AgStacker Community Newsletter
November Edition
Welcome back to the AgStackers Community Newsletter – a monthly space to spotlight the community of writers sharing work about food, farming, and more.
If you’ve ever tried to find a home for farming, gardening, or food‑system writing on Substack and discovered there’s no category for it, you’re in the right place. Whether you write, read, or simply care about how food is grown, you’re invited to join in and help shape this space.
If this work resonates and you’d like to support it, please consider subscribing to my publication. Your support keeps this space independent and visible, and helps bring more good farming writing to more readers.
Take your time to enjoy the work shared here, and if you feel inspired, please join the conversation. This is your community as much as mine.
Feature: Luke @ Peakrill Walks
This month, I’m delighted to feature Luke Beckett of Peakrill Walks as AgStacker of the Month. Luke’s work sits in that rare sweet spot where farming history, lived rural experience, and the joy of being out on the land all meet. His walks aren’t just route guides; they’re long, thoughtful conversations with the Peak District and its farmers, birds, walls, songs, and ghosts.
Across his recent trilogy on hay, cows, and sheep, Luke shows how policy, war, technology, and markets have reshaped these hills, without losing sight of the people and animals who live with those changes. One minute you’re learning about Derbyshire Gritstones and Stilton, the next you’re standing in a ruined hall or on a moor where a shepherd and his dog once died in a storm – and somehow it all fits together. Farming here is culture as much as it is work.
If you care about how landscapes are made, not just by geology and weather but by labour, stories, and food, Luke’s work is a gift.
“In a world where it seems like polarisation and blame come so easily to people, I think we should remember that it was powerful, sweeping forces of history, geopolitics and markets, far beyond the control of normal folk, that pushed through many changes. Farmers didn’t ask for them… In a lot of cases, it really was the only way to keep going.”
This Hartington walk is Luke at his best: weaving cows, creameries, folk tales and food culture into one tight thread. He shows how Derbyshire’s “white meat” – milk turned into Stilton, Sage Derby and farmhouse junkets – is really a story about place, people and pressure: from the first creameries and milk rounds to supermarket milk prices that make it hard to keep cows on the land at all.
“Food is culture.
We need to hold on to our food culture and heritage. We do also need progress and technology. Farming and food must advance, just as culture evolves and the people of the Peak District are different to 100 or 200 years ago. Yet that doesn’t have to be at the expense of our unique culture and heritage. We can bring that with us too.”
In this final instalment of Luke’s farming series, sheep become a way to talk about risk, subsidy, peat, and pride. He traces Derbyshire Gritstones from their birth in the Goyt to subsidy‑driven overstocking and damaged moors, then back to a vision where farmers, sheep and peatlands can all thrive if we change the incentives, not just blame the shepherd.
“Within all this change, I hope that the farming community in the Peak District can find a way to choose their own future again. One that embraces new technology and knowledge, while recognising our unique heritage. One that is sustainable for the land and profitable for hard-working farmers, so they can keep on going, managing our land and adding to our culture, for thousands of years to come.”
From the Community
Here are a few pieces from the community voices that resonated with me this month:
I love how this piece quietly reframes “mess” as strategy. By letting brassicas bolt, volunteers pop up, and flowers spill through the veg beds, this garden has become a working little ecosystem - feeding pollinators, housing predators, sheltering toads, and keeping the soil alive between crops. It’s a great nudge for anyone who’s tempted to rip everything out at the first sign of chaos; sometimes the best thing you can do is stand back and let the system do its work.
“This summer, my garden feels more alive not because I planned every square inch, but because I left space for some surprises.
These flowers - sown or not - have helped bridge the hungry gap. For the pollinators. For the predators. For the soil. And, sometimes, for me.
They weren’t all part of the plan. But they’ve more than earned their place.”
Jackie turns the chaos of tupping time into something both relatable and oddly reassuring. Between Alfie’s coloured raddle marks, staggered lambing windows, and the reality of a sieve-like memory, she shows how smallholders are constantly juggling biology, logistics, and weather with very little slack in the system. This is a lovely, practical piece about why records matter, how easily they slide, and the quiet power of a simple “homestead binder” to keep a flock and a farmer just the right side of baffled.
“Either way, when he mounts a ewe, she is marked on her back with the colour of the raddle. The ewes’ breeding cycle is from about 13 to about 19 days so, typically, after 17 days you change the colour.
If the ewe is pregnant, she won’t ‘return’ and get a second colour. If she isn’t, she will. It’s sensible to start with your palest colour and work upwards. Usually after two cycles, you take the ram out.
…Maths was never my strong subject, and I do have to write things down… Farming, if nothing else, teaches you patience and persistence… Make no apologies if you have also been meaning to do it for years! Let’s get unbaffled together.”
Anne’s guide is a brilliant hand-hold for anyone looking at a tiny, awkward space and wondering if it could ever be “enough” to grow food. She walks you through a real front‑lawn‑to‑lunch makeover, then breaks the process down into simple, practical steps: start small, rethink where you can grow, work with raised beds if your soil is awful, and get clear on your needs versus your dreams. It’s gentle, encouraging, and very actionable – perfect for balcony growers, renters, or anyone trying to squeeze a kitchen garden into a suburban plot.
“This garden began with a single raised bed and kept growing from there. Your edible dream doesn’t need to be fully baked on day one. Watching your design evolve is half the fun!
…Out the front, up a sunny wall, or on a well-lit windowsill - sometimes the best spot isn’t where you think. Reimagine your space. Keep an open mind and a wide-angle lens. I see edible garden opportunities in surprising spaces!
☝🏼 When soil’s a letdown, grow UP
No perfect ground? Too soggy, sandy or solid as a rock? No problem. Raised beds, containers, and vertical gardens rise to the occasion and can produce bumper harvests, just like Shannon’s garden.”
Benjamin’s piece is a stunning, slow-burning meditation on what “good hard work” really means when you’re farming with your body and writing with your brain at the same time. He braids hay fever, ragweed, monarchs, lignified stems, hay bales, and calloused hands into a reflection on disturbance, repair, and the circular movement of energy through land, animals, and words. If you’ve ever wondered where the line sits between toughening up and burning out, this one will hit home.
“Agriculture is essentially the movement of metabolic energy harvested from sunlight, from point to point, ideally forming a nice neat circle.
…When agriculture functions best, we move shit around. Agriculture –and the civilization it has spawned– fails when the resources cease to flow, when the circle of energy frays and breaks and stockpiles of calories and wealth form, when the soil –and everything which derives life from it– goes hungry and unreplenished.
…As I tease out that fine line between calloused and crumbled, I look forward to spending a bit more of my time engaged in the good, hard work from the confines of my creaky desk and chair, moving piles of words, like so much seed and manure, from point to point, in neat circles, to feed those who need it, and regenerate what we’ve degraded.”
Cheryl takes a scalpel to our cosy pumpkin habits and asks the uncomfortable question: why are we dedicating thousands of acres, millions of pounds, and a huge chunk of our autumn imagination to growing a vegetable we mostly don’t eat? She untangles the muddle between pumpkins and winter squash, shows how supermarket carving pumpkins are often watery, tasteless, and destined for landfill, and makes a strong, practical case for choosing good-eating squash instead. If you care about food waste, farm economics, or just better flavour, this is a smart, timely read.
“Each year, thousands of acres of farmland are used to grow Halloween pumpkins only to have tons of carved pumpkins sent to the landfill once the festivities are over. Not only is this a waste of a valuable, nutritious food — it’s also a waste of your money.
…It’s controversial to ask you to try to get out of the habit of using the word pumpkin for all winter squash. Many chefs and food writers use both words interchangeably. My inbox is full of posts about pumpkins. I’m asking for the simple reason that a field pumpkin, the run of the mill Halloween pumpkin for the most part isn’t worth eating, and the rest of the bunch, all the amazing winter squash varieties, are.
If you’re going to buy one, choose a small pumpkin, it will have more flavour. Cook it all; skin, flesh and seeds. Even better, choose a winter squash, direct from a farm or farmers market… Every bit can be eaten; skin, flesh and seeds. Spread the word; #Eatyourpumpkin.”
Kevin uses one luminous Thich Nhat Hanh quote as a kind of turning point, showing how a single idea can shift a life from “one day” to “right now.” Instead of waiting for more land, more money, or the perfect circumstances, he starts living his values in the garden he already has, in a lower‑paid job with more time, and in the decision to deepen his permaculture practice. It’s a gentle, hopeful piece about treating your dreams as something you embody in each small choice, not just something you chase in the future.
“‘in the spirit of Buddhism, as soon as you have a dream, an intention, an ideal, you have to live it… You live your life in such a way that every step in the right direction and every breath along the way becomes the realization of your dream.’
…While I still harbour my dream of my own land one day, I’m actively actualising the values and needs underpinning that goal within my current space and lifestyle. Anything I sow, grow and harvest here, now, is not only hugely beneficial to me and my loved ones, it is positive preparation for possibly owning that land.”
Chris threads Vikings, pirates, collapse scenarios and community allotments into a sharp, unsettling question: what if our modern, “civilised” politics is still running on a pirate operating system we’ve forgotten how to see? Drawing on Graeber and Sahlins, he contrasts men‑with‑guns, Viking‑style thinking with the quieter, local “lights” that emerge when real people in real places start configuring new relationships on the ground. It’s a thoughtful, provocative piece for anyone thinking about dark ages, small farms, and how we might de‑pirate our politics without romanticising the past.
“In these collapse scenarios in open country… neat pre-existing theories about the evils of landlordism, the benefits of land value tax, the nature of class struggle or the war of all against all are less to the point than how you configure new relationships on the ground. Right now, you’re unique participants in a complex drama of real human beings that you’re helping to write, not rote performers of old lines.
…‘The trading-raiding-slaving nexus of Viking-era globalization is our world, directly paralleling the globalization of modern centuries’… Perhaps we who are now so connected in a global world of lucre are living in the mirror of such brutal and empty pirate worlds, the sand running unnoticed through the hourglass… All eyes on the hourglass.”
Sarah goes straight for one of the most persistent myths in food politics, that if we just demand “better” burgers from big brands, they’ll magically fix American farmland. She patiently unpicks how animal feed actually works, why supply chains are so long and opaque, and why even a giant like McDonald’s is too far from those acres (and too locked into cheap inputs) to drive real change in what gets grown and how. If you’ve ever pinned your hopes on “voting with your fork,” this is a bracing but really useful reality check that points the spotlight back where it belongs: public policy, not burger marketing.
“But if you take away anything from reading all this, let it that voting with our forks doesn’t work. Consumers, non-profits, even activist investors do not have the market power to browbeat a multi-billion dollar burger chain, or anyone else, into doing something they simply don’t have the power or incentive to do. And if we continue spending all our time and energy make these companies ‘commit’ to making changes we know they can’t make, we only have ourselves to blame for the lack of progress.
There is a single entity in our food system with the actual power to make changes all throughout the system, be it on farm, amongst processors and manufacturers, or within food companies. It’s the government… And the great news about the government is, we can vote for those folks with our actual votes (no forks required).
No food company is going to take these kinds of action on their own, and expecting them to step up to this enormous plate will not only lead to disappointment— it’s a recipe for disaster.”
Brett makes a quietly radical case for how much you can do with “marginal” land and a crop most people treat as garnish. This is a practical, funny, very human walkthrough of how he and Lucie turn a cold little frost pocket into serious cash flow with salad greens, using hand tools, manure‑heated hotbeds, saved seed, and clever systems. But underneath the how‑to is the bigger invitation: rethink your lawn, your mortgage, and your idea of work. A quarter of a tennis court in greens can pay real bills, feed your neighbours, and give your kids a different kind of childhood.
“The main part of our farm, what we call ‘The Garden’, lies on a north facing slope at the bottom of a steep valley… Our garden is the definition of ‘marginal agricultural land’. You’d have a tough time growing tomatoes or peppers here, but for leafy greens like lettuce, spinach, and arugula, it’s Eden. And price per pound, there are few plants you can grow legally that rival greens.
…Last year we had 6-8 beds planted to greens at any given time and were charging about $16 a kg ($8 per pound). That’s over $800 worth of greens on a good week, on a growing space of about one fourth of a tennis court, in a country where the median salary is less than $30,000.
…You might say making a living off of your land sounds nice but wouldn’t be easy. You would be right. Freedom isn’t free.”
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Thanks for being part of the community. Let’s see where we can take this together.
Until next month,
H x
If just 5% of my readers tipped £1/$1 this essay would pay for itself in terms of time spent working on it.
Thank you so much for your kind words! This made my week!
And so many new accounts subscribed to and articles saved - this is a fantastic digest as always.