Field Work: What Land Does to People & What People Do to Land

‘A priceless portrait of one of the least understood and frequently most vilified of people: farmers. It should really be read by all in this country who buys food - i.e. everyone.’ - Daily Mail ‘Highly researched and deeply thoughtful … Bathurst peers under the bonnet of these lives and reveals things that rarely make it into print.’ - James Rebanks, The Times ‘A fine achievement: describing the indescribable’ - Rosamund Young, author of The Secret Life of Cows

We think we know what makes Britain’s countryside: drystone walls, stiles, sheep on a distant hillside. But for many of us, farmers themselves - the men and women who shape, maintain and care for that land - often remain a mystery: familiar but unpredictable, a secretive industry that’s still visible from space.

In Field Work, Bella Bathurst journeys through Britain to talk to those on the far side of the fence. From fruit farmers to fallen stock operators, from grassy uplands to polytunnels, she creates a portrait of modern Britain, exposing in the process the inextricable bonds that exist between land and the people who farm it.

As farmers find themselves torn between time-honoured methods and modern appetites, these raw, wise and funny accounts reveal an ancient way of life changing beyond recognition.