English We are excited to announce that we are starting work on a 3 year project, funded by the Friends Provident Foundation, to improve the capacity, reach and uptake of direct-to-customer and short supply chain sales models in local food.
Our plan for the project is to work on three approaches:
(1) Using farmer-to-farmer and co-design methodologies to develop innovation, skills and knowledge in direct sales and local supply chain models. This will be based on webinars, farm tours and meetings to explore existing models and work together to improve them.
(2) Providing support, advice and resource materials to help farmers to improve their businesses or transition to these models. This will be based on phone and email support well as guidebooks and resources. We will compile case studies of farms that run successful models, and write resource documents explaining direct sales and short supply chain models, marketing, business planning and options for accessing finance, as well as understanding the planning system, food safety and environmental health requirements.
(3) Increasing our advocacy, lobbying and campaigning work on direct sales and short supply chains. This will be based on taking the great work you are doing, and the challenges you are facing, to governments across the UK and pressuring them for proper support.
Because of COVID-19 we are changing the start of the project and so will be working on case studies, resource documents, webinars and podcasts rather than face-to-face meetings until we are able to organise meet-ups again.
Can you help us out?
To help us get the project off to a strong start we would really appreciate it if you would take 10mins to complete our survey of farm, forestry and land-based businesses. This will help us draw a stronger picture of the enterprises you are running, how you are adapting to COVID-19 and the support that you need.
Respondents will be entered into a prize draw for one of two beautiful Rosanna Morris prints from the 2020 Calendar. We will also use the responses to select 20 farms to write case studies about (you can opt out if you don’t want to be considered for this). We will have a template for the case studies and a budget to pay for your time pulling the information together.
Can we help you out?
Let us know if you would like support or advice on issues relating to your enterprise and we will do what we can to help. We will soon have a page on the website with resources but for now please email support@staging.landworkersalliance.org.uk and we will do what we can to be of assistance.
