Leaving the City for Farm Life
Leaving the City for Farm Life
Camilla and Raymund wanted better food for their family. Turns out the best way to do that was to grow their own. We discuss their story, regenerative agriculture and alternative food systems.
Camilla and Raymund taught themselves how to farm using books and the internet. Today, they administer multiple REKO rings around Oslo, which are markets that directly connect farmers to consumers. In this episode, we hear how this couple traded city life for farm life in a wide ranging conversation about alternative food systems, trust, regenerative agriculture, health, and sustainability. For them, feeding the world starts locally. Because if every community could sustainably feed themselves, then we would be able to feed the world. One community at a time.
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Episode Transcript
Analisa Winther, Nordic FoodTech Podcast Host 2:49
We're here today to talk about how you two became farmers. And I'd love to go back to the beginning of just understanding your journey to becoming a farmer and how you got into this life.
Raymund Lester-Watvedt, Regenerative Agriculture Delas Gard 3:01
We used to live in the city in the capital of Norway, which is Oslo. And it all started with food quality. Because we were modern hunters, like a lot of people are in the city, looking for high quality meat, vegetables. In the city, there is a big variety. But we found that a lot of the food didn't hold the right quality, it wasn't nutrient dense enough. So we buying meat and milk straight from the farms. But then we found out that we wanted to grow our own stuff. So, when we got kids and moved out of the city/ We moved an hour from the capital, bought a house, ad started growing our own potatoes and carrots in the lawn.
Camilla Watvedt, Regenerative Agriculture Delas Gard 3:48
And we first started as many other people live, like a house and small garden. And there was a lawn outside. It wasn't much, but if you grow food on every lawn then you get a lot of food. So, you can prepare and have it stored for winter time. And you know all of this. And also, the house was prepared for building a garage. But we didn't build the garage, we built a greenhouse. Because the car doesn't need a house, we thought, and we need food. That was the beginning of our farming education. And it was the like, YouTube and books and it's all things we have learned on the way and then just experiencing. But still, we wanted to connect more to nature. It was like there were houses everywhere and we couldn't have chickens. The way we wanted to.
Raymund Lester-Watvedt, Regenerative Agriculture Delas Gard 5:04
The tip of the iceberg was that our neighbors thought we were crazy for ripping up the grass and putting carrots and potatoes in instead.