Those of you who receive (and read) my newsletter will know that in the last two I've offered a mini-competition, which has proved popular. The most recent one was a request to readers to write a maximum of 300 words on their 'best book' of 2020. It didn't need to be a book published during this year, only read.
Well, I found it hard to choose a winner, so left it all on one side for a week or three. During that time, 3 names rose to the surface, and tomorrow I will post their pieces – a diverse and eclectic selection.
For me, oddly, lockdown has not been a time for much reading, although I have managed some. But the standout book of the year is a book on microfarming that is rooted in permaculture, written by two French unintentional farmers. It's been such a very inspiring read, and will inform the next stage of TM's and my journey, which is a major foray into forest-garden and permaculture sustainable systems – hands-on, of course. Regenerative small-scale farming has to be our future, collectively.
For any of you who want to be inspired in a similar way, it's
Miraculous Abundance: One Quarter Acre, Two French Farmers, and Enough Food to Feed the World
by Perrine & Charles Hervé-Gruyer
Description
The Bec Hellouin model for growing food, sequestering carbon, creating jobs, and increasing biodiversity without using fossil fuels
When Charles and Perrine
Herve-Gruyer set out to create their farm in an historic Normandy
village, they had no idea just how much their lives would change.
Neither one had ever farmed before. Charles had been circumnavigating
the globe by sail, operating a floating school that taught students
about ecology and indigenous cultures. Perrine had been an international
lawyer in Japan. Each had returned to France to start a new life.
Eventually, Perrine joined Charles in Normandy, and Le Ferme du Bec
Hellouin was born.
Bec Hellouin has since become a celebrated model of innovative,
ecological agriculture in Europe, connected to national and
international organizations addressing food security, heralded by
celebrity chefs as well as the Slow Food movement, and featured in the
inspiring Cesar and COLCOA award-winning documentary film, Demain
('Tomorrow'). Miraculous Abundance is the eloquent tale of
the couple's evolution from creating a farm to sustain their family to
delving into an experiment in how to grow the most food possible, in the
most ecological way possible, and create a farm model that can carry us
into a post-carbon future-when oil is no longer moving goods and
services, energy is scarcer, and localization is a must.
Today, the farm produces a variety of vegetables using a mix of
permaculture, bio-intensive, four-season, and natural farming
techniques--as well as techniques gleaned from native cultures around
the world. It has some animals for eggs and milk, horses for farming, a
welcome center, a farm store, a permaculture school, a bread oven for
artisan breads, greenhouses, a cidery, and a forge. It has also become
the site of research focusing on how small organic farms like theirs
might confront Europe's (and the world's) projected food crisis.
But in this honest and engaging account of the trials and joys of their
uncompromising effort, readers meet two people who are farming the
future as much as they are farming their land. They envision farms like
theirs someday being the hub for a host of other businesses that can
drive rural communities-from bread makers and grain millers to animal
care givers and other tradespeople.
Market farmers and home gardeners alike will find much in these pages,
but so will those who've never picked up a hoe. The couple's account of
their quest to design an almost Edenlike farm, hone their practices,
and find new ways to feed the world is an inspiring tale. It is also a
love letter to a future in which people increasingly live in rural
communities that rely on traditional skills, locally created and
purveyed goods and services, renewable energy, and greater local
governance, but are also connected to the larger world.
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