We’re really pleased to share the news that two of our FarmStarters, Axel and Owen, are graduating to become fully fledged farmers with Glebelands City Growers.
Not only that, they’ll be playing a big role in Glebelands’ expansion into the new Woodbank site shared with us in Stockport, doubling winter production levels from their original market garden in Sale. Woodbank is a brand new urban agriculture hub, incorporating a mixture of commercial organic production, community and therapeutic growing, and farmer incubation in the form of Kindling’s new crop of FarmStarters.
Glebelands’ Charlotte Mason tells us…
“By taking on more undercover space at Woodbank we are aiming to spread the risks presented to us by an uncertain climate. The growing season in the North West can some years be very short, and if we experience a particularly cold or wet summer it does put more pressure on the business. Undercover spaces allow you to have greater control over the growing conditions and produce some of the higher value crops throughout the winter period.
Over the last few years our co-operative has benefited from having a strong team who can fulfill the many roles within the business. This summer we had four people working full time. This allowed us to balance our working hours and workload more evenly across the season. This is makes it a much more sustainable business in the long term. We were therefore looking for two new full time members for 2016. We had worked with Owen and Axel before, and have been impressed with their progress through FarmStart. They have been able to demonstrate to us their pragmatic and resourceful approach which is so key to successful growing and we're really excited that they're joining the team!”
Axel and Owen are our first FarmStarters that are going on to make a living full time from organic veg growing, and we couldn’t be more pleased. We’ll really miss them at FarmStart, but they’re not really gone - they’ll still be part of the family of co-operating and inter-connecting local food enterprises that Kindling supports and works with. As members of Glebelands, not only will they be working alongside our new round of FarmStarters at the Woodbank hub, they’ll also be producing for the co-operative of veg buyers and growers that Kindling helped get established – Manchester Veg People.
Here’s to a co-operative 2016, and more of our new growers finding a 'root' into farming!