Every year YFoEE organises placements at Caerhys Organic Farm in Wales, where volunteers get the opportunity to learn about organic, community farming and participate in anti-GMO activism. Tosca Boot, from the Netherlands, is one month into her three month placement.
Four weeks ago I left my ordinary Dutch life to give it a try: working on a remote organic farm in Wales and work on a sustainable food system. I knew I was going to learn a lot of new things but I didn’t know I was going to have so much FUN!!
Caerhys Organic Farm, owned by Gerald Miles and his son Caz, can be found in the middle of peaceful nature, but doesn’t mean it is always peace and quiet on the farm. If it is not one of the grandchildren that’s playing around the farm, it is Gerald Miles himself that is making jokes. Two families live on the farm and volunteers from all over the world help out. This makes it a lively place, with plenty of room for fun.
Besides the fun, we work very hard. We do a lot of weeding and harvesting. On Friday all the volunteers work together to fill 50 veg boxes for the families that are member of the organic vegetable sharing community. Every week we harvest everything that is ready and share it amongst the boxes. This week’s box contains an awesome variety of veggies! We harvested potatoes, carrots, beetroot, salad, tomato, parsnip, radish, cabbage, kale, cucumber and chard.
The first two weeks of my stay in Wales we worked with a lot of volunteers on the Harvest Party. The Harvest Party was a two day festival with bands, talks and food. According to Gerald Miles “The best fest in the west”.
After the harvest party was over, there was less pressure and more time to focus on other things. Costas and I, the two volunteers of Young Friends of the Earth Europe, work on campaigning against the chemical Glyphosate that can be found in the widely used weed killer Roundup.
At the moment we are running a campaign against supermarkets that sell Roundup and other glyphosate-containing products in their stores. In the past Gerald used Roundup himself, but he switched to organic. Now he teaches us about the dangers of Roundup and shows us the (almost black coloured) fields of farmers that use Roundup. This week Costas, Gerald and I will approach the managers of the supermarkets about selling Roundup or products alike.
Exciting plans are on the agenda!!