“We put our faith IN FARMING”
In a quiet corner of Oxfordshire, we meet a Muslim family who quit their day jobs and started an organic farm from the ground up
It looks as if it has been standing for centuries, but the house at Willowbrook Farm is just six years old – the Radwan family created this cob house out of clay from their land. For 12 years, Lutfi, Ruby and their five children lived in two rundown caravans just yards away as they created their organic farm in Oxfordshire from scratch.
Willowbrook Farm is the UK’S first halal and tayib farm. ‘Halal’ is Arabic for ‘lawful’, ‘tayib’ means ‘natural’. These ideas, say the Radwans, underlie Islamic farming: animals must be reared well. “Ideas of being wholesome and sustainable come into it,” Ruby says. “We should live in a way that is balanced and good and healthy.”
Twenty years ago, Lutfi lectured in geography at Oxford, while Ruby taught psychology at a sixth-form college. They lived nearby in Bladon and wanted their four children, then aged two to 14, to appreciate the planet. As Muslims, they ate halal meat but began to have concerns over animal welfare. Eventually, they stopped eating meat altogether.
They were uncomfortable, however, that intensive farming continued at all, holding to the Islamic concept of khalifa
– that we are stewards of God’s creation. A year living in a rural community in Egypt, where Lutfi was researching water management, made them rethink their lifestyle. “They were connected to the environment,” Ruby says, “and lived sustainably.”
MAGIC BEANS
The Radwans decided to start a farm back in England, selling their house and buying a field. “Like Jack and the Beanstalk, we sold everything for a few beans,” Lutfi says. For years, the family would live in caravans while they waited for planning permission to build a house. “It was really cramped,” Ruby recalls. “Planning took so long that it made us depressed. I remember building our first barn [now the café]. It meant we had a flushing loo. It was such a luxury!”
Planning battles, intensified by hostility from neighbours, plagued the family. “I think it was partly racism,” says Ruby, who is Pakistani-english, “and partly ‘Who do you think you are? You don’t have farming backgrounds.’” Yet the Radwans persevered
because they felt it was the right thing to do. They tried to avoid borrowing, following the Islamic principle that money should change hands without interest, so they lived simply. Prayer helped them focus. “I knew the universe would take care of us,” Ruby says. “I’d say to God, ‘If this is good for us, please make it happen. If it is not good for us, then let us accept it.’”
The couple read about farming and threw themselves into it. They planted a mix of 5,000 native, deciduous trees, including oak, birch and willow, producing wood for the biomass boiler that heats the buildings, and bought chickens, selling their eggs. “We knew that we eventually wanted a diverse, mixed farm,” Ruby says, “one that was good for the animals and for our children. We wanted to create a place where they could get involved in a meaningful life.” In the early days, Ruby would drive them to school in their Ford Fiesta, the boot full of eggs, dropping off one, then the other. After school, the children would collect more eggs. They worked “day and night, seven days a week” and almost went under. “We were stuck with whatever we could produce,” Lutfi says. “Some things were out of our hands – we threw ourselves on God.”
A REAL FARM
Selling chicken was a hit, first among Muslims, then among others who admired their ethos. The Radwans now only sell the meat through a subscription service to guarantee that regulars get their share. Their birds are free-range, kept in by an electric fence powered by the family’s wind turbine, and organic, being fed powdered garlic, rather than antibiotics, to keep them healthy. Chickens live for 12 weeks, three times as long as those farmed intensively.
The Radwans also bought sheep (they now have 150) and have recently added a handful of Anglo-nubian and African pygmy goats, producing raw goats’ milk for the first time last year. They grow vegetables, too, both for their café and to use at home. “We’re self-sufficient for six months of the year,” Ruby says. “I think it’s best not to be too idealistic… We don’t have to be like the prophets; we just have to try.”
Over the summer, the Radwans open the farm to visitors, organising apple-pressing, bread-making and knitting. They also run a campsite and hold a music festival. “Diversification is key because things can go wrong,” Ruby says. Last year, activities were obviously off-limits.
The family, who live as sustainably as they can, are currently looking at harvesting rainwater on their 45-acre site – both to be resourceful and ensure they can have showers. “We can end up with no water in the house because we’re at the end of the line,” Ruby says. “The chickens get it, the barn gets it, the vegetables
“Diversification is key as things can go wrong”
get it, but then there’s nothing left for us.” The financial cost of improvements is balanced against environmental cost.
KEEPING THE FAITH
The farm shuts down over Ramadan (this year 12 April12 May), demand easing from Muslim customers who fast during daylight hours. Most of the Radwans also fast, keeping to Mecca Time so they can start the fast a little later and still work. They fast to help them connect to God and the very nature of existence. “We become more aware of nature, as eating and fasting is determined by sunrise and sunset – natural phenomena. We also bond with each other over meals,” Ruby says. “Everything calms down. We resonate at a slower pace.” The family also becomes more aware of food waste. Demand resumes at the end of the month, Eid al-fitr.
Ten weeks later, orders among Muslims ramp up for Eid al-adha, commemorating Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, and God’s mercy, sparing Isaac for a ram. The family sells whole lamb, known as qurbani, although they keep numbers low. Killing an animal for Eid al-adha is a tradition rather than an obligation, and the Radwans prioritise animal welfare.
Today, Adam (30) and Khalil (27), who both help on the farm, live with their wives in separate houses on-site. Asilya (33) is travelling, Camilla (21) is studying languages in London, while Ali (16) is studying for his A-levels. Ruby feels “privileged” to have the family nearby and thankful that they are all still talking. “You have to accept that you won’t always get on,” she says. “If you say, ‘I’m going to hate you at some point, but we’re going to get on with it’, then you can cope.”
Ruby and Lutfi are now trying to step back. Ruby is training to be a psychotherapist, a discipline she says is closely related to the family project: “Farming is about living with the land; psychotherapy reconnects us to it.”
The Radwans try to live by the concept of ‘enoughness’: they want the farm to get better, not bigger. “It comes down to, ‘What do you actually desire out of life?’” Lutfi says. “People spend a lot of time amassing things, but they’re never satisfied… We are blessed. We didn’t have anything when we started, but now we’re finally doing proper farming and feel confident about it.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION about visiting Willowbrook Farm, go to willowbrookfarm.co.uk.
“We wanted a farm that was good for the animals and for our children”