which the Lord had provided for it.
And in truth the bulls, in no way resisting or disobeying the voice of
Kentigern, came by a straight road, along which there was no path,
as far as Cathures, which is now called Glasgu’, and halted near a
certain cemetery which had long before been consecrated by Saint
Ninian. Here Kentigern lives for some time; and then ‘the king and
clergy of the Cumbrian region, with other Christians, albeit they were
few in number, came together and, after taking into consideration
what was to be done to restore the good estate of the church, which
was well-nigh destroyed, they with one consent approached
Kentigern, and elected him, in spite of his many remonstrances and
strong resistance, to be the shepherd and bishop of their souls;’ and
‘having called one bishop from Ireland, after the manner of the
Britons and Scots of that period, they caused Kentigern to be
consecrated bishop.’[359]
Anachronism in Such is the substance of these narratives; and
connecting St. here we are met, at the very outset, by a great
Servanus with St. anachronism. Along with the lives of Kentigern
Kentigern.
there is found a life of Servanus, in which he is
made the founder of the church of Culenros; but there is not one
syllable about his having been the master of Kentigern, or in any way
connected with him, but the whole events of his life, as there given,
indisputably place him, as we shall afterwards see, nearly two
centuries later.[360] In spite, therefore, of the statements of his
biographers and of the belief of popular tradition, the only conclusion
we can come to is that Servanus and St. Kentigern were divided by a
more impassable barrier than the river Mallena—the stream of time,
and that they had never looked in each other’s face at all. The
scenery, however, of the narrative can be easily identified. The hill
called in the one narrative Kepduf, and in the other Dunpelder, is
Traprain Law, formerly called Dumpender Law, in the county of
Haddington. It is an isolated hill and, along with North Berwick Law,
forms a conspicuous object in the landscape. It is about 700 feet
above the level of the sea, and on the south side it is nearly
perpendicular. It is distant about seven or eight miles from Aberlady
Bay, the Aberlessic of the older narrative. Culenros is Culross, on the
north shore of the Firth of Forth, here called the Frisican shore, as
the Forth itself is called by Nennius the Frisican Sea. The names of
the two rivers Mallena and Ledone are simply the Latin terms for the
flood and ebb tide, but the course of the two rivers, the Teith and the
Forth, seems to have suggested the legend. They run nearly parallel
to each other till they approach within three miles of Stirling, when
the southern of the two rivers, the Forth, takes a sudden bend to the
north, as if it would flow backwards, and discharges its waters into
the Teith, the two forming one river, but adopting the name of the
former. Kernach is Carnock, in the parish of Saint Ninian’s in
Stirlingshire.
Earlier notices of If, however, that part of the legend which
St. Kentigern. introduces Servanus must be rejected, the
remainder derives some support from the old Welsh documents. In
the Triads of Arthur and his Warriors, which are undoubtedly old, the
first is termed ‘Three tribe thrones of the island of Prydain;’ and the
third of the tribe thrones is ‘Arthur, the chief lord at Penrionyd in the
north, and Cyndeyrn Garthwys, the chief bishop, and Garthmwl
Guledic, the chief elder.’[361] The chronology of the life of Kentigern is
not inconsistent with that which here connects him with the historic
Arthur, and the epithet Guledic, which was applied to the chief
among the Cymric kings of the north, gives us Garthmwl as the
name of the king of the district in which Glasgow was situated. In the
Bonedd y Seint ynys Prydain, or Pedigrees of the Saints of Britain,
we find the following pedigree: ‘Kyndeyrn Garthwys, son of Ywein,
son of Urien Reged, son of Cynfarch, son of Meirchiawngul, son of
Grwst Ledlwm, son of Cenau, son of Coel; and Dwynwen, daughter
of Ladden Lueddog of the city of Edwin (Ddinas Edwin, or
Edinburgh), in the north, was his mother.’[362] We have seen that prior
to this period Monenna had founded a church on the summit of
Dunpelder, in which she established nuns;[363] and it is possible that
Dwynwen or Taneu may have been one of these nuns, who, by the
violation of her religious vow, had incurred the sentence of being
exposed in a curach in the adjacent firth. There is nothing impossible
in a small boat being driven before an east wind as far as Culross;
and certain it is that on the shore where she is said to have landed
there was a small chapel dedicated to Kentigern.[364] We learn from
the narrative that there had been an earlier church at Glasgow
founded by Ninian, which Kentigern may have restored, and he
makes his appearance in the martyrologies in the ninth century as
‘Saint Kentigern, Bishop of Glasgow and Confessor.’[365]
Kentigern driven Jocelyn, after describing Kentigern’s mode of
to Wales. life and how he spread the faith of Christ in his
diocese, tells us that, ‘a considerable time having elapsed, a certain
tyrant, by name Morken, had ascended the throne of the Cumbrian
kingdom,’ who ‘scorned and despised the life and doctrine of the
man of God in much slandering, in public resisting him from time to
time, putting down his miraculous power to magical illusion, and
esteeming as nothing all that he did.’ But after a time Morken dies
and is buried in the royal town, which from him was called Thorp
Morken. ‘After this,’ says Jocelyn, ‘for many days he enjoyed great
peace and quiet, living in his own city of Glasgow, and going through
his diocese;’ but, ‘when some time had passed, certain sons of
Belial, a generation of vipers of the kin of the aforenamed King
Morken, excited by the sting of intense hatred and infected with the
poison of the devil, took counsel together how they might lay hold of
Kentigern by craft and put him to death.’ In consequence of this
Kentigern resolved to leave the north and proceed to Menevia in
South Wales, now Saint David’s, where St. David then ruled as
bishop. The Morken here mentioned is probably one of the kings
termed Morcant by Nennius; and it is quite in accordance with the
history of the period that the increasing power of the pagan party in
the northern districts of Cumbria should have driven Kentigern from
Glasgow and forced him to take refuge in Wales. Jocelyn describes
him as proceeding by Carlisle, and says that, ‘having heard that
many among the mountains were given to idolatry or ignorant of the
divine law, he turned aside, and, God helping him and confirming the
word by signs following, converted to the Christian religion many
from a strange belief, and others who were erroneous in the faith.’
‘He remained some time in a certain thickly-planted place, to confirm
and comfort in the faith the men that dwelt there, where he erected a
cross as the sign of the faith, whence it took the name of, in English,
Crossfeld, that is, Crucis Novale, in which very locality a basilica,
recently erected, is dedicated to the name of the blessed Kentigern.’
Jocelyn then tells us that, ‘turning aside from thence, the saint
directed his steps by the sea-shore, and through all his journey
scattering the seed of the Divine Word, gathered in a plentiful and
fertile harvest unto the Lord. At length safe and sound he reached
Saint Dewi.’
Kentigern founds St. David was, as we have already seen, one
the monastery of of the great founders of the monastic church; and
Llanelwy in Wales. Kentigern had not been long with him when he
applied to the king for land to build a monastery, where he might
unite together a people acceptable to God and devoted to good
works; and the king, whom Jocelyn calls Cathwallain, allowed him to
choose his own place. Kentigern, ‘with a great crowd of his disciples
along with him, went round the land and walked throughout it
exploring the situations of the localities, the quality of the air, the
richness of the soil, the sufficiency of the meadows, pastures and
woods, and the other things that look to the convenience of a
monastery to be erected;’ and is finally conducted by a white boar ‘to
the bank of a river called Elgu, from which to this day, as it is said,
the town takes its name.’ Here he commenced to construct his
monastery; ‘some cleared and levelled the situation, others began to
lay the foundation of the ground thus levelled; some cutting down
trees, others carrying them and others fitting them together,
commenced, as the father had measured and marked out for them to
build a church and its offices of polished wood, after the fashion of
the Britons, seeing that they could not yet build of stone, nor were so
wont to do.’[366] Here we are treading on somewhat firmer ground.
The monastery described is that of Llanelwy, afterwards called St.
Asaph’s. It is in the vale of Clwyd, at the junction of the river Elwy
with the Clwyd, a name possibly given to it by Kentigern from some
fancied resemblance to the river and valley in the north where he
had his original seat; and the Red Book of St. Asaph’s records
several grants made to Kentigern by Maelgwyn Gwyned, the king of
North Wales at this time.[367]
The description given by Jocelyn of the construction of the
monastery is probably not an inapt account of how these early Irish
monasteries were erected; and indeed it may be considered a type
of the larger monasteries, for Jocelyn tells us, ‘There flocked to the
monastery old and young, rich and poor, to take upon themselves
the easy yoke and light burden of the Lord. Nobles and men of the
middle class brought to the saint their children to be trained unto the
Lord. The tale of those who renounced the world increased day by
day both in number and importance, so that the total number of
those enlisted in God’s army amounted to 965, professing in act and
habit the life of monastic rule, according to the institution of the holy
man. He divided this troop, that had been collected together and
devoted to the divine service, into a threefold division of religious
observance. For he appointed three hundred, who were unlettered,
to the duty of agriculture, the care of the cattle, and the other
necessary duties outside the monastery. He assigned another three
hundred to duties within the enclosure of the monastery, such as
doing the ordinary work and preparing food and building workshops.
The remaining three hundred and sixty-five, who were lettered, he
appointed to the celebration of divine service in church by day and
by night; and he seldom allowed any of these to go forth out of the
sanctuary, but they were ever to abide within, as if in the holy place
of the Lord. But those who were more advanced in wisdom and
holiness and who were fitted to teach others, he was accustomed to
take along with him when, at the urgent demand either of necessity
or reason, he thought fit to go forth to perform his episcopal
office.’[368] Allowing for some exaggeration in the numbers of those in
the second and third divisions, this is probably a very correct picture
of the monasteries in the early monastic church of Ireland and
Scotland when the head of the monastery was also a bishop.
A.D. 573. After some account of Kentigern’s life at his
Rydderch Hael monastery in North Wales, Jocelyn returns to the
becomes king of north in order to ‘show what his adversaries
Cumbria and
suffered, how he returned to the Cumbrian
recalls Kentigern.
region, and what he did there.’ He tells us, after
an imaginative account of the fate of those who had driven out
Kentigern, that, ‘when the time of having mercy had arrived, that the
Lord might remove the rod of his fierce anger and that they should
turn unto Him and He should heal them, He raised up over the
Cumbrian kingdom a king, Rederech by name, who, having been
baptized in Ireland in the most Christian manner by the disciples of
Saint Patrick, sought the Lord with all his heart and strove to restore
Christianity.’ ‘Wherefore,’ continues Jocelyn, ‘King Rederech, seeing

The Precision Farming Revolution Global Drivers Of Local Agricultural Methods 1St Ed 2020 Edition James E Addicott full chapter pdf docx

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Precision Farming Revolution Global Drivers Of Local Agricultural Methods 1St Ed 2020 Edition James E Addicott full chapter pdf docx

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Precision Farming Revolution:

Global Drivers of Local Agricultural

The Global History of Organic Farming Gregory A. Barton

The Eukaryotic RNA Exosome: Methods and Protocols 1st

The Digital Agricultural Revolution : Innovations and

Digital Strategies in a Global Market: Navigating the

Financing the Apocalypse: Drivers for Economic and

The Praxis of Diversity 1st ed. 2020 Edition Christoph

Abeloff’s Clinical Oncology 6th 2020 John E.

The Palgrave Handbook of Agricultural and Rural

ISBN 978-981-13-9685-4 ISBN 978-981-13-9686-1 (eBook)

Cover image: James E. Addicott

Precision farming systems were marketed to local farmers on their abil-

Bath, UK James E. Addicott

Gerald & Rosaline Addicott

1 The Precision Farming Revolution 1

4 Cultural methods 131

5 Society and Nature 177

6 Farming futures 213

Fig. 1.1 ‘Farm Forward’: set somewhere in the future, an America

Fig. 2.1 A 100-year-old photo taken within the fields of one

1.1 Old and New Farming

Night ploughing, though never a very common practice, developed,

© The Author(s) 2020 1

Human labour power, and labour capacities such as knowledge and

into a new phase of development (Giddens 1990; Beck 1992; Beck

Coming from a family farming background, with an interest in the

1.2 Grounded Research

(Lyotard 1986). Monolithic theories of ‘A Revolution’ or ‘The Future of

In many ways the research discussed in this book offered a descrip-

way of describing or mapping out trade and distribution networks,

1.3 Precision Farming

1. Precision Farming is a management process, not a technology

A leading precision farming expert, Simon Blackmore (2003) from Harper

medicine, precision breeding, precision irrigation or precision pruning,

Free versions of precision farming are also available to download

and drones to farms. The same coordination networks deliver ‘telem-

inputs of seeds or agrochemicals, applying more where needed, less

or ‘MARS’ project aims to ‘increase the efficiency of farming tasks by

strategy of building upward, rather than outward, may be key to eco-

1.4 Field Research

of knowledge that could be explored using qualitative social research

jointly investing into higher capacity farm equipment. Of the eleven

such as expanding land areas, contract farming, diversification projects

of which farming contributed 56 million tonnes Defra (2015b: pp. 6,

whilst fertiliser spreading. Identifying different soil zones and measuring

Some precision farming software packages used with variable-rate plans

can be visualised as an image or yield map. Such data should indicate

autonomous automobiles or ‘Google Cars’. A radio receiver positioned

Defra. (2015a). Agriculture in the United Kingdom. UK Gov. https://www.gov.

Giedion S. (2013 [1948]). Mechanization Takes Command: A Contribution to

252. Exceptis duobus populis, hoc est, Pictorum plebs et

THE CHURCHES OF CUMBRIA AND LOTHIAN.

A.D.573. Ten years after the landing of St. Columba in

You might also like

1.1 Old and New Farming

1.2 Grounded Research

1.3 Precision Farming

1.4 Field Research