Rain Stops Play or at least Covid Stops Travel

With the excitement of the Churchill Fellowship award still in the air I began to contact people in preparation for visits later in the year. Then as March progressed the excitement was replaced by the reality of the pandemic. My travel plans were unlikely to happen for several months at the very earliest.

Feeling slightly deflated and wanting to make good use of my time at home, I wondered if there were any local green care projects I could become involved in. 

Green care comes in a number of shapes and sizes and includes not just Care Farming but also: Animal Assisted Interventions, Green Exercise, Environmental Conservation and Therapeutic Horticulture including Food Growing.

Having explored the options I began discussions with local land owners and local funders to see if a Community Orchard would be possible. I hoped that we could plant heritage varieties of fruit, which used to be very popular in this area. Although, orchards can take a number of years to establish, especially if planting from scratch, this seemed like an ideal project to get young and old involved. This also had the additional promise of a shared harvest in a couple of years.

April brought good news and the offer of funding for the orchard. It also brought concerning news as care farms around the country wondered if they could afford to feed their animals. News from the farm gates also reached me saying that many farmers who had lost routes to market for their produce were at risk of closure.

Reaching out to another Churchill Fellow, Martin Yarnit, I asked the question - Are there any other routes to market for local farmers? After multiple discussions the answer seemed to be to yes through food hubs or cooperatives and this is a very common model in the US and Italy. But one doesn't currently exist in my region, however, many places in the UK are looking at this as a potential approach so why not investigate the possibility of a local food hub or cooperative.

In my next blog I'll talk more about the food collaboration conversations that have been going on.