Get to Know Our Principal Adrienne Gordon…

Adrienne completes our fabulous trio of Six Inches of Soil principal characters. Read on to find out more about her.

Six Inches of Soil principal Adrienne Gordon

What brought you to farming/growing?
I’m not from a farming background, my parents are both computer programmers! They did teach me the value of working hard and gave me their love of wildlife and the outdoors.  At school I became concerned about the impact human activity is having on our environment and I got into conservation at University. I had no idea that growing food was a career option until I decided to go ‘wwoofing’ (volunteering on organic farms) when I was 27. I discovered that there is a way of combining my love of sharing food with a need to be outside and caring for the land. Since then, I’ve spent time at numerous market gardens, CSAs and veg box schemes and worked at two great organic farms in Sussex. I struggled to find paid work as a grower, despite three years of voluntary experience, and that lead me to starting my own business, Sweetpea Market Garden this year.

Can you tell us about the land you work?
Sweetpea is a 4-acre plot that I’m renting from a local regenerative arable farmer, Tom Pearson. I found the land by posting on the Oxford Real Farming Conference Forum in January 2020. I grew up nearby, and when Tom responded I was thrilled to have the chance to return to my roots, where I already have community. I took on the land in October last year, and have been building Sweetpea with the help of family and friends since January 2022.

The soil is clay-loam which has its advantages – it retains moisture well and is nutrient rich, but it’s also been farmed intensively meaning its compacted and hard to work. We have started out on a low budget using savings and inheritance money and have borrowed where we can, and we’re managing the space using only hand tools.

Why did you choose to take part in the film?
I was introduced to Six Inches of Soil by Duncan Catchpole at the Cambridge Food Hub, an organisation that has supported my start-up by providing a route to market and delivery to local businesses. I heard the production team were looking for a woman on a journey to start a market garden and that sounded like me. It’s an amazing opportunity to expand my networks, to have the first year of the business documented and to share our story. I hope that I can communicate both the vision and the challenges we face. I never saw young women farming growing up, and I’ve faced many assumptions along the way. I want others to know that we’re as capable and resourceful, and not to underestimate us.

What does nature friendly farming mean to you?
Sweetpea is in conversion to organic certification. We do not use chemical inputs and focus on supporting our soil microbiology, and a range of wildlife and pollinators, to grow healthy nutrient dense food. I like to use the term agroecology when describing my approach to farming. Agroecology is the application of knowledge about ecology and natural systems in order to design sustainable food systems. It’s defined by the FAO as ‘a scientific discipline, a set of practices and a social movement’. It’s a framework that encourages us to consider the resilience of our systems – food needs to be grown in a way that enhances biodiversity and supports livelihoods and local communities. I believe we need to go beyond nature friendly to consider food sovereignty – people’s autonomy over their food production. We need more farmers and better food.