The family sits down to breakfast. It is 17 May 2032. Tara is looking forward to her usual bowl of Weetabix, Sam cannot wait to tuck into bacon and eggs, Nadya has been dreaming of toast and strawberry jam. But none of these things are on the table. "We're making some changes," their mother announces. "From now on, we're all going to live on bacteria pancakes." 

This could be a common scene if George MonbiotA columnist for The Guardian whose previous books include Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding. has his way. In his book Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet, he applauds the work of Pasi Vainikka, a scientist based in HelsinkiThe capital of Finland, situated on the south coast of the country.. Vainikka hopes to create large amounts of protein from a type of bacteria called Cupriavidus necator.

The protein would be as good as that produced by traditional farming, but would require up to 1,700 times less land. Most of the world's farms could be returned to the wild.

Monbiot argues that farming is hugely inefficient and destructive. It degrades the land, causes pollution, makes animals suffer and uses vast amounts of fossil fuel.

Thanks to the overuse of fertiliser, which takes the richness out of the soil, the world now has to rely on a small selection of crops. Rice, wheat, maize and soybeans provide 60% of all the calories humans need, and they come almost entirely from six countries: the US, Canada, Argentina, India, Russia and - before the war - Ukraine.

"The average minimum distance at which the world's people can be fed is 2,200 kilometres," Monbiot writes. Having to transport our food so far keeps us tied to fossil fuels just when we need to cut down on them.

Monbiot's proposed solution is radical: get rid of farming altogether and find other sources of food. Not surprisingly, farmers are opposed to this. 

One of them is James RebanksFrom an old farming family, he left school at 15 with two GCSEs. He later studied for A-levels at night school and won a place at Oxford University., who has a farm in the Lake DistrictA mountainous area of northwest England. It contains the country's largest natural lake, Windermere.. This is an area which Monbiot has described as "sheepwrecked", claiming that the animals have ruined a landscape which should be full of trees.

Rebanks believes in regenerativeImproving or bringing back to life. agriculture: using traditional farming methods to help biodiversity and fight climate change. His book English Pastoral is a powerful argument against industrial farming, with its emphasis on creating larger fields, using lots of fertiliser and keeping animals in artificial conditions such as huge sheds.

On his own farm, he has re-established hedges, planted thousands of trees and turned some areas into ponds. He moves his sheep and cattle to new fields every couple of days and leaves each field fallowUnused, so that the quality of the soil improves. for up to 150 days a year.

Farmers, he says, need to show that they are the "best stewards of the land." Rather than rewilding as Monbiot suggests, humans should "accept that we're fairly brutal changers of the world and try to be a little bit better at it, or a lot better at it."

But farmers need support if they are to survive. Rebanks argues that we must buy more local produce, and be willing to pay more for it. Food should account for 12% of a household's budgetFood accounts for much less of this today than it did in the past., rather than the present 7-8%.

Yes: It is highly inefficient and damaging to the environment, as well as cruel to animals. We should rewild as much of the world as we can so that nature can restore a proper ecological balance. 

No: Before farming, humans survived by hunting and gathering wild food, but that is totally impractical today. There are now so many people to feed in the world that industrial agriculture is essential.

Or... Everyone should be encouraged to grow their own food, and there should be limits on how far food can be transported. Rundown parts of cities should be rewilded instead of farms.