Simon Fairlie worked for 20 years variously as an agricultural laborer, vineworker, shepherd, fisherman, builder, and stonemason before being ensnared by the computer in 1990. He was a co-editor of The Ecologist magazine for four years, before joining a community farm in 1994 where he managed the cows, pigs, and a working horse for ten years. He now runs Chapter 7, an organization that provides planning advice to smallholders and other low-income people in the countryside. He is also editor of The Land magazine, and earns a living by selling scythes. He is the author of Low Impact Development: Planning and People in a Sustainable Countryside.