Chelsea Green commissions 'timely book' on protecting right to farm by Smaje

Chelsea Green has commissioned “timely polemic challenging the move to factory-produced food and why we must protect our right to farm”. 

Muna Reyal, head of editorial, acquired world rights, all languages, to Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future by Chris Smaje directly from the author. The book will launch at Groundswell, the UK’s biggest regenerative agriculture festival and will publish on.29th June.  

Smaje was inspired to respond to recent publications such as George Monbiot’s Regenesis (Allen Lane) which advocates for a factory-produced food system and a radical move away from farming altogether. Challenging this vision, Smaje writes that we must put the power back into the hands of small-scale farmers, producers and the local communities that support them.  

Matt Haslum, managing director of Chelsea Green UK, said: “Chris’s new book is a necessary and important work addressing the radical imbalance of food and farming voices in UK media. We face ‘wicked problems’ such as global food insecurity and a desperate fight for nature, yet there only seems to be one voice – George Monbiot – offering solutions for a new food system. There are hundreds of visionaries and innovators working in the farming space and their voices – and views – need to be platformed.” 

Smaje added: “In this time of profound climate, biodiversity and political crisis, too much purportedly radical analysis involves easy scapegoating and implausible techno-fixes ultimately aimed at preserving the status quo. In my new book I argue that a more truly radical rebuild of the food system is needed, most importantly through rooting ourselves in inclusive communities based around renewable local livelihoods.”