Future Farms Partnership raises its game: 100 farms

By Duncan Fisher, Our Food Trust

We’ve just convened a meeting of the Future Farms Partnership, which oversaw the building of the three farms at Sarn. We made a radical proposal: after a pilot of three farms, let’s go for 100 new farming enterprises. The challenge was accepted!

The on-line meeting on Monday 12^th January, was attended by Social Farms & Gardens, Cultivate, Roddick Foundation, Nature Friendly Farming Network, Wildlife Trusts Wales, Lantra and Landworkers’ Alliance. (Other organisations were not able to make the time but are on board: Black Mountains College, Powys County Council, Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority and Coleg Cambria.)

Scaling up from three farms, which were built as a pilot with grant funding, to 100 new farming enterprises will require a wholly new approach. The meeting agreed six key themes for future work:

1. Facilitate access to new markets and new supply chains – local communities, Powys schools, Birmingham city. This will benefit all farmers in Powys ready to diversify.
2. Secure land for new farms and building affordable funds with homes for new entrants – on Powys County farmland and also on land purchased into community ownership.
3. Develop planning policy to support growing food for local and regional markets.
4. Advocate for Welsh Government support for food security in policy, particularly the Sustainable Farming Scheme.
5. Develop skills and pathways into farming for a new generation of farmers.
6. Build business support for new farm enterprises.

The need to develop new routes to market and to build cooperative marketing structures generated much discussion. “Access to markets is the foundation of everything,” said one participant.

‘Design & fundraising’ groups are now being set up to work out how to implement and fund these six activities, all with the same single goal: 100 new agroecological farming enterprises serving local and regional markets.