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Sarah Bearchell - Five Way Interview

Sarah Bearchell is a science writer and educator who has created educational activities for charities, learned societies and science centres, and who writes regularly for Aquila. The Future of Agriculture is her first book. 

Why science?

I’ve always been curious. When I was little, I used to make mud pies with different ingredients like stones, grass and sticks. When they had set into hard bricks, I would turn them out and see if they collapsed when I stood on them. It was a long-running and very unscientific investigation which resulted in joy and mess in equal measures. Formal science was the next step…which resulted in more joy and mess as I moved towards ecology, agriculture and horticulture! 

Why this book?

I’ve always wanted to write a proper book, and by that, I mean a book produced by a proper publisher, in hard copy, to be sold in a bookshop and be purchased (and hopefully read by!) people who I’ve never met.

One day, I saw a call-out for agricultural writers for a popular science book. It caught my eye because my academic background is in agricultural botany, but for the last ten years I’ve been writing about diverse science topics for children, so I didn’t feel like the best fit. But then the call appeared again, at a time when I was looking for a new project, so I contacted the series editor. 

He said I’d have some guidance, and it only needed to be 40,000 words, which didn’t feel particularly daunting having written a doctoral thesis. And I found myself thinking why not?

Well, there’s the arrogance of someone who has never written a book before! It has genuinely been one of the hardest work projects I’ve ever done. Agriculture is such a HUGE topic to fit in such a slim volume, and the research phase took me down some fascinating rabbit-holes. It was a real challenge to select the right examples to create a coherent story within the target length.

Should we attempt to make the UK more self-sufficient in food?

Yes! Without a doubt! We can all help towards this by reducing food waste, eating seasonal (rather than imported) food and by reducing the amount of meat and dairy we consume. That would free up land to grow plant-proteins, so we could produce more of our diet from the limited farmland we have available in the UK. 

We also need long-term planning at the government level, which supports both farmers and consumers as these changes happen. That must include accelerating the change to renewable energy to reduce electricity costs, which will make it cheaper to produce delicate salad crops in glasshouses and vertical farms. That would help to both reduce seasonal imports and enable us to grow more crops on less land. 

What’s next?

I normally write about science for children, families and teachers – with the emphasis on practical investigation. I love the challenge of developing activities which explore scientific concepts using everyday resources. I also write and present science shows for festivals, which are designed to be multisensory and participatory, so they work for everyone. It’s wonderful to experience other people’s engagement with science!

What’s exciting you at the moment?

University engineering departments! One of my children is planning to study engineering and I’m finding the departmental tours fascinating. It’s a path I might have taken had circumstances been different…and had my school’s biology teachers not been so incredibly brilliant (thanks, Miss Mappledoram and Mr Woodcock!).

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