A field has been bought in Wrington by a group of people from the village. They have a caravan for drinks and shelter, a polytunnel and vegetable beds. They all share the work and the produce. They are not farmers and the only selection az to who can join is that they must want to be there and do some work when they can. They are not farmers. I have come up against farmers with regards to buying a field and the feeling was it was their right to have first dibs on any fields for sale and the idea that ‘normal people ‘ might want to own and tend a field was inconceivable and wrong. The community built in the previous field I mentioned has been invaluable both building and sustaining a small community, and seeing people through lockdown, as it is big enough to work at a safe distance whilst still seeing another human being. We need more community fields.
The Ecological Land Coop is working to expand access to farming land, in a very creative way: https://ecologicalland.coop/.
And I recently joined the National Trust purely because of their excellent recent work on acknowledging colonialism, and told their PR team so. De-normalising racist attitudes is something many of us can get on with.
As a hard working patriot I am not happy about my donations being used to shore up a falsely sanitised story of the past in which noble and beneficent white men brought only civilisation and light to the rest of the world and I object to well-heeled, privileged, right-wing MPs seeking to block any attempt at a fuller understanding of our colonial past and its legacy.
Enjoyable and thought provoking weekly read as ever. In the small Northamptonshire village I'm from, we have a grave to a black servant which I think surprised lots of people who would otherwise have thought it had been an exclusively white domain. http://www.culworthvillage.co.uk/of-interest/charles-bacchus/
There are a couple of notable black men I can think of very recently in rural England who made their mark - the Black Farmer who was, I believe an MP and launched a successful range of sausages etc which are still markeyed by his daughter. There was also a black MFH of possibly the New Forest who, like what he did or not, was said to be excellent. Let's not miss the ones who have succeeded !
A field has been bought in Wrington by a group of people from the village. They have a caravan for drinks and shelter, a polytunnel and vegetable beds. They all share the work and the produce. They are not farmers and the only selection az to who can join is that they must want to be there and do some work when they can. They are not farmers. I have come up against farmers with regards to buying a field and the feeling was it was their right to have first dibs on any fields for sale and the idea that ‘normal people ‘ might want to own and tend a field was inconceivable and wrong. The community built in the previous field I mentioned has been invaluable both building and sustaining a small community, and seeing people through lockdown, as it is big enough to work at a safe distance whilst still seeing another human being. We need more community fields.
The Ecological Land Coop is working to expand access to farming land, in a very creative way: https://ecologicalland.coop/.
And I recently joined the National Trust purely because of their excellent recent work on acknowledging colonialism, and told their PR team so. De-normalising racist attitudes is something many of us can get on with.
Thanks for this piece. You might be interested in this one - some black British environmentalists that all environmentalists should know about but probably don't....https://warofnature.com/2020/12/27/how-many-of-these-environmentalists-do-you-know-blackhistory-should-be-every-month-not-just-in-october-so-here-are-some-people-doing-brilliant-work-that-deserve-the-spotlight/
As a hard working patriot I am not happy about my donations being used to shore up a falsely sanitised story of the past in which noble and beneficent white men brought only civilisation and light to the rest of the world and I object to well-heeled, privileged, right-wing MPs seeking to block any attempt at a fuller understanding of our colonial past and its legacy.
Enjoyable and thought provoking weekly read as ever. In the small Northamptonshire village I'm from, we have a grave to a black servant which I think surprised lots of people who would otherwise have thought it had been an exclusively white domain. http://www.culworthvillage.co.uk/of-interest/charles-bacchus/
There are a couple of notable black men I can think of very recently in rural England who made their mark - the Black Farmer who was, I believe an MP and launched a successful range of sausages etc which are still markeyed by his daughter. There was also a black MFH of possibly the New Forest who, like what he did or not, was said to be excellent. Let's not miss the ones who have succeeded !
Thanks for sharing this. I feel my education is only just beginning and I’m hugely grateful for that.