He feels ants, scuttling over his skin. He resists the urge to brush them off. A skylark high above him is singing its song and he squints his eyes to try to spot it. He suddenly feels a profound connection with the ground beneath him and all that lives in, on and above it. He is the fifth generation to farm this land, and the emotional rush of that connection with the land is swiftly followed by the familiar feeling of anxiety, as reality floods back in. The last few years, as the weather has become more extreme and market forces have brought his farm to its knees, he has gotten used to this gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. What future do his children have on this farm, where they have grown up digging for worms, hiding in the long grass, and sneaking wildflower bouquets into their bedroom when he wasn’t looking? Will his children’s children stand in the eerie light of the moon and feel the swoosh of an owl returning to roost in the barn, as he did? Will they know the cacophony of the dawn chorus, just as the sun rises? Or the sight of the slick, black head of a seal emerging from the waves? What future do those generations have on this rapidly heating planet?
Brushing the dust off his overalls and pushing the knot of anxiety back down again, he returns to the task at hand, checking the rows of recently sown carrots for signs of germination. As his grandmother loved to point out, farmers are intimately connected to natural systems. A fact he wishes the agricultural industry paid more attention to, rather than trying to squeeze as much production out of land as possible. His father was encouraged to fall in line with the ‘modern’ way of farming, efficiency over diversity. But the only way he knows to deal with both his nagging anxiety and his falling yields, is to invite a greater variety of species back to the land he farms. Starting on this tiny chunk of earth he has direct influence over, he hopes that by inviting others to share his profound connection to the ground, to all that lives in, on and above it, they will join him in a quest to restore the richness of our ecosystems.
He sees the future in his mind’s eye; children zigzagging between a line of trees separating the fields, picking up windfalls to turn into apple juice; his neighbors loading crates of pumpkins into the trailer, to be taken to the cold storage back in the barn; others digging potatoes out of the dark, rich soil, the thought of a winter’s supply of deep fried chips keeping them going. Building a farm of nature and for nature, of the community and for the community, that is what helps push down the doubts and worries for the future. Maybe one day the knot will unwind and nature's soothing sound, feeling and sights will heal us all.
