I spent eleven years reporting on agriculture for other people: commodity prices, trade rules, subsidy rounds. It was useful work, but it was written from a long way off. Somewhere along the way I realised I could tell you the price of wheat on any given morning and almost nothing about the people who grew it.
In March 2023 I moved into a converted grain shed at the edge of a farm, bought a second-hand desk and started writing a weekly letter to 212 people, most of them friends. The idea was simple: go and stand where food is grown, moved and sold, stay long enough to understand it, and write it down carefully.
The Long Field is still a small operation. I write and report; Oskar Brandt edits; Leila Haddad contributes a few pieces a year; Ruth Achterberg looks after the members' community. It has no advertisers and no investors. It is paid for by 1,214 members, which is the only reason it can take its time.