Hungary | Hands on the Land to Grow Alternatives for Humanity

Logan (right) with trainees on the farm.

Welcome back to Zsámboki Biokert, a market garden and alternative learning space, located close to Budapest. Young trainees flock here to learn how to work with nature and grow nutrient dense food. This knowledge-sharing is part of a broader strategy of resilience – for young people in pursuit of meaningful lifestyles grounded in wellbeing, but also for the farm team and wider community. When overwhelmed by the scale of the challenges, collective advocacy for agroecology can be a coping technique.

A letter from the farm by Logan Strenchock.

A food and farming community

I would best describe our farm, Zsamboki Biokert, as a food and farming community. When explaining our production practices to inquirers, especially other farmers, we may use agricultural lingo like “bio-intensive market garden”, or “mixed horticulture operation” to explain what we are doing. This description of farm type does not do full justice to the reach and impact of the operation, nor the diversity of input required to try to make a farm function stably.

In its essence the farm is a group of colleagues who love working with nature to grow credible, nutrient dense food supported by a group of eaters searching for high quality, nutritious products to feed their families. In addition to the farm team, and those who eat our products, there are numerous unsung advocates working to help us get our food to eaters in a convenient and accessible manner.

This proximity-based cooperation is what forms the necessary community required to display resilience when competing against the inherent exploitation and endless economies of scale in globalized food chains.

Kristof Hayes presents farm produce at the market

Growing (new) routes to market

Keeping our small organic farm going in Hungary over the last decade has come with many challenges, outside of the everyday physical grind that working in the garden requires.

After a period of initial enthusiasm in the early 2000s, the organic movement has stagnated in Hungary, a result of political and policy indifference, economic instability, and changing food consumption habits spurred on by inflation and price sensitivity and a growing proclivity to ditch home-cooked for convenience products.

Growers are forced to try to create their own alternative niche marketing mechanisms: box systems, CSA partnerships, forming relationships with food distribution entrepreneurs whose online shops take the plunge into food marketing against supermarket chains and international conglomerates, etc. There does not seem to be space for entry for newer growers, or enough of a market to sustain the wily veterans.

Those working in agriculture typically have a natural affinity for long working days in diverse outdoor conditions. But the true challenge starts when food is harvested. In addition to an intricate knowledge of production, farm teams need to be expert communicators, marketing savvy, skilled in building, repairing, and logistics, and able to manage paperwork and bureaucracy late at night, even dabbling in computer programming and graphic design when required.

Young people want to get their hands dirty

For the last decade, the farm has been working closely with the Cargonomia team to create opportunities for young persons to experience the daily realities of a functioning small scale farm by participating in our work directly a few days per week, trying their hand at managing a smaller study garden on-site in the village, while also taking part directly in Cargonomia’s advocacy and outreach in Budapest.

Hosting trainees in the garden requires attentiveness and patience. Each new guest requires a gradual introduction to the tools, techniques, the farm environment and working routines that we have built up over years. Becoming a good hand in the garden is something that demands a lifelong learning approach, but with the right attitude, new arrivals can get the hang of things in a few weeks and find themselves contributing at key times in the season, specifically bigger transitions (winter to spring, end of summer to autumn).

We invest a lot into being good hosts and receive a lot in return from those who choose weeding, hoeing and bed-making over coffee-fetching in an office environment. Perhaps the biggest contribution from a batch of new trainees is a dose of fresh enthusiasm for our work, and appreciation for what we do, and –for those of us who are veterans in the garden– finding the beauty in some of the jobs that we’ve repeated thousands of times in our careers.

We appreciate this boost of morale and earned sweat equity, and value the opportunity to pass on knowledge to those working towards envisioning and forging their own pathway towards a wellbeing focused future.

Escape route

We’ve learned through the management of this informal “open university” internship program that there is a growing legion of young persons in Europe (and presumably across the globe) who are searching for opportunities to reconnect to nature and practical work, explore agroecology as an important hobby and potential career, and ponder ways of turning well-being focused ideals into a lifestyle.

They are also working hard to find an escape route from feeling exploited by a surrounding economic and educational system which pressures them to forego their most defining human qualities in honor of increasing their potential financial value in a competitive job market.

This slow but gradual growing interest from young persons in ‘lifestyle alternatives’– especially those interconnected with agricultural communities and ‘practice’ for change– is a reason to be positive and optimistic.

Traditional academic institutions may not be showing all of the pathways toward the future that today’s youth are envisioning, and we, and similar small farm teams, have the chance to supplement classroom knowledge with a dose of stark reality, and the added benefit of direct engagement with the small but diverse farm ecosystem we manage.

The time is now

After recent political regime change in Hungary this year the farms, farmers, researchers and advocates who are still active have a sense of optimism that the time is now for collective advocacy to encourage impactful changes in agricultural, food and nutrition policy that promote organic agriculture and agroecology within the country.

This is an additional task we aim to take on in addition to the planning, hoeing, and harvesting we do on the farm. As another “to-do” on the endless list, it’s daunting, but necessary.

We can get bogged down in thinking about the missed opportunities over the last 15 years, or overwhelmed by the near 40°C temperatures in June and chronic drought that plagues the region. But in challenging times –and amidst troubling news cycles– it’s healthier for the body and mind to focus on what keeps us feeling positive.