Rakel Nystabakk with her father. Photograph: Rebekka Nystabakk
When Rakel took over the last farm in her Norwegian village, she was not only taking responsibility for a flock of accident-prone woolly animals, but also a way of life at a crossroads. This was a chance to follow in the footsteps of her much-loved father, and live the way she had always dreamed, alongside her wife. A flock of sheep comes with a flock of problems, so the saying goes. With the help of community and family, can Rakel succeed?
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‘A part of me was always here’: falling in love with sheep-farming in the Norwegian fjords’
Small-scale family farming in Norway is in decline, but this has not dissuaded one woman from taking on her father’s sheep farm
Source: The Guardian / https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/31/falling-in-love-with-sheep-farming-in-the-norwegian-fjords
he small village of Engan lies perched on the hillside above the fjord of Kobbelvvågen, north of the Arctic Circle in Norway. After the dark and snowy winter, its terrain is a blanket of green in the spring and summer months, providing an ideal feeding ground for Rakel Nystabakk’s flock of sheep.
“It’s so cool that they can walk around by themselves for the whole summer grazing everything – herbs, mushrooms and land that we cannot make food from. They’re so well built for this landscape,” she says.
Back when Nystabakk, 35, was a child, Engan was bustling with farmers and their families, with at least seven individual farms. Today, Nystabakk, her wife, Ida, and their small 14-hectare (35-acre) farm are the last ones standing in the village.
Europe is in the midst of a dramatic shift to fewer and bigger, more intensive farms. The number of farms in Norway has more than halved since the 1990s. Sheep farming in particular is suffering, with a lack of interest from sons and daughters in taking on their parents’ businesses.
Unlike most other countries in Europe, Norway has a tiny arable sector too, with much of its land unsuited to growing food. This makes traditional grass-based livestock farming a logical choice for a country trying to produce more of its own food, says Nystabakk.
“For me, agriculture is about using your local resources in the most sustainable way and here, sheep is the natural choice. In Norway we only produce 40% of the food we eat. I don’t think that’s a good idea in a world of conflict and climate change.
“I honestly believe farming land the way we do here is the right thing to do. In some cases we’re destroying nature with farming, but not this type of farming. It’s the traditional way in Norway where the land is so marginal.”
Contrary to the narrative of rural exodus, Nystabakk says many in her generation have a “longing for a slower life” and want to own a smallholding.
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A film about a young farmer’s connection to the land, his animals and a changing world in the north of England. Battling against unsustainable farming methods and an unenthusiastic market, Adam Crowe continues to work on two neighbouring farms while fighting to launch his own business and breed a flock of sheep. In rural Britain, the threat of poverty is often frighteningly close.
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