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Letter From The Farm | Cooking With The Lights Off – Ingredients of Rural Resilience

We’re back on Cortijo El Manzano in Campotéjar, rural Andalusia, with another letter from ARC2020’s Matteo Metta. This agroecological farm has been building resilience collectively since 1986. After his experience living and volunteering on the farm in February, Matteo reflects on what El Manzano can teach us about some key ingredients of rural resilience: housing, labour and energy […]

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Letter From The Farm | A Flamenco Approach to Rural Resilience

In February, ARC2020’s Matteo Metta visited and worked on El Manzano, a farm deeply rooted in the living history of rural Andalusia, so rich in nuances, contrasts, and emotions, as expressed in the notes of flamenco and words of poets like Federico García Lorca. Farms like El Manzano are yet another example of a rural bridge between sustainable agri and food systems. […]

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Letter From The Farm | Winter Health Czech for the Herd

We’re with Czech farmer Terezie Daňková on Hoslovice ranch in South Bohemia for a wintertime ‘Czech-in’ on animal welfare. This is the season for the cattle, sheep and hardworking horses on the ranch to take a rest. As well as feeding the animals, Terezie gives them special care in the winter months before they return to pasture. Like the animals, pastures must be carefully managed, to allow them to play a role in efforts to mitigate the climate crisis. […]

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Letter From The Farm | Wandering In Quest Of Balance

We’re back on Chiara Garini’s farm at the foot of the Italian Alps, where the forest garden is in beautiful shape in its fifth mushroom season. Running the farm is a constant balancing act. It’s the satisfaction of producing food that keeps Chiara going. Don’t miss our policy explainer at the end of this letter, where we examine the policy constraints that prevent Chiara and other small-scale farmers from diversifying their activites. […]

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Letter From The Farm | Restoring Nature, Improving Productivity

We’re back with Shane Casey in The Burren, where it’s been a good Spring. Family and farm are thriving. For Shane, nature conservation and productivity go hand in hand. As the debate rages around the EU Nature Restoration Law, he is sympathetic to the farmers who are being asked to undo a lifetime of ‘improvements’ to make space for nature. […]

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Letter From The Farm | The More-Than-Human Magic of Transhumance

The transhumance is the pinnacle of Claire Jeannerat’s farming year, bringing with it a seasonal shift in her family’s home life. With the summer transhumance behind them, she sits down to catch her breath. The Swiss Shepherdess reflects on why her family has chosen to practice traditional pastoralism and to embrace the magic, the symbiosis and the sacrifices of this way of life. […]

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France | Meet The Farmer-Bakers Proving Their Skills – part 2

Fabienne and Sébastien opened the farm gates a long time ago. In fact, they make a point of visiting other farms, in order to respect different approaches. Finding solutions in cooperative approaches, they helped set up an abattoir co-op with other poultry farmers as a direct, bottom-up response to increasingly complex issues of animal welfare and biosecurity. Part two of a conversation with Valérie Geslin. […]

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Letter From The Farm | Looking Beyond The Farm Gate

We’re back on Ciasnocha Family Farm in Poland, where bad weather and the pressures of war in neighbouring Ukraine have made for a difficult season of haymaking. Right now many decisions are on hold as they wait for the new year and a new CAP. Meanwhile, Mateusz has had the privilege of fruitful harvests beyond the farm gate. Meeting other regenerative farmers and young entrepreneurs during a trip to the US has energised his advocacy work. […]

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France | Meet The Farmer-Bakers Proving Their Skills

Sébastien loves bread. Shaped by a farming background, he was drawn to cooking, but experience taught him that the reality in the kitchen was very far from his ideals. Fabienne studied accounting and worked a corporate job in the city. She was happy to team up with her husband Sébastien on the farm in the West of France. Here in their on-farm bakery, between batches of bread, they share their views on life as farmer-bakers. […]

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Letter From The Farm | Watching, Waiting and Knowing When To Help

We’re back on Shane Casey’s farm in The Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland, where he has another busy spring of lambing and calving behind him. There’s only so much you can do to prepare – after that, it’s a question of watching carefully for the telltale signs in the ewes and cows. Shane’s father was an early adopter of livestream technology that makes the night watch a little easier. But successful lambing and calving depends on the farmer’s expertise as well as patience. Knowing if and when to intervene, whether to call the vet, and how to help the newborns find their feet.  […]

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Letter From The Farm | Learning from a Campesino Family in Cuba

In Cuba, food security is still a challenge after years of wars to fight against colonialism, imperialism and climate change. Yet, the island is far beyond the European Green Deal objectives, having largely achieved most of the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity targets that the EU aspires to attain by 2030. One Cuban farm is going even further. Welcome to La Finca del Medio, a 13.42-hectare family farm located in central Cuba, which is championing food sovereignty in the agroecological way. Matteo Metta writes from the farm. […]

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Letter From The Farm | Cresting the Peaks of Constant Change

We’re back at the foot of the Italian Alps, where Chiara Garini is growing like the shiitake mushrooms on her forest farm. Given our precarious, hyperconnected and crisis-stricken planet, Chiara is sticking with the realism of making and maintaining –food and employment, forest and qualify of life– over the idealism of saving the world. The farm is growing too, and the long-awaited renovation of an old building is helping the now-expanded team to diversify activities.  […]

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France | Growing Vegetables, Seeding Values – Part 2

Why is it so important to open the farm gates to the community? Vegetable grower Vincent explains how he and his colleagues want their market garden, to be a site of coming together as well as a site of production. Vincent also opens up about the challenges of labour – for him as an unlikely ‘boss’, and for the workers who must be incredibly motivated to overcome the tough working conditions. Part 2 of a conversation with Valérie Geslin. […]

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Letter From The Farm | Bridging Worlds Old and New

Meet Claire Jeannerat, who runs a sheep and goat farm with her family in the Swiss Alps. The title of shepherdess is is a true and often humbling apprenticeship with mother nature and all the uncertainties. Claire and her husband endeavour to live this vocation in a manner that respects and upholds ancient traditions that are being lost in modern society, bridging a path between the old and new. […]