Permaculture Manchester . . . lets put some green on the urban scene

Did anybody watch Rebecca Hosking’s documentary called A Farm for the Future that was broadcast by the Beeb during Friday night peak viewing on February 22?

The film started of with an exploration of  Peak Oil, and the vulnerability of global food systems, with interviews with peak oil experts including Colin Cambell and Richard Heinberg, and a whistle-stop tour of Transition Towns.

It then went on to spend the next 30 minutes or so, visiting various permaculture projects around Britain, with interviews from permaculture 'gurus', including Martin Crawford (Agroforestry Research Trust in Devon), Patrick Whitefield (the man with the red scarf), Chris Dixon in Wales, and the Hollins family at Fordhall Farm. It was really fullfilling to see so many people all together on the TV at the same time, who we have been hearing and reading about in permaculture, for years. 

This is a real milestone for permaculture in the UK, as the Beeb has never used th 'P' word before. Graham Burnet, author of the Permaculture Beginners Guide, confirms this, as sales of his book increased dramatically after the programme was broadcast.

If you did not see it, then you can download it here as a torrent.

Fordhall Farm - a permacultue farm

Fordhall Farm, near Market Drayton was one of the more interesting aspects of the programme. This is a beef farm, but with a difference:

The common practice in beef and dairy farming, is to over winter cattle in barns. The reason for this is that otherwise the cattle will churn up the pasture with their hooves, and destoy the soil structure. Large quantities of hay are gown to feed the cattle over winter, which requires additional land, and what is more, the process is heavily dependent on oil .. and is therefore unsustainable, since oil supplies are currently peaking. In the last century the now deceased Arthur Hollins, who used to run Fordhall Farm, observed that pastures in this country are mostly comprised of just a few species of grass. He spent his life therefore, diversifying the pastures at Fordhall, and developed a rich mix of grasses and other herbaceous species. The result of this was a tough, resiliant pasture, with a thick, deep root mat, that is capable of handling the pressure of the cattle's hooves right through the winter, without the fields turning into muddy bogs. Notwithstanding the fact that I am vegetarian, Fordhall Farm offers a model of sustainable beef farming, that will probably endure in the post oil-age that we are edging into.   

I was given another interesting insight into the problems of cattle farming in this country, by Jules, who blogs on this site. Jules is a vet based in Sockport, who grew up in Fiji, and used to look after livestock when he first came to the UK. He tells me that in New Zealand, beef farmers rear much smaller cattle breeds that are more naturalised, and do not destroy the turf in ths same way as larger cattle, reared in this country for 'maximum production'. (New Zealand cattle are also a lot more healthy, because their genetic stock has not been messed around with as much as those in this country.) Beef and dairy farmers in this country could learn a lot about sustainability therefore from Arthur Hollins, and from New Zealand farmers. 

A second reason why Fordhall Farm differs from most farms in this country, is that it is a community owned farm. After the death of Arthur Hollins, the tenancy of the farm was taken up by Charlotte and Ben Hollins, but the tenure of the farm had expired, and so they were forced to find the money to puchase the land. In order to do this, they issued community shares, and the farm now has '8,000 landlords' all over the country.

One of these landlods is the Permaculture Association, who brought 2 shares worth £50 each in the farm two years ago. I was very pleased therefore to see Fordhall featured on the BBC as a model farm for post-oil sustainability, as it gave me a sence that our investment at the Permaculture Association was indeed sound .. !

Community shares is an interesting model for raising finance for buying land, for permaculture, or similar projects, which is being promoted by the Office of the Third Sector. In fact Co-operatives UK are running a one day workshop on this type of thing in Manchester on April 29th. See the news item posted by Giles for more information on this.

Loan stock are similar to community shares, and are the method that Unicorn Grocery used, to raise community capital, to buy their shop, and their recent land purchace at Glazebury. You can learn more about loanstocks as well at the seminar being organised by Co-ops UK.