Maple Field

And yesterday I visited an example/ farm  –   Kenson Organics, on the banks of the River Nadder. The River Nadder merges with the River Wylie which merges with the River Avon in the meadows by  Salisbury Cathedral and reaches Fordingbridge, where I live, 12 miles later. I have been visiting Liz and Hugh at Kenson veg every month (first Wednesday) for all of 2024  –   the anniversary is April 2025 and I am beginning to really know about their business and I can’t help feeling this is the answer/ example to modern British farming in order to replace the non-profit, non sales, unattractive, ultra- moan we hear on Farming Today (Radio 4 at 5.45 each morning)  –   why would you continue to do it?  –   are you landlocked and compressed into cycles of husbandry that are unrewarding, monotonous and lonely. Kenson Organics is the reverse of this. They raise so much organic food, from 22 acres, they qualify, and should be nominated for, a nutrient BAFTA  –   for 24 years, these two energetic, charming humans have fed their customers, over market stalls in Salisbury( Tuesday and Saturday) and in Shaftesbury (Thursday) and through Bristol Community Market, and Abel & Cole,   plus a ‘veg shed’ on the farm in Lagpond Lane, Sutton Mandeville, Wiltshire. What I find at Kenson is the answer written for me in the flood- retreat farming of the River Nadder. Of course I get all whiskery about the connections;  the spring water oozing out of the Chilmark limestone that was used to build Salisbury Cathedral;   the river thought- stream bringing with it delight and nourishment,  waterborne to me in Fordingbridge  –  I could collect my vegetables in a canoe . Liz and Hugh might take goods to Salisbury market by barge  –   they tap into the flow of  business offered to actual, personal customers with the grin of pride and the hand of friendship ;these people matter to a lot of other people ,who show their appreciation back. That is trade,   that is commerce,   and fortunately for us, Liz and Hugh have chosen that business- like path along which to feed us. Most agriculture completely lacks this lively human approach,   this magnified interest in how it is done, from where, and by whom. Kenson Farm has nailed it for 24 years and we are very grateful. But more especially, and quite urgently,  the Nation should recognise the benefits and the fun of this immediate , hand- to- hand form of trading. Would you rather see Liz every week  or a member of her vegetable tribe  –  or to self- checkout you’re anonymous, not- so- fresh ,inorganic ‘stuff’ in a floodlit super- grocer ? Kenson’s output is not ‘stuff’  –   it is a continuous series of freshly harvested plants, all as fragrant as a new day.

 And I have photos of the market stall surrounded by eager customers on a Saturday,  talking to their people,   their growers,   their vital, fuel- stokers, with the same frost- nipped finger that picked the Brussels sprouts, taking your card payment or cash for the delightful transaction  –   the market tables with leaning boxes full of 20 different vegetables are hemmed in with excitement, laughter and the whiff of expensive perfume, the chatter of children  –   you come away with a feeling that these Kenson people know what’s what and have found a fabulous way to perform.  The people who work with them share the same smiles and grins as if it is ‘learnt  behaviour’, and we , the vegetable public can join in (Mrs. Thatcher said at a dinner, when asked for her order “ I’ll have what the vegetables are having”,  referring to her Cabinet). So I suppose the purpose of this is to broadcast the energy and the skill and the nutrient benefit and the reference to the Nadder land which is entirely safe and well under the reign of these two organic practitioners. You should be able to get this  –   the food and the method  –   on prescription.

 Next time:    how many people do they feed?  who are they,  and what is their output in nutrients per acre, instead of tonnes  –   bulk nonsense. Bernard Dyson hits you with a list of big, bulky numbers in a show -off chorus  –   12,000 tonnes of potatoes;  a million sheep ; a gazillion tonnes of wheat  –   as if that is the only metric we understand.