In the heart of urban Stockport, FarmStart Woodbank is one of Kindling's farm business incubators, offering a gradual transition from community or allotment growing to commercial production. New FarmStarter Jack Webb updates on on progress and explains how setbacks can be bad for the crops but good for the growers!
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As we plan, learn and fundraise for our 'farm for Greater Manchester', we've been visiting various UK projects to help shape and inspire our plans....
"Ok so I know it probably seems like I say this about every place I visit, but I’ve just been to a really inspiring project called Hill Holt Wood.
We are happy to report we’re growing the Kindling family! With extra staff coming on board in recent months for Veg Box People, Manchester Veg People and our own Kindling team, our old office in Hulme was getting a little cramped. So we’ve all recently moved into Bridge 5 Mill, an amazing, 150 year-old, ecologically refurbished mill building in Ancoats, ten minutes along the canal from Piccadilly station.
FarmStart Abbey Leys is Kindling’s original (and the UK’s first-ever!) farm business incubator, launched in 2013. It's situated on Abbey Leys organic farm, just 15 miles to the south-west of Manchester near Knutsford, on flat, fertile certified organic land.
The site is looking more and more like a market garden. In one of our two polytunnels we are harvesting and selling! The mangetout (Sweet Horizon) have been bountiful and we are into a third week of cropping the sweetest pods.
Do you think that children should be able to live free from the damaging impacts of hunger on their health and opportunity? Do you want to live in a country in which the safety net provides us all with the protection we need in time of crisis? Do you want to be part of a powerful emerging national campaign to make this happen? Join us on July 18th...
We're recruiting for a Strategic Development Worker (closing date Sunday 24th July 2016)
Veg Box People has recently updated its purchasing policy in order to sell non-certified-organic produce.
“Why, isn’t that a step backwards…?” you might ask? Well, nope! It’s a strategic move designed to help get more local land into organic production, by supporting farmers who have started growing using organic practices but aren’t yet eligible for the Soil Association’s “in conversion” label. And it's already benefiting two sets of growers right here in Greater Manchester.
Like many, given just a few months to prepare for what will be one of the most significant decisions in the UK’s political history, we were concerned about just how much we didn’t know. So we took the opportunity to explore the role of the EU in our food system at one of our regular ‘Feeding Manchester’ events.