Solidarity Pot

We’re launching a Solidarity Pot to support our members facing difficult circumstances and help members bridge an urgent gap and to respond quickly to changing circumstances.

Donate to our pot or request support below

Covid-19 has shone a light on the vulnerability of our global food supply chain and put extra demand and pressure on food producers in the UK. We want to support our members during this time to make sure that our local food and agroecological land use systems can keep growing.

We are using income from membership, merchandise and events to create this pot, and thanks to generous donations the pot has been increased to £15,000, and we hope that it can help.

The purpose of our Solidarity Pot is to help members bridge an urgent gap and to respond quickly to changing circumstances with a loan of up to £1000. The two priorities are:

– Cover for staff sickness (including for the duration of self-isolation) or for staff who need to take care leave, especially where workers are self-employed and have a time lag in applying for Universal Credit or Coronavirus Self-employment Income Support Scheme

– Capital costs for: equipment to adapt business for hygiene, health and safety requirements; investments necessary to respond to changes in markets; or assist in getting produce to those most in need.

We are particularly keen to support members who are newly established businesses and/or with a small number of employees where the impact of the loan might be more significant.

Donations

We are accepting donations to the Solidarity Pot to allow us to support more landworkers through current and future challenging times. To donate, please fill in the box on the left. Any donations will be used to support our members through the Solidarity Pot. After the Covid-19 crisis we plan to continue the solidarity pot to support our members.

If you would like to more widely support the work of the LWA, you can join the LWA as a supporter member – visit our supporter page to find out more.

Requests for support

We are only able to offer a modest amount as a loan, and we know that the amount we can offer will not meet the full needs of some of our members. We recognise that for some, the Covid-19 outbreak will have significant medium and long-term impacts, and we’re lobbying the government for longer-term financial support packages for smaller-scale producers and landworkers. In the meantime we can also help advise and signpost members to other sources of aid and assistance – please see this page and then contact info@landworkersalliance.org.uk if you have any queries.

We are operating this scheme on trust and in the spirit of solidarity. We do not expect any reporting, but welcome feedback on how you have used the money and how it has helped. This will help us build the case for running our Solidarity Pot over a longer-term period, and sharing learning and inspiration amongst our members.

Key points
– We have up to £15,000 available
– We can only take requests for support from landworker members of the Landworkers’ Alliance. To find out more about membership, please see our page here.
– You can request up to £1000 loan with 0% interest
– Repayment terms are agreed on a case by case basis
– There is no deadline for requests – this is a fast moving situation and we want to limit delays on the loan
– We will review requests on a weekly basis and respond by the following week with a decision or clarification questions. If there are questions/clarifications there may be a short delay on this timescale.
– Payments will be made within 5 working days of agreement

This will be a rolling pot of financial support that we will continue to run after the Covid-19 crisis has passed. We recognise that working in small-scale agroecological landwork can have challenges, and this Solidarity Pot plays an important role in supporting our members through these challenges.

To request support from the Solidarity Pot, please fill in our  form here. If you have any questions about the Solidarity Pot, see the FAQ below or please email helen@landworkersalliance.org.uk

Other support

Here are other schemes we are aware of to offer support at this time:

– Loans for Enlightened Agriculture Programme are offering small emergency loans from £5k-£20k.

– For general support and advice during the Covid-19 situation, please see our support pages here.