It turns out that Lincolnshire is not, in fact, flat.

Even the bits that seem flat – the wide, agricultural fields under the big skies of the Fens, with their straight blue drains and bone-shakingly bumpy roads – are less flat than you might think…

The Fens were drained over the course of the 1600s, and with considerable resistance by the locals (if you are interested in a spot of local history, check out James Boyce’s recent book, Imperial Mud).

“Draining the Fens” might sound like, well, digging some dykes, putting in a few sluices, and then the water trickling gently away. Again, not so much.

Draining Lincolnshire

The Fens is more like a bowl. In order to keep all that agricultural land and all those homes and businesses dry and safe, fresh water is constantly – 24/7 – pumped.

Without this constant (and energy-intensive) pumping, the Fens would be mostly underwater. And further underwater than before it was drained: the rich Fenland soil – once it is dried out, ploughed up and farmed with heavy machinery – becomes depleted and compacted.

You may be starting to see why this could cause problems in the long term, given that we are reliant on it for a considerable proportion of the nation’s food, especially potatoes and brassicas.

Add to that the ageing farmer population and a pack of challenges in the horticulture sector; chuck in the way that roads are not lasting as long as they were previously expected to; slosh in projected sea level rise… and you can suddenly see why it got us wondering – what is the future of food in the Lincolnshire Fens?

The future of the Fens?

Not for the faint-hearted – a group of people from the Fenland food system are meeting throughout 2024, to face these and other issues head on.

More importantly, we’ll be asking, what would be robust responses for the long term? The process is supported by moderator Dr Julien Etienne, and yours truly. We don’t have the answers, and we definitely can’t promise that it will be easy.

If you would like a glimpse of this process, we would love to hear your thoughts, questions and ideas.