THE PEOPLE WHO PUT THEIR HAND UP
The farmer who stood with them
By Sam Marwood
Post 2 of 19
Two farm workers caught a farmer at his dairy after the afternoon milking.
He had done well, and he cared about the district, and he was the first person they asked. They asked him to stand with them, and he heard them out before he answered, and then he said yes.
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.
He was the one the street would look at, and he knew that when he said yes. He said he would stay until one of them could say the thing in one breath to a person in a queue.
They stood in the dairy while the last of the cows went out, and they asked him there. They told him they wanted a community owned farm for the district, and it took a few minutes to say what they wanted.
They asked him what share farming is, who decides, and whether a family can see a way through. He kept them on those three questions, that afternoon and on the days after it.
Before they left the dairy, his first advice was who else to ask. He named the vet, the tanker driver, and the accountant who does half the district's farm books.
They were people a neighbour already listened to, and he wanted them at the table while the questions were still being worked. A neighbour came through the yard while they were still there, and looked to him.
The vet came straight from a shed and took a chair, and the tanker driver came in after the run. The accountant came with a pad and sat down to the same questions.
Over the next few weeks those three were at the table with him, and Cultivate Farms were beside them. At the next meeting the three questions were asked again, around the table, with those three still in their chairs.
They stayed on who decides, and on whether a family can see a way through. He kept them at the table until they could say the line in one breath, and answer the next two just as plainly.
The line was that locals own the farm together, with a farming family running it. On who decides, the family is chosen in the open, on how they farm. On whether a family can see a way through, that family runs the farm, and the farm stays in local hands.
He wanted that sentence to be a plain one a person in a queue could carry.
Cultivate Farms worked the questions with them, and he kept the afternoon going until the answer had got shorter. They met the week after that as well, in the same seats, and he had them answer the person sitting opposite.
He had them speak as they would speak if a neighbour stopped them in the street. Cultivate Farms sat with them, and the street's question stayed with him.
Those weeks at the table were the training, and they went on until the answer was short enough to say in public. By the end, one of them could give it in one breath.
Locals own the farm together, with a farming family running it.
In town, in a queue, a person turned and asked what the two of them were working on. One of them gave that sentence and stopped, and the person who had asked could repeat it back.
The farmer who stood with them had stayed through those weeks, and he could stand beside the sentence in the street.
Community Owned Farms is free at cultivatefarms.com/resources.