Wales

Our work in Wales

The Social Farms & Gardens team in Wales runs a number of programmes, covering a wide area of work to support and promote community growing in Wales. Read on to find out more about our work in Wales.

• For a comprehensive introduction to setting up, developing and sustaining a community-managed farm, garden or related community growing space see our Community Growing Resource Pack, Wales
• See below for a map view or list of Social Farms & Gardens members in Wales, as well as local news, events and case studies. There are also lots of useful information resources available for social farmers, gardeners and growers on our Resources page.  
• If you are looking for members that offer commissioned health, social care or special education services (such as care farms), please follow this link.

Small Edible Horticulture Business Grants

Food Sense Wales and partners Social Farms & Gardens have awarded 5 grants of between £2500 to £5000

Social Farms & Gardens, in partnership with Food Sense Wales created a fantastic opportunity to access small capital grants as part of Peas Please, a UK National Lottery funded programme to drive up veg consumption. We had a fantastic response, and the competition was high, but we are so pleased to announce that we are supporting 5 horticultural enterprises with capital support over the next 4 months aiming to increase production.  

Click here to see profiles on the awarded projects and more exciting updates!

(This pilot has been designed with key stakeholders and the overall impact of the pilot will be evaluated and a case study report written highlighting areas of good practice, the findings of which will be shared with Welsh Government. This grant is being funded by the National Lottery on behalf of our partners Food Sense Wales). 
 

Allotments Project

• Read more about the Wales Allotment Regeneration Project here
• Our focus areas are Gwynedd, Wrexham & Swansea. We hope to get more funding in the future to help more and more Allotment sites in Wales
• We will post more project updates very soon! 
• This project is supported by and funded through the Welsh Government Land, Nature and Forestry Division 

Community Environment Agriculture (CEA)

Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is a process that combines plant science, engineering and technology to optimise plant growing, plant quality and production efficiency to provide a truly sustainable system of food growing. To date the approaches to CEA have been vastly different, un-co-ordinated and largely un-supported. Through this pilot we will offer real growth potential at a scale that is impactful, replicable and delivers wider benefits for the region. 

This project, Crop Cycle, is being funded by the Welsh Government through the Foundational Economy Challenge Fund and we will be working with business and partners who are committed to the four pillars of the Economic Contract.  The project will provide a test bed for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), in the community setting – the very heart of our Foundational Economy. The project is being led by Social Farms & Gardens supported by Welsh Government’s Horticulture Cluster group and NutriWales CEA Special Interest Group. 

For some more information on this project, please click here. 

CLAS Cymru

Is your community looking for land to set up a community garden or food growing project?
 
Would you like to use local authority land for a wildlife project?
 
Do you need help getting permissions to use land for the benefit of your community?
 
Do you need guidance on setting up and progressing your green space project?
 
The Community Land Advisory Service in Wales (CLAS Cymru) is funded by Welsh Government to support community green space projects to acquire land and gain all the necessary permissions including planning, so that they can set up and manage green spaces as effectively as possible. The Service provides specialist support and advice to a wide variety of community led green space projects across Wales.
 
This year the funding will also provide two part time development workers to support community green space projects to set up and progress. This ongoing and expanded funding demonstrates the Welsh Government’s commitment to driving up the quality of local green space and supporting communities to identify and take control of the green spaces around them.
   
CLAS Cymru works in collaboration with the Green Flag Community Award which is managed by Keep Wales Tidy. We are working with them to increase the number of community managed green spaces and the number of eligible green flag community sites. CLAS Cymru runs its own award programme to recognise community projects that have managed to acquire land for effective green space projects such as orchards, woodlands and community gardens. All these projects manage valuable nature-based activities and the CLAS Cymru Community Managed Award is a steppingstone to achieving a Green Flag Community Award.
   
CLAS Cymru also and has a partner programme with Cardiff University Law School and Blake Morgan LLP law firm to work on case studies and provide up to date guidance documents and templates. We continue to work with them to keep our website up to date with the latest advice on leases, licenses and other legal issues around community land.   
If you would like more information or need advice on getting land to set up your community green space project please contact our CLAS Cymru Coordinator Lucie Taylor - lucie@farmgarden.org.uk 

Community Management Awards (ON HOLD DUE TO COVID-19 PANDEMIC - CHECK BACK FOR AN UPDATES).

Each year we hold a Community Management Awards Ceremony to acknowledge new community managed green spaces and to celebrate communities being able to manage and have some ownership of the green spaces around them. Gaining permission and starting to manage a green space; be it an orchard, community garden or a woodland; is the fruition of a huge amount of hard work, consultation, negotiation and organisation. The Awards Ceremony recognise those achievements and the good work volunteers are doing.

If you know of a new or up and coming community managed green space project that is doing great things please email the name of the project and a point of contact to lucie@farmgarden.org.uk. We will assign the project to one of our fieldworkers for them to be assessed for the Award. Groups need to be constituted, insured and have gained permission to manage the land.
 

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Wales

SF&G is excited to be embarking on a partnership with Lantra’s Tyfu Cymru project to deliver bespoke support to Welsh CSA’s.  This work will directly complement the work of the CSA Network UK. The support includes One to One mentoring, tool kits, brining the project together under a network / cluster group and the like.

One of our first collaborative pieces of work was to carry out some detailed research on CSA’s in Wales. You can read the full research paper here or  the summary here:

• Welsh CSA Research Summary (English)
• Welsh CSA Research Summary (Welsh)

If you would like to find out more about the support we can offer please don’t hesitate to contact us CSA@farmgarden.org.uk.

Please keep up to date with Tyfy Cymru's events over on our Facebook and Twitter channels. 

Orchards Project

We are excited to announce that we have officially begun work on our Orchards Project! We are calling for any fruit-tree suppliers that may be able to help us source the best trees for our selected projects. Please contact: wales@farmgarden.org.uk

We have created, and made available, a great resource pack for your information, click here for English or here for Welsh. 

Edible Playgrounds 

At Social Farms and Gardens - Wales, are very pleased and excited to be working in partnership with Trees for Cities on the Edible Playgrounds programme in the Cardiff area. We will be delivering the school engagement and yearlong teacher support for the Edible Playgrounds projects in the area.

The Edible Playgrounds programme from Trees for Cities transforms school grounds into vibrant outdoor teaching gardens that inspire hands-on learning and get children excited about growing and eating healthy food. They help improve health and wellbeing, open up access to nature, and provide a fun outdoor learning environment that supports cross-curriculum teaching.  

The Edible Playgrounds programme offers a comprehensive service comprising engagement of the whole school community, design, build, planting with pupils, teacher training, and planning support throughout the academic year. 

The uniqueness and value of the programme lies in embedding food-growing into the school curriculum across all subjects so that teachers learn to teach through gardening, not to become gardeners themselves. This approach builds teachers’ skills and confidence to use their Edible Playground in fresh, innovative ways as an outdoor teaching resource.

For more information please get in touch: wales@farmgarden.org.uk 
 

Tyfu Fyny

Tyfu Fyny translates as 'Growing Up' as it built on our previous work through the 'Tyfu Pobl' programme. Our 3-year Rural Development Programme funded project ‘Tyfu Fyny’ has now come to an end. It’s been a fantastic 3 years and during that time we have got to know the community growing sector in a Wales a little more. Many of the project's targets have been exceeded, so a massive thanks to everyone that has contributed and participated to its great success.

Read the full evaluation reports below:

English translation

TYFU FYNY Evaluation Exec Summary ENGLISH July'20

TYFU FYNY Full Evaluation Report ENGLISH July'20

Welsh translation

TYFU FYNY Evaluation Exec Summary WELSH July'20

TYFU FYNY Final Evaluation Report WELSH July'20

Growing Hope and Tyfu Adra Projects - in response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Alongside the Edible Cardiff Network, we launched the Growing Hope project - we will be delivered over 1,000 growing packs in the Cardiff area through Cardiff Council's food bank scheme. Watch our video for more information and to see the groups and people we helped. 

In North Wales, we launched our Tyfu Adra Project - we delivered lots of seeds and growing packs to people and families in the local community. Watch our video to see Sarah explain how to plant and look after your seeds. 

Have A Grow Day (postponed due to COVID-19 - we hope to see this great event back up and running as soon as it's possible).

Have A Grow Day is a community gardens open day for Wales. The first 'Have a Grow Day' took place in 2018 and it took place again at the beginning of June 2019. The day is a way of promoting and celebrating the work of community growing groups who help transform lives and neighbourhoods all over Wales. It's also a chance to raise some money through donations from visitors and even finding some new volunteers! Whether you’re involved as a visitor, volunteer or staff member, the idea is to spread the word and promote your local community garden or allotment, school garden or community supported agriculture scheme.

Visit this page to find out more about plans for this year.

Coronavirus COVID - 19

If you are based in Wales and in need of support and guidance around any issues related to Covid - 19 then we recommend referring to the following resources:

Welsh Government latest information

This page on the Welsh Government website is the best place to find the latest information from the political perspective.

Welsh Council for Voluntary Associations

The WCVA (Welsh Council for Voluntary Associations) are providing daily updates more relevant and specific to our sector. To view this, register for their free mailchimp newsletter.

If there is anything not covered in this that you seek support with please email wales@farmgarden.org.uk

For our full Coronavirus COVID - 19 support page click here

Additional Information and advice on social gardening and farming in Wales

• Online information and advice useful for Welsh community growers, via our Resources page
• Videos about community growing in Wales
• Details and useful resources from the 2016 Wales Future Generation Growers conference
• Information on the Wales Community Supported Agriculture Network

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