Food Romanticism?

George Monbiot points out that many people (including some environmentalists) call for food to be produced 'entirely naturally'. There are, however, simply not enough fields to e.g. pasture-rear all cattle. Taken to its extreme, 'natural' farming would destroy all the planet's ecosystems. The 'farming good, factory bad' position actually seems based on a romantic view of the UK, prior to its Industrial Revolution. Folk now object to the 'dark, satanic mills', replacing 'unmechanised agriculture'. Things were, of course, never quite as bucolic, down on the farm, as people generally imagine. The world population has also exploded since those times (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/26/farming-good-factory-bad-global-food-crisis). Monbiot even says that some 'foodies' advocate eating 'hyper-free ranging chickens'. These expensive fowl, follow cattle in fields, eating any insects (and other beasts) stirred up by the cows. Chickens are, of course, derived from Himalayan Jungle fowl. They are consequently alien to the UK and would simply 'hoover up' what little wildlife persists here. Monbiot maintains that what the country really needs are 'better, more compact, cruelty-free and pollution-free factories' to produce most of our food. Romanticism seems for the birds.