Soil lover, farmer, and developer of Soilmentor app, Abby Rose amplifies diverse voices in award-winning podcast Farmerama, a platform for regenerative farmers and growers to share powerful stories.
Named by The Guardian as a ‘New Radical’, Rose — alongside co-producers Jo Barratt and Katie Revell — champions those land practitioners taking a fresh approach to farming and turning convention on its head.
Aiming to empower and educate farmers and consumers, this show reveals how vital sustainable farming and food production methods are for planet and people, as well as spotlighting the intersection between environmental and social justice.
Farmerama are currently taking a break from producing monthly podcasts, but with a back catalogue of 89 episodes, there’s plenty to listen to. The podcast includes series such as Less & Better? which asks the question of what to do about meat, Farming Fashion which explores regenerative fibres and the fashion industry, and Cereal which won two Guild of Food Writers Awards and investigates grain and what goes into a hearty loaf of bread.
In one episode, we hear farmers Chrissy, Rae, and Dunia discuss Folx Farm, their organic vegetable farm run by women and non-binary growers. The farm offers a space for marginalised people to have a “healing relationship with the land and with each other” in the rural settings they may often feel excluded from.
Cultivating Justice[1] — a Farmerama six-part series, created in collaboration with Land in Our Names and Out on the Land — turns up the volume on a “chorus” of diverse voices from the BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities, sharing stories about their relationship with the land and the healing power of growing things, exploring racial, gender, sexuality, and social justice alongside land, food, and climate justice.
We hear from landworker and activist Paula Gioia, who campaigns for gender diversity within the European Coordination of La Via Campesina, a global movement that stands for food sovereignty and sustainable agroecological methods. In 2021, ECVC created the report, ‘Embracing Rural Diversity: Genders and sexualities in the peasant movement’, aiming for “inclusive, systemic transformation”. Gioia works with the goal of gaining visibility for those underrepresented, describing this work as energising. “My heart is warm and it’s amazing to see how much resonance is out there”, says Gioia.
Hester Russell, grower and organiser for Out on the Land, says it is crucial we “challenge the social injustices within our food and farming systems” and Sam Siva, a grower, writer, and organiser with Land In Our Names, tells us it is important to “actively try to change the way” our communities relate to people of colour, ensuring we care about people — especially social justice for minorities who have been excluded — as much as we care about sustainable farming practices.
Regenerative farmers, landowners, landworkers, agroecologists, consumers, and anyone interested in the intersection of social and environmental justice will find food for thought in regenerative farming podcast Farmerama, prompting us to consider if we are growing a fairer future where everyone can flourish and feel at home on the land.
[1] Trigger warning: As Sam Siva reminds us, “this series includes discussion of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism. Please take care as you listen.”
Reviewed by R. B. L. Robinson
