UK: Cambridge co-farming: ‘Rethinking how we do food’
An organic city garden set up in 2019 has donated more than 10 tonnes of freshly-grown produce to community food hubs during the pandemic.
By Katy Prickett & Theo Chikomba
BBC News, East
Sept 5, 2021
Excerpt:
The city garden was the idea of Gavin Shelton, who wanted to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss and health inequalities in society.
“Just by rethinking how we do food, you can tackle all those issues,” he said.
The charitable start-up grows cover crops to improve soil structure, adds plants to attract pollinators and works with local farmers, researchers and conservation groups.
Mr Shelton, 48, said: “But the really important thing about co-farming is it has to involve local people in the co-creation of their own farm.”
As a result, about 300 people from the city’s Abbey ward – where the farm is based – were involved in shaping its design in 2019.
The site had to be cleared and fenced and the pandemic slowed things down, so planting did not start until June 2020.
Yet “we produced four-and-a-half tonnes of produce from the site last year”, he said, which was donated to nine community food hubs across Cambridge. He expects to have doubled that by the end of this year’s growing season.
Mr Shelton said: “The distance that food has travelled has been measured in metres, not miles, and that’s one way of cutting down on the carbon budget.”
