Emma Peaslee
speaker
237 appearances
4 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 22 Jul
Emma Peaslee’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Um, I will say with your question, we were like, we don't know. Like your question is a hard question. Were you expecting, like, what kind of answer did you think?
Have you a good night?
We're meeting him and his family in rural Germany, in the middle of miles and miles of farm fields.
Ah, very nice to meet you.
For the last 10 years, Friedrich has planted, harvested, and cared for nine specific plots of land here in Germany, specifically in this area called the Ossing. The Ossing is collectively owned by a group of 141 farmers.
Every 10 years for the last 500 years, so since the 1500s, the people in this community hold a lottery where farmers randomly get assigned plots of land that they will farm for the next 10 years of their lives. It's like farmland musical chairs.
The lottery is about to kick off soon. It takes place on hundreds of acres of grain, corn, potato fields, fields that will be up for grabs today. The opening ceremony starts inside a big tent. We settle in at a table with Friedrich.
He says the first thing he wants is at least two pieces of good land.
Friedrich has nine plots of land, which means he will get nine new plots of land. But not every plot is suited for potatoes. Some land is really bad for growing potatoes. It's too swampy or the soil is too dense. And every plot that's not ripe for potatoes will cost him.
And I'm Emma Peasley. In many ways, economics is about the best way a society could allocate their scarce resources. Hundreds of years ago, a community in Germany came up with their own unique solution to that question.
George tells us he was a farmer. But today, his main gig is being the Ossing historian. And the history of this land lottery all starts with, what else, a classic German fairy tale.
Back then, this land was all forest. And there were four villages at the edge of the forest, to the north, south, east, and west.
Okay, so parts of this fairy tale are probably not true. Like, these churches did not have bells a thousand years ago. But everyone agrees the empress gave them the land. And while giving them the land was nice, it also created a problem. A problem that would eventually lead to the Osing lottery.
This is Markus Hofmann. He's an interpreter who helped us out.
Okay, so punching, but not a war. all over Who Got Better land. Some parts were hilly, hard to get to. Some soil was better because it was fertile and you could grow almost anything on it. The worst soil was rocky and full of pebbles.
So after 10 years, the names went back in the bag and there was a new drawing. It meant no one would be stuck with a bad plot forever. Another lottery, another chance.
And while we don't do a lot of things today the way we did in the 1500s, for good reason, this land lottery has not changed at all. Every 10 years, in a year that ends in four, right after the harvest, the people here have held a lottery. No matter what. In 1984, the year it rained the day before the lottery and the fields were muddy, they did the lottery.
Even in 1944, during World War II, when bombers flew overhead, they still did the lottery.
The first thing to know about this lottery is that it involves a lot of walking. They really walk at a brisk pace.
Friedrich, the potato farmer, is moving fast. He has real dad at the airport energy. He's walking with a purpose, and we initially lose him in the crowd.
Showing 181–200 of 237 · page 10 of 12
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