Northern Ireland

Community Gardening has transformed community work in Northern Ireland over the past 15 years, and is capable of much more, even in uncertain funding circumstances. FCFCG is uniquely placed to gather evidence about what works and what is needed.

We have had a staff member in Northern Ireland since 2011, and since then we have worked with many of the new and established community growing projects in Northern Ireland. We are involved in several ongoing projects:

• Our Growing Resilience programme aims to increase social capital and resilience in the community growing sector.
• The Outdoor Wellbeing Network for Northern Ireland helps to develop and promote green care in Northern Ireland.
• The Growing Together programme helps unlocked income, land and skills for community growing groups to help them become more financially self-sustaining and less dependent on grant funding

During the past five years we have:

• Focused on capacity-building by advising allotment and community garden groups, organising training and facilitating visits to established sites.

• Convened the biannual Northern Ireland Allotment and Community Garden Forum, bringing together a range of stakeholders from Northern Ireland and the South - councils and local authorities, government agencies, NGOs and allotment and community garden representatives - to meet, share ideas, get to know each other and find out what's going on around the country

• Stimulated cooperation between statutory agencies and the community sector, for example through the workplace allotments at Parliament buildings

See below for a map view or list of local community growing sites, as well as local news, events and case studies. There are lots of useful information resources available for Northern Ireland community growers on our Resources page.

You can also get useful information via the FCFCG Northern Ireland Facebook page: