Graze cattle such as bison to restore British countryside Graham Harvey, a farmer who used to advise the BBC on agricultural storylines in The Archers, said the countryside is being destroyed by industrial scale farms that concentrate on monoculture fields of wheat and animals in massive sheds. Using electric fences, farmers split their pastures into a large number of small paddocks. Putting their cattle into each paddock in turn, they graze it off quickly before moving the herd to the next. US farmers report that their animals stay very healthy on this grazing regime, putting on weight fast. At the same time the soil quickly becomes more fertile as it accumulates carbon compounds. Mr Harvey said farmers should be putting fertility back into the soil rather than resorting to GM. He said beef from grass fed animals is also healthier. Current industrial farming methods are now too detached from natural processes. But when farming practises draw on the principles of the natural world, there's really no limit to the productivity gains that can be achieved. Conventional science clearly has a lot of catching up to do, especially in the area of soil fertility. The idea of "mob grazing" will be put forward at the annual meeting of organic farmers the Oxford Real Farming Conference. The gathering was set up two years ago in response to the conventional Oxford Farming Conference that discusses the latest ideas in conventional farming. The idea is to put forward radical ideas based on natural methods, rather than further industrialisation of farming.