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Newsletter, Issue No.2, Autumn, 2015

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Are you interested in volunteering to help us get started at Red Pig Farm?

We are currently looking for people to come and stay with us at Red Pig Farm as we get to work building the infrastructure and designing the site for use of a small low impact, off-grid community.

We are also holding Volunteer weekends every second weekend of the month.

We aim to provide a genuine exchange between volunteers who give their time and energy and our members who can provide opportunities to learn and gain experience in low impact living, natural building and agroecology. We’re all seasoned WWOOF volunteers and want to combine the best experience we have had volunteering now we have the chance host. In returning the hospitality we have received we want to create a safe space to work and learn with others free from dynamics that can lead to coercion, exploitation or servility.

We would like to invite those who might be interested in joining a pioneering farming and agroforestry project to an Open Day at Red Pig Farm, near Bethlehem, Llandeilo. This Open Day is mainly a call for investors as our deadline for the purchase of the land is closing in.  Although we have raised a portion of the asking price, we still need to raise more in order to complete the purchase.

The project is focusing on food and fuel production based on a low impact “co-sufficient” model. This means that the farm will be producing its own power from renewable means, building infrastructure with environmentally friendly methods, and producing local organic food and biomass as a community farm.

The project already has planning for a straw bale office and a food processing barn and the existing infrastructure includes a mushroom lab for the production of culinary and medicinal mushrooms. The 70 acre woodland is also rich in biodiversity and being within the Brecon Beacons national park the farm management plan will ensure that the woodland remains focused on wildlife conservation.

In order for the project to succeed the ALI is looking for people to join the project either as prospective Resident Members working on one of the proposed enterprises or their own business, or private investors willing to provide financial investment to assist with the purchase of the land. Please download our investment offer:

ALI – Business Plan and Investment Offer – Interest Bearing Loan.

If you are interested in creating a land based livelihood or helping us with the purchase of the land, come to our Open Day on Saturday, 8th of August, 12am – 6pm.

Please feel free to contact us for more details and help with travel arrangements as parking space is limited.

[email protected]

07597 231 371

07808 168 562

agroecology.co.uk

We would like to invite those who might be interested in joining a pioneering farming and agroforestry project to an open day at Red Pig Farm, near LLandeilo, Wales.

The project is focusing on food and fuel production based on a low impact “co-sufficient” model. This means that the farm will be producing its own power from renewable means, building infrastructure with environmentally friendly methods, and producing local organic food and biomass as a community.

The project already has planning for a straw bale office and a food processing barn and the existing infrastructure includes a mushroom lab for the production of culinary and medicinal mushrooms. The 70 acre woodland is also rich in biodiversity and being within the Brecon Beacons national park the farm management plan will ensure that the woodland remains focused on wildlife conservation.

In order for the project to succeed the ALI is looking for people to join the project as Resident Members working on one of the proposed enterprises or their own business and private investors willing to provide financial investment to assist with the purchase of the land.

If you are interested in creating a land based livelihood or helping us with the purchase of the land, come to our Open Day on Saturday, 20th June, 12pm – 6pm.

Please feel free to contact us for more details and help with travel arrangements

The Agroecology Land Initiative is a new organisation founded to advocate and implement agroecological methods in the UK to help secure food sovereignty, energy independence, and environmental regeneration in a way that is financially viable and socially just.

The ALI is in advanced negotiations for the purchase of Red Pig Farm, near Brecon, Wales, which is intended to become the flagship location for the research and development of applied agroecological methods to produce food, fuel and fibre – and to do so using systems that are not merely sustainable, but that actively repair and regenerate the degraded ecosystems we live with today.

We envision the regeneration of both the countryside and rural economies through the creation of co-sufficient community farms rooted in agroecological production. To this end we have adapted a co-operative cohousing model to be applied to low impact community self build projects designed specifically to facilitate agroecological land based livelihoods.

Cohousing

Cohousing communities are set up and run by their members for mutual benefit. Members are consciously committed to living as a community. They might share common space facilities, activities like community meals and other amenities such as laundries, heating systems, guest rooms, and transport and developments are designed to encourage social contact and a sense of neighbourhood among members.

Many emerging communities or groups with an interest in creating a co-housing project face the problem that some members have money to invest while others have very little. Entering into a co-housing scheme those with money often have concerns that they will lose the value of their investment. On the other hand, those without much money to invest may feel that there will be an imbalance in power with those investors assuming greater decision making rights with the threat of withdrawing their investment.

Community Equity

We believe we have found a way through these difficulties. It’s not easy to explain in a few words but basically we are using an equity membership Mutual Home Ownership scheme that will allow for different levels of investment from members while retaining a principle of common ownership. Members will have a ‘licence’ with the co-operative and pay a ”service charge’ that covers the running costs of the community. To have a licence to live in the community members must commit to the full amount of the value of their particular living space, a value determined by the members themselves. This will involve an equity loan equal to the value of the living space, or if the member does not have the full amount of money to invest they loan what they can and make a commitment to a pay the full amount over a period of time. If some members hold more equity than the value if their living space this equity can be repaid by members who have made a commitment to the full amount of their living space. For more information see our how it works page.

Agroecology¹

We are committed to furthering the development of agroecology here in the UK for several reasons; we feel that it provides a scientific basis for alternative forms of agriculture; it has the possibility of bridging the gap between conventional farming and other approaches to farming such as permaculture, organic farming and biodynamics; we identify with the growing movement towards the wider implementation of agroecological practices especially within the framework of food sovereignty; and we see the potential of this discipline to inform an integrative study of the ecology of the entire food system encompassing ecological, economic and social dimensions or, more simply, the ecology of our food system.

The Initiative

One of the main obstacles for land based communities looking to establish self build projects here in the UK is the often obstructive planning system. We want to build upon the pioneering work of other projects that have gone before us and contribute to the process of forging new pathways for communities to overcome this challenge. To this end we are interested in developing a strategy of framing new rural housing developments within the context of local renewable energy targets.

As such we are proposing the application of a biomass production model designed to meet local energy demands through on-site wood torrefaction² and processing. Using small scale wood torrefaction reactors we will be able to demonstrate a substantial income for the project as well as the provision of a local fuel supply that has low transport costs, high combustion efficiency, and adaptability to domestic and commercial scale energy production.

We envision a certain percentage of the land’s productive capacity being turned over to short rotation coppice(SRC). We are particularly interested in the possibilities of establishing these SRC systems on marginal land and upland areas incorporating key line design management to improve soil fertility and water catchment.

We are, however, by no means limiting ourselves to this aspect of land management. We are also developing business models for the production of mushrooms, fermented food products, biochar, natural building, perennial agricultural systems application and local food distribution networks.

Get Involved

We are currently looking for additional members and further investment to develop our first project at Red Pig Farm, Llandieilo, Wales. We are particularly keen to find those with a commitment to the food sovereignty³ movement and experience in agroecological systems management.