The organic veg pioneer talks to the Guardian about being unemployable, his unconventional father and his recent autism diagnosis
“C
ardoons are a perennial crop – they keep coming back every year,” says Guy Singh-Watson, as his dog, Artichoke, roots around for voles among the tall thistle-like plants. “They would be a dream crop – if only people liked eating them.”
Cardoons, which Singh-Watson learned to love while snowed in on a Sicilian mountain, are not your typical vegetable. But then the Riverford veg box founder is not your typical farmer, despite still living only a few miles from the farm where he was born.
Unlike most farmers, Singh-Watson says we need to eat less meat, that large-scale farmers should pay inheritance tax and that Brexit has been “a complete and utter fuck-up”. He has opposed foxhunting, banned the badger cull from his land and supported the climate protesters of Extinction Rebellion. He once even voted for Jeremy Corbyn. When it comes to the challenges agriculture faces, he is the most brutally honest farmer in the UK.
