Thirty years ago I went to live on an organic farm/ community in deepest rural Cornwall. It was the beginning of my association with the organic world (although the concept of ‘organic’ had no legal foundations then).
When I realised this I thought it was time to take leave from the cosmopolitan world of galleries and lobbyists in Brussels and spend a few days exploring my roots. Go and revisit a place that inspired much of my journey through life- and also to see how it/they had fared in the past thirty years.
When I lived there the house had no electricity and the water was supplied from a spring by a ram pump. The focus of most people was on self sufficiency (often inspired by John Seymour) The woods surrounding the property were the source of fuel, chopped and sawed by hand (though at some point a compromise with ‘Babylon’ was reached and a chain saw purchased). We had two cows; a Jersey and a Friesian, to keep us in milk and cheese most of the year and supply manure for the walled garden. We ate from the same pot: literally and figuratively.
Thirty years on it is still a community. Although much more disparate. Individuals/ families cater for themselves, have their own budgets and sources of livelihood (some on-farm some off-farm, some mixed). There are a range of farm based businesses: an apple-presser, a mushroom cultivator, an organic veggie box scheme, a business that sells fine herb shoots to exclusive Michelin-starred restaurants, a camping and a yurt hire. In short, the classic range of ‘rural development’ activities, described by Jan Douwe van der Ploeg and his team from Wageningen. Interestingly the farm is one of the oldest registered certified farms on the Soil Association’s books. Many thousands of trees have been planted there since I visited.
When I lived at Keveral I asked myself two questions:
a. Why can’t we make a living from 32 acres of land? Anywhere else in the world we be resource rich. As it was we were piss-poor (though partly by choice)
b. Is going back to the land (such a popular concept at the time) the right thing for me?
The answer to the first question came with hindsight: we didn’t know much about farming! Most people there at that time were more into self sufficiency and living lightly rather than also engaging in markets (the spirit of the times) and we didn’t own the land or house so had no means to raise capital. Today the various enterprises at Keveral display varying degrees of market-orientation, according to the interests of the owners/members. There are no grazing animals (save two horses) , which I think is a lost opportunity in terms of maximising agroecological potential (converting pasture into protein and manure) but this is at least partly compensated for by foraging/collecting the ample supplies of seaweed from the nearby beach (something I argued for thirty years ago!!).
As for the second question: when I left Keveral I went to India for nine months (I had a small inheritance and it seemed a once in a lifetime opportunity) and then (after a five-year gap) went to University (OK - a College of Further Education, but eventually a University) with the aim of getting qualified to be able to start to change the system from within. At twenty-two years old, I was impatient and impetuous and didn’t have the patience to invest in a long term project. But I learnt a lot – including some gardening skills/ knowledge that still (to my embarrassment) do impress others – who ask me where I learnt this shit?
After four days back at Keveral I left with two abiding impressions. The first was of the huge diversity of flora which the community members are stewards of: the bridle lane leading to the sea is profuse with ferns, flowers and edible herbs. One square metre of slate walling probably has more species than a 100 acre conventional farm under a mono-cropping system. The micro-greens business cultivates more than 150 varieties of herbs and flowers and the orchards contain more than ?? varieties of apple trees. This was matched by the huge diversity of bird life there, including rare species such as… (My companion is a conservationist and was constantly amazed by the rare bird songs that we heard while working on the land -including literally- nests in some of the spoil heaps of soil we were clearing).
Secondly, for more than thirty years Keveral has been a space for experimentation, where community members, interns and short term visitors come together and share experiences and knowledge. For sure many ideas don’t work. Our idea thirty years ago about keeping pigs collapsed after they repeatedly escaped from the field and found their way to a caravan site at the bottom of the valley – much to the displeasure of the owner.
These things are hugely valuable. With Rio +20 coming up in a few weeks time it makes me wonder whether we should be driven by short term imperatives to address global issues/crises, or adopt a longer term country-person’s approach.
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