When a Hippie Decides to Farm

◉ Eating garlic scapes far from home is pure bliss. Photo: Jiang Xiechi

“I came across some garlic scapes today!” On an early summer Saturday morning, a friend excitedly showed off their farmers’ market haul. Since moving to the UK last year, we’ve regularly met up at the Growing Communities organic farmers’ market in north London to buy our produce, getting to know most of the growers quite well. Yet, we had never come across this one before.

It turned out the garlic grower was Metske van der Laan, a Dutch farmer who has been part of the market for nearly a decade but only sets up a stall in the summer and autumn. Soon after, the market organisers arranged a farm visit for customers on the Summer Solstice, 21 June, and I signed up straight away. Our group of around thirty drove south-east from north London, arriving at the Bore Place organic farm in Kent in just over an hour. Metske and her partner were already there, waiting to welcome us.

◉Metske and her partner at the market. Photo: Growing Communities

An open, shared organic farm

The farm sits within Bore Place, an estate spanning more than 500 acres. The surrounding area reportedly attracts no shortage of wealthy Britons buying leisure properties. British law places a strong emphasis on private ownership, so “private road” signs are a common sight in both urban and rural settings, effectively warning strangers to keep out. Run by a charity, Bore Place takes a more public-spirited approach, opening its grounds to walkers and cyclists. Within this area, roughly 10 acres are co-managed by three groups: Metske’s organic vegetable farm, an organic willow nursery, and a campsite.

“It’s hard to find a land-sharing model like this anywhere else,” Metske remarked.

◉Market visitors strolling around the farm.

According to official figures, the average farm size in the UK in 2025 was 143 acres. By comparison, the 6.6-acre vegetable holding managed by Metske van der Laan is small but perfectly formed. Several polytunnels are dedicated to raising seedlings and growing cucumbers and tomatoes, while open-field crops include pumpkins, beetroot, sweetcorn, French beans, bulb fennel and a variety of salad leaves.

Salad leaves are the farm’s star crop. “I don’t just love growing them, I love eating them too. Does anyone remember the harvest from last year? They tasted absolutely brilliant!” Metske’s pride is unmistakable. The leaves are harvested on a three-week cycle, with staggered plantings to ensure a steady weekly supply.

◉ Courgettes, pumpkins and lettuce under insect netting.

Soil conditions also dictate that cultivation must be carefully planned. The farm’s ground is classified as heavy clay, which is far from ideal for leafy greens. Fortunately, Metske has spent his life working with clay. Born into a Dutch farming family, he grew up digging potatoes out of clay soil alongside his siblings. Clay is perfect for spuds, but far less forgiving for vegetables. The ground stays waterlogged through spring and dries out too sharply once summer arrives, leaving just five or six months a year when the soil is actually workable. As a result, every inch of land and every moment has to be used to the full.

Metske starts buying seeds and raising seedlings each February. With organic seeds available for 90% of his varieties, the farm does not save its own seed but sources everything from reputable suppliers. He also picks early-maturing varieties to beat other growers to the market; tomatoes that arrive early on the shelf are guaranteed to draw customers in. Planting directly in the open fields does not begin until April or May.

Heavy clay also makes mechanised cultivation tricky. Metske showed us the small seeder they run on the farm. During sowing, he aims for even spacing between plants to make weeding and crop management as straightforward as possible. “Farming is gruelling work and virtually never stops. The last time I went on holiday must have been over a decade ago. So if you can use machinery to save on manual labour, you simply have to.”

When asked for his take on weeding robots, Metske was remarkably upbeat. He conceded that they are prohibitively expensive right now, but he reckons that in twenty years’ time, once a proper secondhand market has developed, they’ll be well within reach for the average smallholder.

◉Tractor and sowing equipment.

Moving past the seed drill, we came across a wildflower strip and a plot of green manure left to lie fallow. One of the main purposes of the wildflower strip is to attract pollinators, which is why the pumpkins, which rely heavily on pollination, are planted right alongside it. Metske has also sown clover seeds among the pumpkins to fix nitrogen and suppress weeds. The green manure plot is scheduled to lie fallow for two years; it will be mowed regularly and left to decompose in place, building up humus in the soil.

“What do you do about pests and diseases?” asked one of the visitors.

“Sometimes I have to figure things out, and other times nature provides the answers,” Metske says. Recently, the polytunnels were overrun with aphids, but ladybirds quickly brought the infestation under control, as the wildflower strips offer shelter to natural predators and help maintain ecological balance. Beyond the deliberately planted strips, the farm’s various edges and verges are lush with grasses and flowers, serving a similar purpose.

◉Wildflower strips and fallow land planted with green manure.

“Have you ever tried spraying chilli water?”

“I’ve tried it, but it’s not particularly effective. Besides, you probably wouldn’t want to eat chilli-flavoured cucumbers either.” Metske’s dry reply drew a round of laughter. “That said, I’m planning to make a spray from onion skins to put on the beans. Hopefully, it’ll keep the spider mites at bay.”

He also stresses that organic farming requires accepting yield losses and adjusting your expectations. Take the vegetable plot opposite the fallow field, for instance: deer frequently wander in to steal the maize, so a fence was put up. It keeps the deer out, but not the hares, so you just have to let it be.

Since 2021, the UK government has piloted the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), providing cash subsidies for 102 field management practices with proven ecological benefits. By 2026, the number of eligible measures was adjusted to 71, including organic farming, growing nitrogen-fixing crops, maintaining hedgerows, and planting wildflower strips. Taking wildflower strips as an example, the government provides an annual payment of £739 per hectare for this practice, which works out to roughly £300 per acre?

◉Example of the UK’s Sustainable Farming Incentive. Image source: UK Government website

In early 2026, the UK government pledged £24 million towards the Sustainable Farming Incentive, with a quarter of the funding ring-fenced for small farms under 50 hectares. Metske, however, did not apply for the subsidy. His farm is simply too small, and he is not the landowner. Nevertheless, without any public funding, the professional network and sales channels he has cultivated over more than two decades in the industry are more than enough to sustain the operation.

From Hippie to Organic Farmer

When I first met Metske at the market, I immediately noticed the seven earrings in his left ear and figured he must be a seasoned hippie. This visit, I finally have the chance to hear his story about turning to farming.

In his youth, Metske took part in the squatting movement in the Netherlands – a largely anarchist and hippie-led campaign to occupy empty properties and “redistribute” them to those in need of housing and space. In the 1970s, veganism was just as prevalent as squatting. Naturally, Metske and his companions converted one of the occupied buildings into a vegan restaurant.

The vegan movement’s focus on diet and the environment naturally aligned with the principles of organic farming. Consequently, Metske’s restaurant began sourcing its produce directly from small-scale Dutch organic farmers. He eventually pivoted to organic food retailing, capitalising on the rising demand across Europe, and his business flourished. Yet, the ease with which he made money as a retailer – earning significantly more than the farmers themselves – left him feeling uneasy.

“I resolved to live an honest, grounded life.” This led him to train as an apprentice at an organic farm in the Netherlands. Metske says that those two years on the farm taught him far more than four years of university, and cemented his commitment to organic farming. And so, he handed the retail business over to his partners, crossed the North Sea, and began searching for land to put down roots in England.

In the early 2000s, Metske honed his growing skills through courses and farm placements, and built up a network of contacts within the UK food and farming community. “The most important thing was meeting the partners at the Growing Communities farmers’ market,” he emphasised. With both the skills and the network in place, the next step was to find some land.

Metske spent a long time searching for land. Just as he was beginning to lose heart, a phone call led him to a farm in Sussex, in the south of England. They hit it off straight away, and in 2005 Metske took on a lease for a 5.9-acre plot, which he named Pannel Organic. Although the farm was only a two-hour drive from London, it fell outside the Growing Communities market’s catchment area. So he targeted customers in the southern coastal towns of Brighton and Lewes, delivering vegetables and supplying organic grocers until his lease ended in 2017.

◉The farm still keeps a poster for Pannel Organic.

Fortunately, Metske was soon invited by Bore Place to oversee organic farming on a few acres. In 2019, he began running the farm independently. He also officially joined the Growing Communities farmers’ market, setting up a stall in London every Saturday during the growing season and supplying the market’s veg boxes and organic wholesale service.

It took Metske more than twenty years to go from novice to seasoned organic farmer, and he is keen to pass his hard-won knowledge on to the next generation. During the visit, several young growers sought his advice, and Metske recommended the growing courses at Organic Lea, an organic farm in north London. Alongside refining their cultivation skills, securing sales channels and community networks that align with their values is absolutely essential if small-scale organic farmers are to stay afloat. A prime example is the organiser of this farm visit: the Growing Communities farmers’ market, based in north London.

Founded in 1996, this farmers’ market is dedicated to supporting local small-scale farmers who work in an environmentally friendly way, paying fair prices for seasonal organic produce. To date, it maintains a steady partnership with 23 farms.

What does “environmentally friendly” entail? All growers supplying the market must hold organic or biodynamic certification. And what qualifies as “local”? Farms must be within 70 miles (approximately 113 km) of the market. For organic meat, eggs, and dairy, this radius extends to 100 miles (approximately 161 km). Stallholders selling processed foods must source at least 70% of their ingredients from the market’s farmers. Where this threshold cannot be met, all ingredients used must be organically certified.

◉The sign at the market explains to shoppers the social value of shopping at the farmers’ market.

Why support local organic smallholders? A sign outside the market makes it perfectly clear: “When you shop at the Growing Communities farmers’ market, every penny goes straight to the growers. When you shop at a supermarket, farmers receive less than 15 per cent of the retail price.”

Worse still, farmers sometimes can’t even cover their costs. In a report, the UK charity Sustain noted that for conventional carrots priced at £0.59 a kilogram in supermarkets, the gross margin is just £0.01. In practice, farmers don’t even see that penny. Because carrots are a staple vegetable, retailers routinely drive purchase prices below cost to keep shelf prices low and encourage sales.

◉A comparison of profit distribution in conventional supply chains versus alternative food networks, using carrots as an example. Image source: Unpicking Food Prices

Retailers’ low-margin, high-volume strategy not only squeezes farmers’ profit margins, but also ends up being subsidised by the public purse. As early as 2017, UK agricultural estimates indicated that without subsidies from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), more than 40% of farms would be operating at a loss. Since Brexit, direct payments have been sharply reduced, leaving farmers facing increasingly difficult times.

Life is hardly easy for ordinary Britons either. Since the pandemic, inflation and rising energy and food prices have combined to fuel the cost-of-living crisis. Yet, facing a challenge that seems to have no straightforward answers, I remain convinced of Metske’s approach and the alternative food networks he represents. With greater backing from public funds and resources, these small-scale but meaningful practices could well catalyse much broader change.

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