Sheaf: Writers in the Field

A creative exploration of people and grains co-published with Hodmedod & the Dark Mountain Project in 2021

Emmer wheat by Anne Campbell

What became immediately clear is that it is stories – narratives – and the relationships we build with each other through telling and retelling them that create lasting change, not bald facts about a climate emergency. or nitrogen fixation. or biodiversity loss. or diet-related poor health.

There are no easy answers, but there is a simple mantra: diversity.

– Josiah Meldrum, Hodmedod co-founder, from Sheaf introduction

 What does it take to regain a right relationship with the land and what we eat in a time of fall? Sheaf is our first co-produced publication with grain and pulse pioneers Hodmedod, celebrating regenerative farmers and the crops they grow that foster resilience and beauty in the face of environmental breakdown.

Once there were stories that kept us close to the land, that told us about a spiritual and physical negotiation between the wild world and the domesticated grasses that fed and maintained us. In an increasingly industrialised world that dialogue has broken down with catastrophic consequences for the whole planet. We asked what would happen if writers were to go inside the agricultural fields of Britain and tell a story that was about the future: about farmers and farms that were remembering that original contract people made between their food crops and the territory that hosted them?

Last year, Dark Mountain three writers set out to write, in fiction, nonfiction and poetry, of their days spent on three different farms in Somerset, Suffolk and Essex, before and after the harvest. This booklet of their testimonies and accompanying artwork of grain and field speak of relationships between people, creatures and plants that you don’t always see, but are there nonetheless.

Sometimes, as the fairy tales and myths tell us, you only need the smallest of things to help you to change the course of destiny: an ant, a reed, an ear of tufted barley, a handful of coloured beans.

 
Writers in the field: Cate Chapman, Nick Hunt, Joanna Pocock

Artists: Anne Campbell, Kit Boyd

Producers: Charlotte Du Cann, Josiah Meldrum

Farmers: Col Gordon, Fred Price, Martin and Toby Wolfe, George Young

Cover: Domesticated Emmer Wheat by Anne Campbell, grown by Col Gordon

You can buy Sheaf from the online Dark Mountain shop here

The second edition of Sheaf: Harvest 2022 is also available here