For immediate release
21/01/2010
Food co-ops seek land and grower
Warwick Area Food Co-ops (Action 21) are looking for 10-20 acres of land in South Warwickshire and someone to grow vegetables for their veg-bag scheme.
The three food co-ops which are based at Sydenham, Westgate and Newburgh Children’s Centres and Lillington Youth Centre, are due to expand to five this spring. They supply a large bag of fresh vegetables and fruit for £3.50 to over 100 families a week and are currently supplied through a wholesaler.
Action 21, however, wants to make this scheme more environmentally friendly and sustainable. The idea is to join up the vegetable production and distribution, and to supply food that is locally grown.
The starting point to supplying more locally grown food is land. The food co-op group is looking for a local farmer or landowner who is prepared to use some land for vegetable growing. And because local is important, this land needs to be in South Warwickshire.
A farmer who wants to diversify could choose to grow vegetables on some of their land, or another member of the farming family could start a new enterprise. Alternatively, the landowner could just provide the land and Action 21 will seek out a grower who is interested in vegetable production.
‘We only need about 10 acres at the moment,’ says Judy. ‘All our vegetables are seasonal,’ says Action 21Community Food Project Officer Judy Steele, ‘and we aim for them to be 100 per cent British grown, although this isn’t always possible. We have some locally grown vegetables in the bags, but we’d like to see far more.’
‘We would be working closely with the grower to plan the crops, and they would have a guaranteed market,’ says Judy. ‘ We hope they could provide the staple vegetables we need each week – carrots, potatoes, onions, plus the ones that come along every few weeks: cabbages, leeks, Brussels sprouts and swedes in the winter and courgettes, sweetcorn and broad beans in the summer. It would be great to have winter and summer salads too. The Government is talking about food security; the public is interested in local food; so there couldn’t be a better time to get involved.
Vegetable growing used to happen around towns the length and breadth of Britain. These days it’s confined to specialist areas of the country, like Lincolnshire or Lancashire or the Vale of Evesham. However, you don’t need Fenland peat to grow great vegetables.
NOTES TO EDITORS
- Anyone can join one of the food co-ops. They don’t have to commit to buying a bag each week.
- For more details contact Judy Steele 07786 137770 or email judy@action21.co.uk
- The project is run in partnership with Leamington Children’s Centres, the Sydni Centre and Lillington Fresh Food Group.
- Volunteers are always welcome at the co-ops and they should contact Amy Footer on 01926 456072 or amy@action21.co.uk.
Find out more about the food co-ops.