The Future Farms Partnership shares a vision for more agroecological horticulture enterprises across Wales - helping to meet the fruit and veg needs of our citizens and supporting a flourishing rural economy.
Project headlines
SF&G is playing a lead role in the Future Farms Partnership. Together with growers, public bodies and other third sector organisations, we have:
- Enabled new planning guidance to be adoped by Powys County Council and Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority to facilitate the building of rural enteprise dwellings for horticultural enterprises.
- Built three new farms on the outskirts of the village of Sarn, Powys. Crucially, these farms each have a rural enterprise dwelling so the growers can live on the land from which they are producing fruit and veg agroecologically.
- Recruited three growers to live and work on the land in Sarn. You can follow Wern Farm on Facebook.
This activity has proved the concept. As a partnership we have taken a lot of learning from this pilot that we are now looking to expand Wales.
News so far
New Planning Guidance
Funded by Backing Local Firms Fund, we’ve supported Powys County Council to develop new planning guidance to support and assist small-scale horticultural enterprises in the preparation of a planning application for a Rural Enterprise Dwelling (permanent or temporary). We then submitted a planning application to put three temporary dwellings on a Powys County Council farm holding that would be split into three horticulture enterprises.
Building Farms with Rural Enterprise Dwellings
In April 2024, we submitted a planning application to Powys County Council to build three rural enterprise dwellings with shared barn facilities on a bare field site owned by Powys County Council on the outskirts of the village of Sarn.
The application was approved in November 2024 and we started building. By April 2025, the site had three homes for growers, a shared barn, solar power, highways access and landscaping to meet SUDS requirements.
Click here to read our executive summary > Welsh
Click here to read our executive summary > English
Recuiting Growers
Over the summer of 2024, we also undertook to recruit three growers to take on the tenancies at Wern Farm. This is a flagship pilot so getting the right growers on board was essential. They needed strong growing skills but also solid business acumen to get their new enterprises off the ground quickly. The planning permission allows the farms five years to develop and prove their business viability in order to apply for permanent permission for the rural enterprise dwellings. They also needed to be able to work collaboratively - navigating and growing the local market together as well as sharing tools, storage and processing facilities and coordinating production.
You can keep up to date with the growers via their Facebook page or order some produce via their online shopfront.
Next steps
This project is part of a bigger vision for more nature-friendly horticulture enterprises in Wales to meet the fruit and vegetable needs of our population and sustain our soils for future generations. We’re working to drive supply and demand, supporting public sector bodies to purchase local, fresh and seasonal fruit and veg and equipping a new generation of growers to take up the challenge of feeding our nation.
Partners
The partnership includes:
- Our Food 1200
- Powys County Council
- Shared Assets
- Ecological Land Cooperative
- Gwlad Consultancy
- Landworkers’ Alliance
- Cultivate (Powys Sustainable Food Partnerships)
- Lantra Wales
- Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN)
- Black Mountains College
- Eco Dyfi (Pathways to Farming)
Learning and Evaluation
Our activity so far has been independently evaluated. Read the reports in full.
Contact
If you'd like to get involved or know more about this partnership, or our work across Wales, please email [email protected]