A week of feeling food systems on a farm in Zeeland

In June of last year, Futurall co-designed a week-long traineeship ‘Bodemkracht’. The traineeship, designed and run by Cor Noltee and Valerie Kuster, took fifteen young people on an intimate journey to learn about the future of food systems, with one another and with the land. Eva attended the traineeship and captured it on film.

Day 1: Arrival. Our camps are all set up - between the pumpkin fields -  and we meet in the first circle for a coffee and a “check-in”. It’s super windy! Something we’ll have to get used to the rest of the week…

Post check-in circle, Jan and Niels, the young farmers that have taken over De Koeijer farms as the next generation take us to check in on the state of their most important ally: the soil.

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On our way, we stop to scare some crows - or seagulls? We laugh at first until we realise that this is a very real daily annoyance of the farmers, who walk by these fields multiple times a day during key moments to clap and clap and clap.

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In between the fields of wheat (?) we find a spot to dig into the soil. Not an easy task as the soil is mostly clay. We discuss the soil’s texture, density and composition, and the (less than we hoped for) traces of life.

Early that evening, we used the food systems compass to get to know each other. With green notes (where we think we are now) and pink notes (what we’d like to learn more about) we mapped ourselves onto the food system (or at least tried to - as the notes kept flying away), and separated into small group discussions.

Day 2: After the first morning of fieldwork (weeding between the onions), two members of the group write first reflections in their learning journals. Today’s theme: social innovation. We talk about the social aspects of food systems.

Others chill in the bright afternoon sun.

In the afternoon, Joop de Koeijer shares with us the history of the farm, and the larger context of farmer movements in the Netherlands, much of which is documented in  this book by Kees Slager which shares the oral history of Zeeuwse “land workers”. What strikes me is Joop’s candidness around feeling both loss and hope for the future. Climate change looms and has made the farm’s future uncertain. New generations are more individualistic yet at the same time he welcomes the younger generation to experiment with new, regenerative farming practices.

And then as a first reward, we visit the beach, just a 10 minute drive from the farm.

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Day 3: With a packed lunch, the group is about to head off on a long walk to an organic farm store.

Day 4: As a break from weeding the onions, we are taken to the bean fields to weed them by hand. This was no easy task. Unlike the onions, the beanstalks are unruly and it’s more difficult to spot the weeds. Farmer Jan en Niels wants to see the work finished, so we push ourselves harder. My back starts to ache. I’m starting to understand the effect of manual labour on the body.

Each day, a ‘kitchen team’ stays behind and not only preps the day's meals, but also prepares a ‘ritual’ that explores the theme of that day. Today’s theme: “what would a food system look like that centers health?”

Here we are served a gazpacho-like drink, as Eva (not me ;)) reads a passage from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass that asks us to consider our own health in relation to nature’s resources.  

Day 5: We head to the Food Forest “De Beheerlyckheid” to plant young trees and explore alternative food landscapes.

A delicious lunch prepared by Valerie awaits us. :)

Tonight’s food ritual related to the theme “Landscape management” features a game, where teams create their own local farming communities and must deal with future challenges like flooding, food shortages and migration.

I helped to design the game, and we added some roleplaying to spice it up. Here Laura takes the role of forest ranger and wildlife researcher, and Myrthe is our fab weather god - whose predictions are unpredictable, harsh but fair.

Day 6: As a break (between weeding onions, of course) we head to the main house for a coffee.

Jan’s signature outfit: crocs and a bottle of home-made ice-tea.

In the afternoon, we are taken on a foraging tour.

Along the shore of Brouwershaven, we find different types of edible seaweed.

Mustard seed. We try to follow the principle we learned from Braiding Sweetgrass: never pick the first specimen you see, and always leave more than half.

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Day 7: A storm has reached us, and we gather in doors to prepare one last leftover lunch together.

The delicious last lunch. :)

The sky has cleared, enough to pack our wet tents. We say final goodbyes as we part, heading back to our various city lives…