Steps towards a better world, or just free labour?

We Are Inviting Volunteers Onto Our Farm.

Here’s Why I Think You Should Join Us…

We have been on a brilliant journey over the last 5 and a half years here at the farm.

We have learned about the soil and the weather, the freezing house and the crumbling outbuildings. We have learned how to grow food and how to transform that produce into dishes that bring us, and others, a great deal of joy.

We’ve learned about nourishment. How to feed the soil, how the soil feeds plants. How I feed myself and my children – and how we feed our customers and how all these things are connected.

Growing food well, using nature rather than fighting against it, is in some ways so simple – so easy when everything aligns – but it’s also complicated and frustrating and overwhelming and seemingly inefficient at times.

I thought we needed scale and more efficiency. With scale, there is the hope that the tiny margins on a bunch of beetroot or a bag of salad might finally add up to a decent wage for someone. Bigger beds, the odd bit of machinery, a bit more monoculture – still growing organically, but taking steps toward the standard model of industrial farming.

But in the last year I realised something. There is little point in taking steps towards that mass agricultural model if I have no desire to reach that destination. When I hear about lab-grown meat (already in our supermarkets), GM crops (where the very sequence of genes in our food become the intellectual property of big business, regardless of where those genes end up), I get a bit depressed.

We have all the technology we need as a species to feed ourselves. As a planet we grow more calories that we need (though often not in the right place). The issues with our food are systematic, logistical, and a result our food is controlled by big businesses that are motivated by making money in the short and long-term, not by feeding our species in a fair, decent or nutritious way.

I know me scaling up from 50 to 500 cabbages a year doesn’t sounds like the slippery slope towards mass agriculture! But it also isn’t going to change the world.

I realised this year, that our food issues are entirely people-based. It’s about that relationship between people and the food they eat – something that is pushed further and further apart (often for the very good reason of convenience) in our modern world.

I have realised, that rather than scaling up, controlling everything and getting more efficient, what we really need to do, is invite everyone in. Bring people, you, everyone, along on this journey with us. Share the absolute joy that we get from knowing our land, growing our food, and transforming that into meals for ourselves, our family and our customers. I challenge you to stand in our field with produce in your hands and not feel absolute delight, knowing you have grown something nutritious and delicious through your own hard work.

So that’s my call to action, my invitation to you, to join us, and help make a real difference.

If you want to learn about growing food in an organic way, surrounded by nature - join us.

If you want to get outside, flex your muscles, meet like minded people and go home with a sense of tired satisfaction - join us.

If you want to connect to the seasons and the soil - join us.

If you want to step outside your comfort zone, make friends renew your sense of purpose and have some fun - join us!

Try something new, learn something new, no experience is necessary, just a can-do attitude and and a willingness to take on a challenge. I guarantee you will leave happier, perhaps even with some veg, after a day getting your hands dirty and reconnecting with the food you eat.