Week Nine - It's simple really

3rd January 2012

My reasons for moving to the farm were the culmination of a year of serious contemplation and consideration. I had an inkling that London would not become my lifelong home and perhaps the countryside was my rightful place, but if you had said to me 5 years ago when graduating with a good history degree that I would find myself on a farm I’d have likely been more than a little confused. When I was a little girl I recall saying to my Dad over and over again that I did not want to work in an office, but much rather outdoors. At this stage in life I had not begun to consider how being out in the open might affect my biorhythms or improve my physical health, it was a simple and natural desire to be outside.

As I’ve said previously I’ve never been happier, or healthier than I am right now. All my life I have been in awe of nature, frequently stopping to gaze at the sunsets and wondering at the beauty of the changing seasons. Now I have the absolute privilege to be present in that nature always. Even in the caravan the birds are meters away, we hear owls every night and are frequented by a green woodpecker (he’s a beaut; I must try to get a photograph).

I know that the farm is not a natural setting, please don’t think me naive in this. However the biodiversity that exists in a space when you try to work with nature and not against it can only serve to improve the land, and the countryside around it. Farmers have worked in this way historically exploiting the natural benefits of their land to further their own work. This farm is a baby in real terms, it has only existing in its current format for just over three years, and is a trial in a different way of working. We don’t have the huge monocultures that many farmers have turned to in order to reap profit, we don’t use chemical pesticides and fertilisers to make life easier , we aren’t a part of a huge food market controlled by the supermarkets, the doors (fields) are open for anyone to visit and explore– we also aren’t currently turning a profit.

The ambition of the farm is that this should happen this year. This has caused significant concern for many people whom I care deeply about. It is not the most secure path I could be following, that I accept, but it is the most true path I feel I can possibly tread right now. In such a tumultuous period I have a genuine concern for the future of our food, and I believe that farming ecologically and sustainably is key in order to feed the world in the future. The damage that intensive farming is causing our earth is terrifying and just won’t cut it forever. This farm is not only teaching me the methods of organic growing, but it’s allowing me the time and space to consider what I believe in, and what I need to do to turn these beliefs into action. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have ambitions beyond my means, however I sincerely believe that you have to be the change, and this is the change I want to see.