richardbenson.com

EXCREMENT WAS ONE of two things guaranteed to captivate kids who visited my parents’ farm. They might have been bored by the technological miracles of the modern world, but show them a pig pooing and they would be gleefully grateful all day. I explained all this as I persuaded Kevin to take this picture of a fragrant, fly-pocked cowpat in north Devon. “You want me to take a picture of dung?” he said. “Imagine the jokes.” “Come on,” I replied. “They’re an important part of the environment.” This is true. Just a few miles from where this photo was taken, in Holsworthy, Devon, is Britain’s first biogas power station. Like others in Europe, it uses cowpats just like this one to produce green electricity, and may be a harbinger of farming’s future role as an energy source. The other thing that fascinated kids, by the way, was the size of boars’ testicles. Kevin shot some, but testicles and excrement together seemed a bit much•