Daniel the farmer

As I briskly removed the bucket from underneath Sheba the goat, just in time to avoid her stamping in it for the fourth time this morning and having to pour another pail of dirty milk down the sink, I overcome my frustration by reminding myself of why I chose to come here and experience life as a farmer for these three months this summer.

I had heard about the Adamah Jewish farming fellowship some time ago and thought it sounded interesting. It was my experiences in India that made me sure that I wanted to participate on it.

There I was reminded of the centrality of agriculture to the lives of most people on the planet; buying food in a supermarket had allowed me to forget this process (excluding the melons and parmelos that I had packed into boxes on Kibbutz!) Everywhere I traveled in Nepal and India I could see a different stage of the agricultural process. I’ll never forget arriving on the morning train into Kolkata and looking out of the window at the packed sea of farmers carrying onions, cabbages, cauliflower, oranges and everything else you can imagine in gigantic baskets on their heads to sell in the city. As I looked out of the window and saw people (mostly women) working on the land as I travelled by train across India Irealised how little I knew about the process of farming, at home and abroad.

I was in Nepal during the rice harvest. I have eaten and enjoyed rice all of my life but realized that I had no idea what rice looked like as a plant and in the paddy field. The process gone through to produce the polished rice eaten in South Asia astounded me. First the head of the rice is harvested, and beaten to remove the rice kernels; the rest of the paddy plant is then used to make hay for the livestock. The rice is sieved again to remove any dust before being left out in the sun to dry. It is then boiled to take off the husks prior to being spread out again to try in the sun. Only after all of this is it ready to be used to feed the family or put into sacks to sell.

In Kolkata I was reminded how little I know about another aspect of food production, animal slaughter, despite having eaten meat for most of my life. I found the slaughter house in Kolkata’s Newmarket and was disgusted and fascinated by the production of meat. I spent a whole morning watching and filming the slaughter of chickens and butchering of goats. (More on that another time!)

All of these experiences left me with a sense of alienation from the food I eat. I am not sure that I can explain this as an entirely logical rationale behind wanting to work on a farm but it was a really strong feeling. I applied to do the Adamah programme and had my interview from an internet café in Kolkata and here I am.

The big draw of coming to the US to have this farming experience was my desire to gain a better understanding of Judaism in America. Having been a part of the Moishe House network by living in the London house, I was aware of the many varied and innovative spiritual, ritual and social action Jewish initiatives going on across the pond.

Adamah takes place at the Isabella Freedman retreat centre (in Connecticut, about two hours drive from New York city), a centre of Jewish Renewal programmes and retreats. Already since I have been here there has been a LGBT spiritual retreat (Nehirim), a camp for adults with mental illness and this last Shabbat saw the retreat of the Jewish Multi-racial Network. The rest of the summer will see a whole series of spiritual retreats that I’m looking forward to sampling.

My original intention was to experience these and see what and how I could bring these ideas back to the UK. This is a much more difficult task than I thought: so much of it just isn’t British! I did not realize until I came here that the expressions ‘happy-clappy’ and ‘touchy-feely’ are truly descriptive. I was pleasantly surprised to have found myself out of my own comfort zone several times already and am enjoying getting used to how Judaism is practiced here. I’m spending a lot of time thinking about how to translate things into English, it’s a challenge!

I will try to post more updates about my experiences here. Between full days in the fields planting, weeding, thinning and hoeing and the evening learning and training sessions, there is not much time so we’ll see how I do. The Adamah blog will also have updates about what we’re up to. Please do be in touch with me while I’m here, I’d love to hear how everyone is doing at home!

I’m happy to say that I finish my goat milking duty this week, bring on the chickens!