Soil to Sales - learning about community supported agriculture and market gardens

While researching care farming in Italy for my Churchill Fellowship I came across the concept of setting up market gardens within care farms to inform members of the local community about local growing. The idea being that the clients who attend the care farm regularly gain valuable knowledge about growing and harvesting processes and are then able to pass this information on by teaching members of the local community during open sessions to the garden throughout the year. 

This was an idea that interested me and I wondered how that could translate to UK care farms. So when I saw a 'Soil to Sales' - 'how to set up a Market Garden' course running at FarmEd I decided to enrol.

The key element of a market garden is that you sell directly to your customers through veg boxes, local shops or markets rather than trying to sell to large supermarkets and wholesalers. 

We spent three days in early October in the beautiful Cotswold countryside with The Kitchen Garden People learning about every aspect of setting up a market garden and community supported agriculture from crop choice, rotation, dealing with pests and weeds to harvesting, getting your products to your customers and general business management. I learnt that a 'weed is just a plant out of place' and that weeds can act as environmental indicators that help us decide where and when to grow certain crops. I also learnt that to be a good grower you need a balance of 'head, heart and hands'.

So after the three days I headed home with a head full of ideas and finger nails full of Cotswolds Brash soil to ponder how market gardens could be introduced to UK care farms. Watch this space .....

Sustainable Food and Farming Working Group

As some of you will be aware, one of the findings of my Churchill Fellowship Research was 'to establish a working group with partners to investigate how care farms might introduce more sustainable farming approaches'. A number of the care farmers I spoke with were already introducing more sustainable ways of working such as agroforestry, permaculture and carbon capture methods but were also interested in finding out more about other approaches.

In July 2021 and in conjunction with OxCan - the Oxford Climate Alumni Network I created the Sustainable Food and Farming Working Group. The group is aimed at Oxford University Alumni, Staff and Students as well as interested non Oxford individuals. Some within the group work in food or farming or research related topics but the majority of members are simply interested in learning more about food and farming.

Our main aims are: to identify topics of interest and take a deeper dive into these areas, to arrange peer to peer visits to farms and food producers, to collaborate with other organisations and to share our findings and outcomes.

If you would like to learn more about the working group or express an interest in getting involved then please follow this link to our OxCan news page.

Farmer Focus Group in The Cotswolds

September saw the first of my Farmer Focus Group meetings, set up to dive into my Churchill Fellowship research findings and recommendations.

On a sunny early September day a group of us met at FarmEd to contemplate the pros and cons of developing a training programme and trialing a coordinator role. Both of these pilots would aim to support family farms considering setting up a care farm within their family farm. 

I would like to thank both The Churchill Fellowship and FarmEd for their generous support in making this event possible and to the Farmed kitchen for keeping us refreshed with delicious homemade and locally grown and sourced food. I would also like to thank the farmers, care farmers, funders and charities that gave their time and brainpower freely on the day.

I have recently written a blog for The Churchill Fellowship to summarise my research report. If you would like to know more you can read 'The Benefits of Care Farming' blog here.

In my next blog I will share the work that has been going on towards my other recommendations.

Thank you to Yellow Road Farm for permission to use this photograph

The focus group working hard