Our previous story was about Luke, who told us how he remodelled the way in which the private sector works collaboratively to address pressing challenges. This week, our journalist turns his lens on a community farmer, Aman, a former refugee who shares his experience of developing a food cooperative with little prior knowledge in farming. 

A day in the life of Aman 

Just as the journalist was about to leave the hub, Aman, one of its members, arrived for a planning and brainstorming session with other growers and innovators. Luke insisted that Aman take the journalist to see his cooperative farm, and they agreed to meet the following day for a full tour of the farm. 

When Aman arrived the next morning he was carrying a flask of a freshly-brewed local alternative to coffee, a malted and roasted wheat drink that Polish people had popularised in Wales. “You see,” Aman said, “when coffee plantations were no longer suitable for producing coffee at scale, we turned to alternatives. It was really difficult at the beginning because coffee means so much to me, but if it weren’t for the intercultural exchange we have here in Wales, I would never have discovered the weird and wonderful alternatives that were at our doorstep.” While the journalist sipped the surprisingly delicious hot drink, Aman showed him pictures of the founding members of the cooperative. The photographs all showed smiling people standing in a field, and Aman was smiling too, even as he explained, “They, like me, lost everything they had due to a lack of adaptation in the places where they grew up. We all ended up here. Over time, as we began sharing our stories, we realised that we had all been through similar forms of pain and loss. That’s why we formed this cooperative, to ensure that none of us had to suffer alone. While we slowly worked to heal the soil that had been damaged and eroded by decades-long use of toxic pesticides and herbicides, we managed to heal some of our own traumas through sharing our stories and rebuilding together. What makes our cooperative unique is not just our innovative agricultural practices, but also our shared experiences and the sense of community we’ve built.”

Multi-Cultural Learning and Collective Effort 

Aman gestured for the journalist to follow him. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw as he followed in Aman’s footsteps. A beautiful landscape rich with wildlife; trees bright with colour and the sparkle of water from ponds and pools; the air filled with the calls of birds, and nearby a folk song being sung by a group of women. It was all quite remarkable, and appeared to be a safe haven for people, wildlife and nature alike. But how was that even possible? he though dazedly. Haven’t all agricultural skills been lost by now because of mechanisation and automation, not to mention soil degradation and extreme weather conditions that make traditional farming in soil unsuitable? Clearly not here. The unexpected beauty and vibrancy of the farm left the journalist in awe, challenging his preconceived notions about modern agriculture. 

When he asked about it, Aman said, “I was lucky. When I arrived in Wales I was an asylum seeker, but the Welsh Government was keen to keep skills like farming going. So, like many other asylum seekers, I went to college, and alongside learning English, I learned about farming here. But I was also able to reflect on how we used to grow things back in my home country. This was encouraged as part of the multicultural exchange, and although it was difficult at first, over time I was able to heal some of the wounds, and soften those difficult memories of the journey of leaving my home.  

“Many other farmers worldwide participated in this programme, and we formed a little after-college club. Initially, we used the knowledge we gained from the programme to grew food at the local charity, simply as a collective and sociable hobby. We tried multiple different farming methods, and we saw that while some were largely unsuccessful, others were incredibly fruitful. A common denominator of the successful farming methods involved nurturing the soil and restoring healthy bacteria and fungi, to create fertile growing grounds for produce. So by trying, failing, experimenting and succeeding, we learned which methods worked well for the local land, and once this happened we started producing a lot of good-looking fruits and vegetables. This gave us the confidence to seek a bigger plot of land, to grow even more food. With the help of volunteers, we joined a community growing place in Cardiff, and again, we saw that urban centres with the right farming methods can produce food. Interestingly, an environmental researcher found that our farming practices enabled great drought and flooding resistance, which has since encouraged other local and distance farmers around Wales to try our mixed methods. Together we learned how to grow food in harsh weather conditions, and doing so gave us hope and became a metaphor for our own lives. We promised each other that whoever was granted their leave to remain status would open a cooperative.

“And that’s what we did. I was the first to get granted permanent settlement, but there were others who quickly followed me, and we could provide further training for entrepreneurial refugees. It was a lot of work, and a lot of learning, and I came close to giving up more than once; but I had made a promise to my fellow farming buddies, and I couldn’t back down. So I continued, and I’m glad I did. Where you’re standing is the first plot of land that we all worked on as a farming cooperative, run by refugees for the whole community here. We distribute most of the food we grow to local schools and nearby hospitals. We also get lots of volunteers and we organise excursion days where school students can come and learn how we manage food.” 

Exploring Different Farming Practices to Accommodate Biodiversity 

While the journalist was jotting down notes, Aman moved to another plot, which, as he explained, “Has been written about by scholars.” He described how a few decades earlier, a type of open-field farming system was being practised on the Vile on the Gower peninsular. This medieval method of communal agriculture would once have been common, with farming families each attending to their own strip of land but working in cooperation to plan for the harvest. Fields would be left fallow every few years to allow the soil to recover, providing ground-nesting birds with camouflage and protection from predators. The ‘baulks’, soil-covered mounds that separated the strips, allowed small mammals to safely move across the cultivated land. Animals could find shelter and food within the nooks and crannies of medieval farms, along with a wide variety of plants. 

“So we replicated it,” Aman said, “and we also used other techniques, like communal watering methods from Spain, or the Kenyan dry weather method of growing from seeds, called “bunds”. These ideas were all locked inside peoples’ memories, or sometimes in books, stories that had been passed down through the generations, telling us how people used to tend to the soil to nourish it. So, through attending to each other’s cultural background and spending time together, we not only healed our wounds but also created this place.” 

Aman led the journalist to a new area, one very different to those he had seen so far. Tall vertical tubes had been placed in a circular formation, and a variety of different plants and vegetables grew out of openings in the tubes. They towered high over the journalist, who considered himself to be of above-average height, and he wondered who would have to ascend the structure to harvest the high-growing broccoli and kale. Aman explained that this was their aquaponic system, with fish swimming in water-filled tanks connected to the tubes. The fish waste provided nourishment for the plants in an almost closed-loop system. Aman added, “It’s an ancient system that originated in Japan, but over the last few decades it has been adopted by other countries. The knowledge was developed many years ago, so all we needed to do was bring ourselves up to speed. Well, I say ‘all’ –  not many of us knew how to look after fish, plants, water, nutrients and bacteria all at once! But we learned, and this is the result. 

“We don’t just use multicultural and ancient farming practices, we also use technology to help us prepare for the changing climate. We work with the hub’s researchers and innovators who help us identify suitable land for both nature and agriculture. We learned our lesson, to use local and indigenous knowledge and science together, not apart.” 

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Follow next week’s story about Cleo, a doctor in rural Wales who practices preventative care and explores the root causes of people’s ailments rather than treating the symptoms with medicine. 

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