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1. Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm
“Ooh, you’ve taken a lot on,” exclaimed the old boys on the neighbouring allotment when they came to inspect Joanne Mudhar’s new patch. Joanne had worked her way up from one allotment to two and then a few acres, and was now the proud and slightly baffled owner of a 12-acre wheat field on the edge of Ipswich.
It was a daunting prospect. The soil was exhausted after decades of industrial farming but Joanne was determined to turn this arable desert into a market garden. Barely five years on, piglets are squealing and bouncing around, a kestrel swoops overhead and half a dozen local people – young families, a student, retirees – are bringing in the harvest.
The Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm is a thriving example of community supported agriculture, a not-for-profit social enterprise which aims to move beyond fossil fuel but also prove that a tiny farm can become a viable business.
“It was a question mark – is it possible to produce food in a way that doesn’t emit lots of carbon? Is it possible to do it as a viable business?” says Joanne. “I get people telling me, there’s no way you can have a farm using less than 200 acres. Perhaps we need to use our imagination.”
Joanne, who lives in Ipswich, a couple of miles from the farm, and another director are full-time professional farmers (albeit paying themselves £850 a month, less than the minimum wage) and 55 local households then pay £8 a week for a “share” of their produce. This takes the form of an excellent value veg box (flowers, eggs and pork are optional extras) but it comes with an unusual stipulation: members must undertake two hours a week voluntary work on the farm during summer – sowing, weeding, mulching, harvesting or feeding the two beef cattle, pigs, geese and chickens.
In that spirit, I’m helping with the harvest alongside a science teacher, a retired accountant, a student, and a yoga teacher and her two sons. Our first job is to feed the pigs. Throwing carefully weighed portions into the pen, here emerges the first principle of the low-carbon farm: utilising donated waste.
The bread is collected from a nearby bakery, and the farm must carefully ensure there’s no meat products such as sausage rolls which are forbidden as pig food. The farm is sustained by waste that would otherwise be discarded – old wheelie bins for food storage are donated by the local council; brewers mash from a brewery for the pigs; dredgings from the bottom of a property developer’s pond help fertilise the fields; hazel poles for runner beans are from a woodland project; wood-chips for pathways were donated by a tree surgeon; and Mudhar is exploring whether a local supermarket will allow them to take waste food to help feed their livestock. In many cases, such donations save the donors landfill charges – the property developer was so grateful he supplied some gravel for a parking area.
The Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm has grown steadily from the first days when Mudhar grew vegetables on three-quarters of an acre of heavily manured soil and sowed clover and grass on the rest. She put her life savings (and a modest loan) into buying the field for £100,000 and when she met Tom Wilmot, a teacher, and Eric Nelson, who then worked for BT, Eric suggested she should create a community supported agriculture, a concept well-established in the United States and Japan. The three became the directors of the community interest company, and the group learned by doing, as well as taking advice from self-sufficiency gurus, including Simon Fairlie and Joel Salatin,
The cows and pigs were not planned but Mudhar realised “it would be difficult to keep our soil fertile in our climate without agroindustrial fertilisers or animals”. Many of their members are vegetarian and Nelson was vegetarian for 24 years. He started eating meat again, however, when they took on the animals. “We need the animals on the land to keep it healthy. You see the pigs doing a good job and the animal welfare is good,” he says. All the animals are frequently rotated in pens of electric fences; the pigs in particular restore nutrients to the soil and dig it over; the beef cattle are “mob-grazed”, an intensive grazing technique designed to encourage rapid grass growth and sequester carbon in the soil.
The farm may be a little ideal world but it must survive in an industrialised food system that favours big scale. “The policy and regulation framework has shocked me,” says Mudhar. “But then the enthusiasm and community interest has blown me away as well.” Although the Oak Tree farm does not use any chemical fertilisers, pesticides or non-natural pest control, it is not certified organic because Joanne estimates that certification costs around £500 each year and its constraints might increase the farm’s carbon emissions by preventing them using horse manure from the neighbouring stable for instance. In fact, many waste products they want to use are too tightly regulated to obtain. Other regulations stop them killing and selling their geese without prohibitively expensive (and probably unnecessary) equipment. They also cannot find an abattoir closer than 40 miles away to slaughter their pigs and cattle, which is more food miles (and stress for the animals) than they would like.
The farm’s veg box is a luxury item at this time of year and we pick runner beans, courgettes, french beans, tomatoes, sunflowers and pull beetroot as well as dig potatoes (slightly disappointingly small; the farm will try a different variety next year). The big challenge is to keep boxes full during the “hungry gap” of April and May when few crops are ready to eat. “We don’t buy in any veg, mostly out of bloodymindedness,” says Joanne. Instead, when they have a veg glut, members make green tomato chutney, piccalilli, and other relishes to bulk out the boxes in lean weeks. Mudhar checks their produce against supermarket prices and their £8 boxes would cost £15-£20 in a supermarket.
It is not a zero-carbon undertaking like some more radical self-sufficiency projects but as they increase their farming – and members – they hope to reduce their energy use. They use a tiny hand-held, two-wheeled, diesel-powered tractor and a petrol generator provides vital irrigation water from their borehole (this part of East Anglia has a lower rainfall than Jerusalem) but when they get planning permission some modest solar panels will charge the caravan batteries powering their electric fences. Members are also encouraged to bike to the farm. In future, the farm hopes to work with local schools and provide education and inspiration for adults too.
Performing hard labour for a veg box that you also pay for might mystify some people but as we bring in the harvest it becomes clear that my fellow labourers are not simply great idealists. This collective enterprise is fun. “I love getting the veg box but that’s not why I do it,” says John Revell, who received a farm flier through his door on the day he retired as an accountant and serendipitously signed up. “You get to chat to people, the banter is good and it’s nice being in the fresh air after having been stuck behind a desk for 40 years.”
It is a dry, sunny day and perfect for bringing in the harvest. There’s a good bustle on the farm but I fear I would have been sacked if I was working for a gangmaster in industrial agriculture because I was too busy talking to be a productive potato picker. Even pottering about in the fields involves enough back-aching bending to make you look twice at the vegetables in my fridge: if we all harvested even a bit of our own food I’m sure we would waste less.
The farm has nurtured a great romance – Nelson met his wife, Rose, while they both pulled leeks one day – and children also get involved in the work. “Bringing the boys gets them away from their hand-held devices,” says yoga teacher Manon Palmieri, whose sons are busy picking potatoes. “I haven’t been on the PlayStation once yet today,” says Luigi, 13.
Tom Wilmot spends the morning harvesting with his 18-month-old son. “You come in on a Saturday and there’s 20 people doing things, hoeing over there, weeding over here,” he says. “It’s inspiring. It’s a lovely sight.”
It does look lovely but there’s the taste too. I’m writing this fuelled by a supper of courgettes, tomatoes and runner beans from the farm. The stunning thing about vegetables this fresh is how sweet they are – I haven’t tasted better since I pilfered some beans from my dad’s allotment.
Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm – essential information
This article is part of the Live Better Community Project month. In September, we are showcasing 17 community projects from around the UK. On Wednesday 24 September, we will ask you to vote for your favourite project. The project with the most votes will be awarded £1,000 of funding, and two runners-up will each receive funding of £500. One voter chosen at random will receive £150 worth of gift vouchers for Nigel’s Eco Store. Terms and conditions here.
With thanks to: 10:10; FOE; Project Dirt; Neighbourly; UK Community Foundations; Groundwork; Business in the Community; Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens; the Prince’s Trust; Garden Organic; the Royal Horticultural Society; the RSPB; Keep Wales Tidy; The Wildlife Trusts; and Mind.
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