There is a tremendous future for community farming in Northern Ireland

The initiative took place over a two-year period between February 2022 and March 2024.

The initial objectives of the project were quickly established.

These were to enhance an understanding of community farming by exploring diverse business models while empowering and sustaining community-driven agriculture.

Also to be prioritised was that of defining and developing the project identity, assisting in developing customised action plans that were tailored to project needs, and shaping the success of outputs relating to land, community and enterprise.

Other priorities included the building of capacity while also sharing knowledge on growing, farming, and caring for animals, through continuous learning and skill development, utilising workshops, skill-sharing sessions, and site visits.

Relevant connections and collaborations would also be fostered, thereby creating a network of like-minded groups that transcend organisational structures and contexts.

Measuring and communicating the impact of social, economic, and environmental impacts generated by participating projects were also identified as being crucially important in the context of CCF.

And, finally, the project would facilitate access to seed funding for each participating project over a two year period, empowering projects to take initial steps, overcome start-up challenges, and realise their full potential.

The report on the CCF project, which has recently been published, explores the impacts and Social Return on Investment (SROI) of CCF.

Significantly, the study found that for every £1 invested in community farming, £3.52 in total value was generated.

Dr Jonny Hanson, consultant to the project, noted that community farming is part of a broader pattern of ‘civic agriculture’, whereby more localised food production and consumption are linked to a broader, and sometimes global, set of economic, social and environmental factors.

However, as with sustainability in general, community farming suffers from numerous, and often overlapping, definitions.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) remains the most practised, studied, and defined form of community farming. The CSA Network UK defines CSA as a partnership between farmers and consumers in which the responsibilities, risks, and rewards of farming are shared.

Community farming in NI exhibits many of these same trends but is not as well developed or studied as other parts of the UK, Ireland, or Europe.

For instance, the CSA Network UK map shows four CSA members in NI, compared with over 150 members across the UK.

Prior to the commencement of the CCF initiative, Jubilee Community Benefit Society, was the only known example of a community-owned farm in NI.

Community farming in NI, as elsewhere, can be understood as a diverse spectrum or continuum of approaches that connect communities with farming, and vice versa.

Up to this point social farming in NI has had clear buy-in and funding from both the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and the Department of Health (DoH).

Participating Groups

Nine of the ten originally selected groups are profiled below. One group initially selected to partake withdrew from the CCF project early in its first year.

Azora Community Farm is located in Hillsborough. It is a community benefit society prioritising community engagement, with plans to expand into commercial farming. The project has seen growing volunteer participation, forming partnerships with local volunteers, including church groups and a close relationship with a Zero Waste Refill Shop in Lisburn.

Glenside Farm is located in Comber. It is home to award-winning Glen Cowie pedigree Aberdeen Angus and Blue Texel sheep grazing over a split site of 43 acres. Offering access to an authentic working farm, Glenside is providing meaningful opportunities to engage with farming and nature.

Their core focus within the CCF initiative was crafting a clear action plan and enhancing their 2.5-acres of accessible land, which presents opportunities for conservation and community project enhancements.

Gortin Wellbeing Collective CIC is located in Co Tyrone. Beneficiaries include both children and adults. Their focus is on fostering connections with local groups, schools and statutory agencies.

Their community forest spans 0.9 acres and aims to inspire environmental responsibility and wellness within the rural community of Gortin. The space serves as an environmental education project, emphasising skill transfer, seed propagation, soil regeneration, and dietary diversity. It focuses on regenerative farming and soil growth.

Harmony Community Trust: Glebe House is a registered charity, located near Strangford Village Co Down.

In June 2021, they initiated a Seedbed project, aiming to create a social and growing space in line with their community-focused mission. They used initial CCF funding to improve land access and set up a poly tunnel.

Their involvement in the CCF initiative has accelerated land access improvements, initiated a growing project on their land, indirectly helped secure some additional funding, and enabled them to host seminars and community events.

L’Arche is located in south Belfast. It creates communities where people with and without learning disabilities live and work alongside each other.

Within the CCF initiative, the aim has been to expand community farms across the city, focusing on organic gardening skills, workshops, and regenerative principles.

Their CCF initiative explores organic principles, water management, traditional apple orchards, native rootstocks, wildflower meadows, no-dig market gardens, and bat and bird boxes.

Laurelbank Farm is a 7-acre organic farm and supper club located near Saintfield County Down. As well as supper clubs and the Farm & Feast CSA scheme, they run cooking, brewing and growing workshops.

The Farm & Feast CSA scheme was the main focus of their CCF involvement. It is a community-supported agriculture scheme in which members work together to grow and harvest produce.

Tenth Glen Heritage Farms Is located in the Antrim hills, in the area of Glenravel. Their overarching aims include the preservation of local farming heritage and traditional skills, crafts, and ways; promoting community supported and environmentally sustainable agriculture and supporting the mental health and wellbeing of the rural communities that surround them.

Their priority within the CCF initiative was focused on restoring derelict local rural buildings for the purposes of local heritage restoration, develop their enterprise model and expanding their community engagement.

The Turnaround Project is a registered charity based in Belfast, born out of the need for continued support for individuals leaving the justice system. Their goal is to provide second chances, prevent reoffending, and change community attitudes toward supporting individuals.

Their CCF initiative allowed them to connect with experts, form a valuable steering group, and gain technical support in terms of commissioning a business plan for expansion into a potential enterprise for growing Irish native trees, access peer support, and expert advice.

Wee Farmer is located near Moneymore, close to the shores of Lough Neagh. Drawing on 20 years of gardening experience, the project focused on having a positive impact on both physical and mental well-being through community farming, with a strong focus on promoting mental health recovery through gardening and community involvement.

The study found that for every £1 invested in community farming, £3.52 in total value was generated.

Recommendations

On the back of the fully quantified success of CCF, the accompanying report makes a number of strategic recommendations for the future.

It is recommended that DAERA develop a policy to support the development of community farming across Northern Ireland, in a similar manner to their support of social farming across the province.

In particular, it is proposed that there should be a strategic focus on small scale farms (less than 5 hectares) adopting regenerative and agroecological practices with their proven beneficial impacts on the environment, bio-diversity and food production.

DAERA should also address the barriers experienced by community farming, among them, limited access to land (public and private), lack of financial funding for development and capacity building, burden of planning permissions for infrastructure on site, lack of support for horticultural activities etc.

It is also recommended that the Department for Communities must implement a more transformative Community Wealth Building programme and include community farms among the community-led initiatives that would enable a ‘socially productive use of land and property’.

Moreover, a collaborative approach of DfC and the Department for Economy (DfE) in supporting community farms could, it is suggested, achieve the creation of community wealth, local prosperity with the creation of new jobs, and ‘value for people’ rather than ‘value for money’.

In light of the clear social and health benefits (in particular mental health) demonstrated within this report, it is also recommended that the Department for Communities (DfC) & Department of Health (DoH) consider developing a policy to support the development of community farming across Northern Ireland that is focused on how Community Farms can be used as an innovative approach to promote better mental health, therapy, rehabilitation, social inclusion across NI.

Workshop at Queen’s University Belfast

A recent workshop, hosted at Queen’s University, was held to discuss the impact of the CCF project.

Approximately 100 people attend the event.

Tiziana O’Hara of Co-operative Alternatives opened the event and welcomed everyone. Dr Jonny Hanson, project consultant now at QUB’s ARK social policy hub, set out the strategic vision of this innovative imitative, while Portia Woods of Jubilee Farm/CBS discussed their role in providing mentoring and training to many of the early-stage ventures.

Ciaran Collins of CiCo Consulting highlighted the key findings of the impact report, and introduced the CCF’s new definition of community farming, as ‘a process of collaborative transformation at the intersection of land, community and enterprise.’

Finally, three CCF community farming representatives spoke about what the concept meant to them.

Jo Facer of Laurelbank Farm showcased her work in creating a successful CSA scheme.

Malini Colville of Glenside Farm shared her passion for working with the fostering and refugee/asylum seeker communities.

Courtesy of his presentation, Declan Scullion detailed how Tenth Glen Heritage Farms combined heritage and tourism with community development in Glenravel, near Ballymena.

Jonny Hanson said:

“Northern Ireland has always been a hub of agricultural innovation and enterprise. The CCF community farming accelerator project shows that this innovation doesn’t just take the form of higher yields and better Feed Conversion Ratios, but can also involve pioneering social innovation.”

He concluded:

“Diverse community farming projects like these can be a powerful tool to connect people from all backgrounds with food, farming and nature.”