'Rooted' – Sarah Langford’s Journey Back to the Land
Sarah Langford’s 'Rooted' explores the quiet revolution reshaping British farming, as traditional methods give way to regenerative practices that heal both land and community
I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading over the past couple of weeks. My focus has been on four books that look at two powerful ideas have emerged in relation to land use and the future of food in Britain: regenerative agriculture and rewilding.
At first glance, these concepts can seem like opposites—one focused on farming better, the other on not farming at all. But in reality, they exist on a continuum of land stewardship, both seeking to repair the ecological damage wrought by decades of industrial agriculture. Whether it’s a farmer planting cover crops and rotating livestock to rebuild soil, or a landowner letting thickets and wetlands reclaim exhausted fields, the underlying goal is the same: to work with nature rather than against it.
Over the next four days, I’ll post reviews of four books that explore that overlap: Rooted by Sarah Langford, English Pastoral by James Rebanks, Wilding by Isabella Tree, and Regenesis by George Monbiot. Each author approaches the crisis in food and farming from a different angle, yet their stories converge around a shared desire to restore health to land, climate, and community. Taken together, their work forms a mosaic of hope and hard choices, suggesting that the future of land use may not be a binary choice between farming and wilderness, but a dynamic spectrum where food, nature, and people can thrive together.
From Courtroom to Countryside
Sarah Langford never set out to become a farmer, but life had other plans. A barrister by training, Langford found herself leaving London and taking on the management of her husband's family farm in Suffolk. In her 2022 book Rooted: Stories of Life, Land and a Farming Revolution, she chronicles this unexpected return to the land. Blending memoir with reportage, Rooted introduces readers to a cast of real farmers across England, weaving Langford’s personal learning curve with the wider story of modern British farming.
Langford’s grandfather had been lauded as a postwar hero for “feed[ing] a starving nation” – yet by the 21st century, farmers like her father’s generation had come to be “considered…villain[s], blamed for ecological catastrophe”. This generational whiplash fascinated Langford and frames the book’s narrative.
Rooted was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for nature writing, a testament to its timely exploration of how farming is changing in an era of climate and social upheaval. Langford’s warm, inquisitive voice guides readers through her transition from courtroom to cowshed, as she learns to drive tractors, nurture soil, and reconcile her urban perspective with rural realities. The result is an honest, empathetic portrait of farming at a crossroads, penned by an author uniquely positioned to bridge the worlds of city and countryside.
Regenerative Farming and Rural Resilience
At its heart, Rooted is about a quiet revolution taking place on Britain’s farms. Langford shines a light on the new generation of farmers embracing regenerative agriculture – working with nature to heal the land even as they produce food. Early on, she realizes conventional intensive farming has left deep scars: she recounts soil “bombed” by chemical inputs, biodiversity driven out by decades of monoculture, and farmers squeezed by debts and supermarket prices.
Rather than a dry recitation of facts, however, Langford tells this story through people. Each chapter introduces farmers by name – Tom, Rebecca, Stuart, Sam and others – and shares their turning points. We hear of a pig farmer, forced by collapsing prices to slaughter his herd, who pivots to sustainable mixed farming; a dairy family crushed by supermarket milk prices; arable farmers experimenting with cover crops and organic methods. These personal stories illustrate larger themes.
One major theme is regeneration – of soil, community, and hope. On her own family’s land, Langford describes replanting hedgerows, reintroducing grazing livestock to improve soil, and seeing wildflowers and birds return. “This kind of ‘regenerative agriculture’,” she writes, “is more than just growing food … it is a movement which can cure not just ecological ills but social ones too”.
Indeed, Rooted emphasizes the social fabric of farming. Langford explores the isolation and mental health struggles many farmers face – citing alarmingly high rural suicide rates – alongside stories of neighbours and families pulling together to support each other. Climate change looms throughout the book as well, whether in the form of unpredictable weather ravaging crops or the sense of urgency driving farmers to adopt climate-friendly practices.
Yet the tone is far from despairing. Each narrative in Rooted carries a seed of hope: a breakthrough moment when working with nature (instead of against it) yields results. By the time Langford finally defines “regenerative farming” – near the book’s end – readers have already seen it in action through these vivid examples.
Humanizing the Farming Debate
Rooted has resonated with readers and environmentalists because it humanizes an often polarized debate. Instead of treating farmers as heroes or villains, Langford portrays them as multifaceted people under immense pressure, trying to do right by their land and families.
This nuanced perspective is especially relevant today. As climate change and biodiversity loss accelerate, conversations about agriculture’s future have often become combative – sometimes pitting environmental advocates against farming communities. Rooted serves as a bridge between these worlds. Langford, coming from an urban background, admits she once viewed farming through a simplistic green vs. brown lens. Her journey in the book mirrors a broader journey of understanding that many readers undergo. By the final chapters, she argues passionately that farmers must be at the center of any sustainable future: “because they live closer to the land than anyone… there’s no sustainable future that doesn’t include farmers”.
The book has helped shift perspectives on regenerative agriculture, illustrating it not as a trendy buzzword but as a practical path taken by real families to save their livelihoods and landscapes. Langford’s storytelling has a galvanizing effect, as The Guardian noted in its review: her clear explanations of complex economic forces and heartfelt narratives “should have a galvanising effect” on the public conversation around farming. Since its publication, Rooted has frequently been cited in discussions about Britain’s post-Brexit agricultural policy and the need to support farmers transitioning to sustainable methods.
Perhaps equally important, the book has given urban readers an entry point into the world of farming. Langford’s candid account of trading her barrister’s robe for muddy boots makes farming relatable to those far removed from rural life. In doing so, Rooted invites a wider audience to care about the soil beneath our feet and the people who tend it. It’s an inspiring start to this four-part exploration, grounding us (quite literally) in the idea that healing the land can go hand-in-hand with feeding the nation.
As we’ll see in the next instalment, this theme of balancing agriculture with ecology continues – albeit from a very different vantage point – in James Rebanks’s English Pastoral.