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Keep in touch with the Food Alliance Blog - sign up here Follow on Instagram here, Facebook here Here's where you can see what's happening for good local food in Herefordshire. From local food events, through farming to food waste - we use the Sustainable Food Places topics so you can see the things you're interested in at a glance. Click on each one for more information or scroll down the most recent. Contact us to tell us what's going on in your part of the County and sign the food charter to add your voice! |
We started with the charter and moved on to many things last week at Archenfield Community Environment Group's meeting!
Rebecca talked about the Alliance, how the charter is building the movement and before long we were planning community apple picks, juicing days and more.
The group have another event planned - all things waste, including food waste, this Saturday at Llangrove Village Hall
"We met new people in our community through having this event, with a real interest in getting together to reduce food waste in our community - starting with apples!!" Claire Cherry, Archenfield CEG
Opportunity for a HEAD GROWER to set up a CSA Market Garden in Hereford
From Growing Local:
"We are offering a fantastic opportunity for an experienced agroecological/organic grower to enable Growing Local to establish a new 16 acre CSA market garden within walking distance of Hereford City.
The market garden forms part of the development of The Southside Project transforming 35 acres of green space on the edge of the city into a vibrant community destination with sports pitches, gardens, a community hub learning space, affordable cafe, farm shop and field to fork cook school. The project is funded by Hereford’s Stronger Towns Fund.
An update from Growing Local:
"Our project is rapidly taking shape and we now due to take over our 3-field 16-acre site immediately after Easter!
We are planning on holding three open events in April and May to talk to people about how they can get involved in our project by:
– volunteering to help develop the site into our market gardens, educational garden and orchard areas – we are looking for help in everything from gardening to hedge laying, carpentry to bee keeping!
– taking on a future vegetable crop share
– coming along to our workshops, events and training opportunities (for schools, families, children, young people and adults)
And so, so much more!
Here is a small fund (£500-£800) that might suit your work with young people for Big Green Week.
"child and youth-focused local events, activities and festivals during the Great Big Green Week 2023 that work with, and engage, young people and children."
https://greatbiggreenweek.com/funding/save-the-children-children-and-young-people-climate-fund/
Watch this space for Big Green week events appearing and let us know if you're doing any...
It's Good to Grow day in a month, which was previously called the Big Dig, and as well as a one day celebration of community food growing projects they also now have a map.
We had been thinking of creating a map of Herefordshire community gardens, and linking them up - or we could use this lovely map that already exists?!
What do you think?
You can register your garden here - please let us know when you do!
Let us know of a local garden near you and we'll contact
Another Big Eat from Growing Local at the Kindle Centre...
"Our next Big Eat event is on Saturday 25th March at The Kindle Centre Hereford. This time we’re celebrating the foods of Turkey and Syria and cooking together a delicious meze feast.
"Drought is not a lack of rain. It's a lack of infiltration."
Great to hear lots of talk of food at the water catchment event in Ross this week, organised by the Wye Valley AONB Partnership.
The way that we produce our food needs to be in harmony with our rivers, and the event detailed methods to do just that - agroforestry with Stephen Briggs, building soil health with Niels Corfield and plenty of thoughts relevant to farming systems and Natural Flood Management with Chris Uttley.
Here's the second recording from the vending sheds and infrastructure event this week.
Glenkens Food Hub shared their experience of setting up a joint hub online that a big variety of producers use, and local producers and consumers shared and got questions answered.
Stalls needed for Whitecross School community eco-event:
SPRING INTO ACTION!
Friday 21st April from 2 – 5.30pm.
Come and help us celebrate the power of youth and nature!
Whitecross eco-club, Our Planet – Our Future, have been working hard to design and fund-raise for their new garden, myawaki forest and tree nursery. Jesse Norman MP will be planting a tree at 3.30, followed by a Q and A in the Main Hall.
Can you offer a stall with any of the following?
- Local organic food
The Courtyard are hosting a series of 'Food For Families' events The events will feature a FREE hot buffet meal and fun arts activities from 11.30am.
Edgar St, Hereford HR4 9JR
Activity sessions will include:
Create Your Own Sea Scape on Saturday 18th March
Animal Crafts on Saturday 25th March.
Part of a whole heap of 'Winter of Wellbeing' activities... more on the Talk Community Website
SATURDAY 18th March 10 AM – 12 PM
Bromyard Seed Swap, Gardener Discussions & More
In the delightful Ralph Court Gardens, Bromyard
"Second meet up for Seed Swap, Gardening Discussions and to share each others experiences. Tea & coffee & cakes available"
The Food Alliance will be at Llangrove Village Hall on 23rd March to talk all things Food Charter - all questions welcome!
Do you have a parish council, local eco group, food group etc that would like a visit? Get in touch!
You can also arrange a talk yourself - we have slides, and resources - more about volunteering here.
Thanks to all for coming to the vending sheds and infrastructure event this week. We were pretty good out was online with the weather! Thanks especially to the speakers, sharing their time and experience, much appreciated.
Here's a recording of the vending sheds section, plus questions and answers.
Please send any more thoughts /questions / links and we can add to this post.
To follow- a recording of the digital food hub section of the event.
"Tuston Market Garden in Herefordshire was started from an arable field in 2018. We have created a productive veg plot, 3 polytunnels, soft fruit and flower areas, meadows and woodland. We are certified Organic and practice no-dig methods, selling our produce at farmers markets, local veg boxes, wholesale and restaurants.
We are looking for a Seasonal Grower to work alongside Alice the Head Grower who has a young baby. The role will be 3 days (24 hours) per week from April to September.
A Farming Perspective - Where do we Go from Here?
Monday 20th March
7 p.m. at the Burgage Hall, Church Lane, Ledbury
"Patrick Wrixon has farmed in Herefordshire for over 40 years. He has been involved with agricultural organisations Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG), Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF), and the NFU.
Patrick will give a presentation followed by discussion and questions. Come and join in the debate.
No tickets required but donations welcome to cover the cost of hiring the hall."
Herefordshire Food Alliance member Kristan gave a a regional update for the Marches at the Dynamic Procurement event in March, hosted by DPUK - looking at ways to scale up supply and demand of good sustainable food.
Dynamic Food Procurement aims to use technology and collective action to shorten supply chains and along with other counties, Herefordshire has been investigating how we can make that happen here.
More about the idea of dynamic procurement here.
The Marches regional study is now complete - the region has a range of things it would need to do in order for this to work, more details in the following documents
Results and Recommendations: There is long term potential for our wider region working together, but not enough evidence that we could align well enough to make big changes quickly.
"Valuable shared learning among Marches authorities but challenges and trade-offs for procuring collectively."
Executive Summary: Executive Summary: Moitoring what we do and how we do it - across our overlapping values and activities will help us work towards anything more collective.
"Establishing robust, comparable baseline data across all five key policy goals remains vital for identifying actionable gaps in current procurement practices, designing optimum solutions, and
effectively tracking future progress."
Ledbury Food Bank, Sustainable Ledbury and Severn Wye Energy will be joining many other organisations to kick off a series of roadshows in Ledbury on Saturday. (Also tying in with Food Waste Action Week)
The next event will feature St Martin's Foodshare - in Hereford.
"These events will give people the opportunity to seek support, and speak to organisations who can signpost and provide information on a range of issues related to the cost of living. Please note each event is unique and may contain different services."
More info being added - Spread the word...
Vending Sheds and Online Sales: Selling good food direct in Herefordshire
What’s working here, what could work and what do we need to make more direct sales happen?
Wednesday March 8th 6-8pm Online
Great Trewen Milk Shed and Wild Cow Dairy - How they set up their vending sheds here in Herefordshire, what's going well and challenges - please send your questions.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS (Speakers & Panel Sessions) From the Shropshire Good Food Partnership -
Marches Real Food & Farming Conference
We're pleased to announce the first ever
MARCHES REAL FOOD AND FARMING CONFERENCE.
SAVE THE DATE:
September 15-16, 2023, at Linley Farm, Shropshire.
The aim of this conference is to bring people together around agro-ecological farming and food systems, to inspire each other, share good practice, build networks and create the community that can bring about the transition we need. As a bio-region, 'The Marches' (both sides of the
England/Wales border) offers us a huge opportunity to focus our efforts.
Food needs land... Sustainable food means great land management - here's an interesting event coming up...
"The Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnership Seminar: Enhancing water catchment through innovative land management.
Influencing policies and practices to conserve and enhance water resources in our outstanding landscape. This is a free event.
Join us for an inspirational day of talks from leading experts in soil and land management, agroforestry and Natural Flood Management, including:
Niels Corfield - Regenerative Agriculture Consultant
Stephen Briggs - Abacus Agriculture, Nuffield Scholar
Chris Uttley - Stroud Valleys Natural Flood Management Officer
Followed by a Q&A panel discussion.
