It was on a sunday, late in April 2013, that I visited the organic farm “Eatmore Sprouts” of Ms Carmen Wakeling. This visit was made possible because of effort and initiative of Ms Peggy Carswell of “Fertile Ground”. She was a friend of Carmen and was visiting her, when she mentioned that I was coming to Comox Valley and that I was interested in meeting with organic farmers of the regions, with a view to possibly recording a video or two of the farms for raising public awareness.

And it was Carmen that agreed to take time out on a Sunday, and wait for me at her farm, even as I was a few minutes late.

I write this series of blogs about the women of Comox valley because I find so many of them constructively engaged in sustainable farming issues, which I find encouraging as well as inspirational. The world was, at one time, engaged with sustainable farming. That was the only way to farm. And then came industrial civilization and the invention of mass scale monoculture and chemical dependent high input farming, with genetically modified and untested food varieties in a farming model that had less involvement of people and more of machines, factory products, lawyers and politicians. And before we realized, the organic natural farmers were on the back foot, and shrinking in number.

Besides, I have personally found womenfolk to have a more caring, healing, outlook to life. Existence did not have to be a battle of survival where my success is only possible with someone else’s demise. There was a more nurturing way to look at life.

Anyhow, I found Carmen to be both enterprising, level headed, efficient, charming, and yet friendly and accommodating – one you would immediately take to as a friend.

This is the first part of our interview. The others will appear here, so stay tuned. I hope you will like it.

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