I am in total agreement with you. I would love to support local farmers and I suspect that there many parts where farmers are part of the community already and welcome support and encouragement. I have lived in several different rural areas in the UK and unfortunately farmers I have come across, small and medium, are quite possessive of their land and production methods.
They would much rather not have rights of way over their land and mechanisation means unskilled labour isn’t required. At the same time they suffer in all the ways you outline and it seems probable that years of trying to work the CAP imposed by the EU and now enduring poorly thought out new agricultural policy from British governments has soured their natural love of the land to the point of deafness over entreaties to consider regenerative methods.
There are one or two regenerative farmers in our region but the majority appear to fall in the above category. There are, too, a few small producers usually cultivating 1 - 4 acres using regenerative practices and I belong to a small nonprofit setting up on some community land to promote sustainable growing and run social and therapeutic horticulture programs.
It feels like too little, too late but my hope is that worsening conditions for our current extractive society will propel people towards the obvious: that being able to feed ourselves is an activity we should all be concerned with and food security looks much more like community growing than large supermarkets.
I love the way that this article valued the fathers and their risk communities equally to the so and the nutritious products that they produce.
There is something very valuable in having a connection to our food production and a resilient world would allow time to grow, maybe not our subsistence but at least our connection to food, land and communities of food producers.
It is good to be talking as the regeneration of our soils globally could so rapidly begin to capture the carbon without the colonial harms of carbon markets and false nature based solutions.
Beautiful article, thank you!! Informative, calling to action and at the same time modest: "For those of us who are not farmers, our primary role is to listen—deeply and patiently—and then to support their survival first and their transformation later." Yes!
I just shared a story from a 7th generation farm - would love for you to read it!
I am in total agreement with you. I would love to support local farmers and I suspect that there many parts where farmers are part of the community already and welcome support and encouragement. I have lived in several different rural areas in the UK and unfortunately farmers I have come across, small and medium, are quite possessive of their land and production methods.
They would much rather not have rights of way over their land and mechanisation means unskilled labour isn’t required. At the same time they suffer in all the ways you outline and it seems probable that years of trying to work the CAP imposed by the EU and now enduring poorly thought out new agricultural policy from British governments has soured their natural love of the land to the point of deafness over entreaties to consider regenerative methods.
There are one or two regenerative farmers in our region but the majority appear to fall in the above category. There are, too, a few small producers usually cultivating 1 - 4 acres using regenerative practices and I belong to a small nonprofit setting up on some community land to promote sustainable growing and run social and therapeutic horticulture programs.
It feels like too little, too late but my hope is that worsening conditions for our current extractive society will propel people towards the obvious: that being able to feed ourselves is an activity we should all be concerned with and food security looks much more like community growing than large supermarkets.
We can dream!
I love the way that this article valued the fathers and their risk communities equally to the so and the nutritious products that they produce.
There is something very valuable in having a connection to our food production and a resilient world would allow time to grow, maybe not our subsistence but at least our connection to food, land and communities of food producers.
It is good to be talking as the regeneration of our soils globally could so rapidly begin to capture the carbon without the colonial harms of carbon markets and false nature based solutions.
Oh yeah! Keep it local and doable, and it can get done.
Beautiful article, thank you!! Informative, calling to action and at the same time modest: "For those of us who are not farmers, our primary role is to listen—deeply and patiently—and then to support their survival first and their transformation later." Yes!