Our Field
= "With #OurField, a farmer can share a piece of land with ‘collaborators’ who invest in its crop(s)".
URL = http://www.ourfieldproject.org
Description
Tessa Tricks:
"#OurField is the brainchild of five young women intent on changing farming economics by turning farm ownership on its head. It builds on an earlier Arts Council initiative Field of Wheat. With #OurField, a farmer can share a piece of land with ‘collaborators’ who invest in its crop(s). Not only do these collaborators make a financial investment, buying into the crop, they also contribute to the process of deciding how the crops are grown. By sharing a field with a farmer, investors carry some of the farmer’s risk, affording the farmer some freedom to experiment with new crops and methods, hopefully facilitating a transition to more ‘sustainable’, ecologically sound farming methods.
There is little help for farms operating on slim financial margins to move away from intensive farming methods, which are heavily reliant on chemical inputs and monocropping, to less intensive methods and more diverse crops. #OurField aims to help farmers make this transition, which will in turn protect and build soil for future generations. #OurField is currently focused on growing grain because a huge proportion of the grain produced in the UK does not meet the standard for human consumption and is sold as animal feed. This is often due to a lack of the time and money needed to invest in producing crops to this standard.
- OurField also helps consumers to engage with the literal roots of food and learn about the intricate decisions that farmers make on a day-to-day basis as they produce it.
(http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-03-31/do-you-dare-to-crop-share/?)
Governance
Tessa Tricks:
"All decision making about our field will be done via an online platform, Loomio. A local architect has been recruited to moderate the group’s thread. He assesses the discussions and summarizes key arguments before putting them to a vote." (http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-03-31/do-you-dare-to-crop-share/?)
Example
Tessa Tricks:
"Weston Farm in Hertfordshire is the first test bed. We are 42 investors with 42 distinct opinions on what should be grown and how, who have invested an equal lump sum to have our say. People have invested for different reasons: some want to increase their farming knowledge, others to explore how collaborative consumption might support a fragile food system. Many simply want to make a return on investment.
In mid-February, we visited Weston Farm together, walked the fields and discussed our options. John Cherry, our farmer, had one request – that the field continue to be farmed with a ‘no till’ method as it was for the last 6 years. John has put forward a suite of suggested crops for collaborators to mull over. Will we plant spring wheat, spelt, oats? Or will we ‘companion plant’ lentils with the spelt or oats?" (http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-03-31/do-you-dare-to-crop-share/?)