Ensō Farm

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From Software Engineer to Small-scale Farmer

My journey towards starting a small farm has definitely been untraditional. I’ve always loved being in nature, but growing up I was also drawn to technology and computers. I graduated university with a degree in Computer Science, and worked as a software engineer at a tech start-up in London for almost three years. The company grew significantly while I was there, we had brand-new offices and went on winter retreats, yet I soon knew I couldn’t stay for long; the divide between my values and what I believed to be the real issues in the world, including global warming and mass consumerism, with what I was contributing to, was ever-widening. I was also becoming increasingly perturbed by the direction of the tech industry in general, pushing towards strong(er) artificial intelligence and virtual reality, replacing humans with machines and disconnecting us evermore from nature and each other, that I felt I had to change paths entirely.

I have spent the last two years re-educating myself, with a masters in Environmental Sustainability focusing on food systems, two Permaculture Design Certifications at Ridgedale Permaculture and Rancho Mastatal, 10 months as an apprentice in the Costa Rican jungle and many, many hours of self-study in everything from regenerative agriculture and market gardening, to whole-systems design, soil science, healthy ecosystems, accounting, sales, climate change and DIY. My worldview has shifted, I’ve gained confidence despite not having a farming background, and new possibilities have emerged.

I deeply want to align my values, actions and being; living in a state of cognitive dissonance or complacency is no longer acceptable to me. As Donella Meadows offers, “There is too much bad news to justify complacency. There is too much good news to justify despair.” I also believe there is an inherent link between living sustainably and minimising the gap between our ideal vision of the world versus how we allow it to be. It is the shared story of a better world, coupled with individual and collective willpower, that will create lasting positive change against the tide of momentum. So now I’m doing what I feel needs to be done, based on everything I’ve learned; something a little different, but also as old as “civilisation” - I am starting a small, biodiverse, holistic farm, together with my family, here in south-east Oxfordshire.

The importance of (re-)localisation and breaking out of the “monoculture of the mind” has long been emphasised, by influencers like E.F. Schumacher, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Vandana Shiva, Wendell Berry and many more. They espouse the many co-benefits that arise when human-scale systems and communities are rooted in place, and live in synchrony with the land on which they depend, such as the traditional Satoyama (里山) mountainside villages in Japan, or Ladakhi peoples in northern India. Others have written about and experienced the joy that comes from knowing where their food comes from and how it was grown. We aim to uphold these principles by regenerating our soils, providing our locality with nutrient-dense produce, being a haven for wildlife, and ultimately a place where people can connect with each other and with the land.

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