But so do people with home businesses, and many writers, artists and professionals. Farmers' families contribute to the work together. But this is also true of many other family-run businesses. Explorations such as these show that farming actually has a lot in common with other kinds of work. Other myths challenged include, for example, that it's non-farming newcomers to the countryside who complain about smells from neighbouring farms.
Statistics show that farm odour ranks highest among many sources of conflicts and complaints.
At times participants' contributions reflected the centrality of their Christian values. The workshop demonstrated the potential for well-founded understanding and clear communication to lead to real empowerment and effective action by farmers. But they've done very well in being able to ground it in a perspective on society that's an integrated one.