English The Landworkers’ Alliance is working to find ways to connect producers with people in ways that improve access to good food for those experiencing household food insecurity in terms of affordability and access to food. Funding has been made available for us to develop pilot projects testing and illustrating how funding to small farms can improve access to good food for all. We are seeking to develop various models and best practice addressing the issue of access to sustainable food from different angles and scales. We’re interested in seeing projects that might be replicable and scale-able.
We’re asking for expressions of interest from farms who would like to take part in a pilot project to model how agroecological farms can support access to food for people living with low or no income or people experiencing food insecurity in terms of access to food. As part of this pilot project, farms will be granted a budget of up to £10,000 from LWA to support any changes (equipment, staffing etc) to help them expand production and develop an innovative supply chain to deliver the pilot project. We will work actively with farms to develop their projects so that we can present a range of different models which can be replicable for other farms.
If your farm would like to re-orientate its market but are new to this and do not know how you would be addressing the issues of improving access to food or if you want help connecting with a project or community that needs food please get in touch. We are particularly looking for innovative projects which create systemic changes to transition to resilient community-based food systems.
The farms must be willing to work with the Landworkers’ Alliance, the CSA Network and the Independent Food Aid Network in developing the project, monitoring the impact of the funding, collecting stories for media, and sharing lessons learned with other producers so that we can develop policy recommendations for the government. You will need to be able to commit to assessment and publicity for a year.
The funding can be used flexibly to cover capital or other costs. Private businesses are eligible for the funding as well as new entrants who intend to or have started production this year.
How to apply
Please email jyoti@landworkersalliance.org.uk with the following details by May 29th. Expressions of interest should be no longer than 2 sides of A4 / 1000 words
- Name and contact details
- Location & size of your farm,
- Tell us a bit more about your farm – how long have you been running, where you sell to, etc
- How your farm has been affected by COVID-19
- Any previous work to increase access to good food for people experiencing food insecurity, and any lessons you learnt from this
- Business ownership model (or if you are a new entrant the area you intend to work in)
- Explain very simply how you intend to address issues of improving access to food people experiencing food insecurity or enable access to organic food at an affordable price. Your whole business does not need to supply lower income households, only a proportion of the business.
We will be in touch to discuss and refine projects. Decisions will be made by an LWA project team by first week in June. Selections will be made on the basis of which projects will provide the best case studies. We will select a variety of farms illustrating different models and best practice to demonstrate a transition to localised community resilient food systems. We may be able to seek further funding to support more of these activities, so if your application is not supported in this first round, we may contact you to develop your ideas.
If you don’t know how you would improve access to food, but would like to work with us, please get in touch and we can co-develop some ideas. We can help find other farms interested in your area, community kitchens or other partners in the supply chain who will be delivering to areas where it is difficult to access organic food at an affordable price.
We will be working with the Independent Food Aid Network to identify areas particularly in need and prioritise projects developing projects in those areas. We are actively encouraging applications from farms which are managed by those less well represented in agriculture, and we will make at least one award to a farm managed by people of colour or where people of colour have equal decision making power as part of a cooperative or partnership.
If you are interested please email jyoti@staging.landworkersalliance.org.uk with your application or phone 07875849754 with a brief description of your ideas.
