What if natural burial becomes the norm?

Could we see the end of fossil fuel driven cremation?

Yuli meets up with Oxford Real Farming Conference (2024) delegates and puts forward a proposal!

The question was: “Can natural burial become part of diversification on farms?”

There are 200,000 farms in the UK. If 2.5% (5000) of these farms applied for planning permission to bury 100 bodies each year on one or two of their hectares, we could bury all the 500,000 plus of people who die each year.

Some natural burial sites bury more per annum, some far less.  But on average this creates £1.7m per hectare of income, based on todays average charge for a burial plot. This could seriously improve farm incomes and help to reduce our environmental impact and climate change.

Click on this link to listen to our presentation and questions posed by delegates.

Our panelists in January 2024 were Liz Rothschild (Chair), Rosie Inman-Cook (Association of Natural Burial Grounds), Rosie Kindersley (Sheepdrove Woodland Burial), Adam Twine (Westmill Burial Ground) and myself, Yuli Sømme.

Go to the Association of Natural Burial Grounds (ANBG) website for more help.