THE PEOPLE WHO PUT THEIR HAND UP
Looking the neighbours in the eye
By Sam Marwood
Post 4 of 19
He stopped them at the hall door, before they had gone in, and he said he wanted to hear it from them.
The couple were two farm workers who took the step, and the farmer who stood with them was at their shoulder. The neighbour was someone they would see in the street, and he had stopped them while the doorway was still clear.
They had come in from the day, and the couple still had the work on their boots. Cars were turning into the yard and the hall light was on, so this talk had to happen before the doorway filled.
There was a farm to talk about now, which was why the neighbour wanted it from them before he sat down. There was a dairy on the far side of the district, and the farmer there was getting ready to step back.
He rang the couple after milking and asked them to come and see the place. With the farmer who stood with them, they had walked the pasture, the sheds, the water and the house.
The Saturday on that farm was about the man who was stepping back, and most of the walk was letting him talk. They told him that in the doorway, before anyone was asked to take a seat.
He wanted the rest from the people standing in front of him, and he waited while they said it. Nobody on the step talked about money, and nobody read a list of goals out to him.
They told him they wanted this district to keep farms in local hands, and that this dairy was where they were starting. A family would live in the house and milk the cows, so the place would stay a working farm with people on it.
They called it a community owned farm, and they said it in the same plain words they'd use with any neighbour. He could hear people he knew finding seats inside, and he still wanted this said out here.
He asked who would farm it, and they told him a family would be chosen through an open call. They wouldn't name that family that night, because the call hadn't been run.
The farmer who stood with them stayed beside them while they gave that answer, and he didn't add a name. The neighbour looked from the couple to the farmer who stood with them, and that farmer stayed for the question too.
Then the neighbour asked what would happen if someone later wanted to get out. They told him the people who could answer that properly would sit down with him, and they didn't make an answer up on the step.
If he didn't like what he heard, he would still see them in the street, and they knew that while they answered. He stayed for that answer, and standing where a neighbour could find them any day was a risk and a privilege.
They looked him in the eye and he met that look, and the talk ended when he was ready to go. When he left the doorway, he knew who he spoke to and where he would see them next.
Then they went in, and the hall was already full of people finding their seats.
This is an illustration of how it could unfold when it goes right. The district and the people in it aren't any one place or person.
Community Owned Farms is free at cultivatefarms.com/resources.