open call
FARM - Farmer Residency at Gagel Farm, Netherlands
We welcome two farmers for a residency stay of a minimum of 8 weeks between mid-September and mid-November 2025 at Gagel Farm in the Netherlands. For the first time, Gagel farm will open her ecosystem to facilitate farmers in residence who want to help us in answering the question: how do we farm in reciprocity with life within Europe contexts of the 21st century? This residency includes: space, time, guidance and infrastructure to become a regenerative farmer, accommodation, a €1600 stipend, connection to the European network of regenerative farmers and agricultural organisations, access to the course “How to Start a Regenerative Farm” at Gagel Farm designed by Anne van Leeuwen at a 50% discount, access to the vegetable garden and eggs, professional guidance by Ricardo Cano Mateo (Spanish biologist, regenerative designer and entrepreneuring farmer at Gagel Farm), opportunity to collaborate with cooks, artists and scientists and insight into how a regenerative farm works and who grows, hatches, blooms, sleeps, flies and dies in which season.
For the first time, Gagel farm will open her ecosystem to facilitate farmers in residence who want to help us in answering the question: how do we farm in reciprocity with life within Europe contexts of the 21st century?
Industrial agriculture – characterised by intensive plowing, overgrazing, monocultures, animal suffering, pesticides and artificial fertilizers – is still the norm in Europe. Consequently, we live in a time of extreme loss of life due to the destruction of ecosystems and exhaustion of soils. Within this conventional system, the farmers have become the revenue model for large corporations and food is mainly distributed on a global scale, rather than feeding local communities. Additionally, the nutritional value of the food produced by conventional agriculture is plummeting, and pesticides and plastics have become part of our daily meals.
Worldwide, industrial agriculture is causing the loss of 30 football pitches worth of fertile, living soils per minute – amounting to 12 million hectares per year. Food systems that destroy life cannot feed us. Depleted soils can no longer withstand increasing temperatures, severe drought or rainfall, and thus cannot support life. That is, unless they are regenerated.
Regenerative agriculture offers a new, hands-on perspective on how humans can co-create landscapes that are abundant in food as well as life. We need more regenerative farmers to build new food systems which focus on feeding all forms of life, on rebuilding ecosystems and facilitating healthy habitats for all beings that reside in our landscapes.
This residency is meant for regenerative farmers that are about to start their own regenerative initiative or business, or are already partaking in one, and are looking for ways to deepen or broaden their regenerative understanding in both theory and practice. They will do so by working intensely and all round at Gagel farm, while getting in-depth feedback on their own proposals or plans. They will also work with EAT residents to deepen their understanding of the importance of a new food culture.