Once the morning dew has burnt off, whole families head out into the waist-high fields to begin the harvest. The grasshoppers, butterflies and spiders make way as human sounds replace the hum of insects. The grass is cut and then left to dry over a long lunch held under the shade of a tree. After the midday heat has subsided, the family members take on their separate roles of collecting, piling and forking the grass. Slowly, the haystacks that have characterised the Romanian countryside for centuries are formed and the fodder that supports the family’s livestock is protected from the harsher months to come.
Romania’s wildflower meadows and farmland are among the most biodiverse ecosystems in Europe. The grasslands are full of the sounds and movement of insects as well as the colour and depth of the flora. This life and all its variety has been lost among the rest of Europe. Large-scale farming, machinery, chemicals and intensification have prioritised human consumption and replaced the natural soundscape and landscape. Romania is one of the few remaining European countries in which farmland provides for the whole spectrum of both wildlife and human life.
The practice of haymaking in Romania has changed little in hundreds of years. Much of the process is still done by hand and involves sculpting huge bell-shaped haystacks which protect the fodder from rain, wind and snow. The relationship with the land, the use of hand tools, and the lack of chemicals has ensured that the farming has had little impact on the Romanian ecosystem.
Fodder explores the practice of haymaking in rural Romania: a landscape where nature thrives, and human life is sustained; a landscape from which we can learn as we battle biodiversity loss and all its impacts around the rest of the world; and, a landscape that itself is starting to be threatened by pressures of modernisation and emigration.
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