A group of friends who started a veg box scheme during lockdown have raised enough money to buy their own farm.
The 'Middle Ground Growers' delivered approximately 65 organic veg boxes a week by bike in response to supermarket food shortages at the start of the pandemic.
Now they have crowdfunded £100,000 to purchase a 16-acre farm in Upper Weston, Bath, which will allow them to provide more than 600 families with vegetables.
Hamish Evans, 24, Xavier Hamon, 39, Livi Rhodes, 31 and Sammy Elmore, 29, began growing vegetables on a small rented plot as shop shelves emptied in 2020.
They now have a working farm - with a market garden and orchards to grow fruit and veg – while they are aiming to build a wildlife haven, wetlands and wildflower meadow at their new site.
The friends now hope to teach others how to grow sustainably and set-up mini sites in Bath for growing more local produce.
Hamish said the group come from a background of farming and support for environmental movements.
He said it all began when group wanted to "help people in crisis".
Hamish said: "We've all worked in a background of farming, ecological farming, before.
"During lockdown there were all these food security issues, local food made a big resurgence with supermarket sales being down.
"When the shops started to look a bit bare with shortages, local food went through a bit of a boom with people realizing they could use the farms down the road.
"We wanted to find a meaningful livelihood as well, getting to work on the land and outside.
“There is no reason why we cannot grow the majority of our calories and nutrients locally.
"In the context of a climate emergency, ecological crisis, global food and energy shortages, Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic, there has never been a greater, more urgent need to produce our food locally and organically.
"We have found with our current veg box scheme that this also brings communities together, provides meaningful employment and a general sense of hope again to people’s lives.”
The group have varying backgrounds in agriculture, business and mechanics and Hamish said that this helped them to launch the project.
He added: "The land itself was about £200k but we pooled together all of our life savings and got it. None of us could have done it on our own.
"We've basically done it all through crowdfunding and our savings, so we needed the £100,000 to get started.
"We spent about a year after we bought the land drawing up all the plans. We were trying to be really realistic with it too so we reduced costs and kept things efficient.
"This is our full time job for us now. Once we got the veg box going I quit my job and now we're all fully paid. We supply a few restaurants now too".
Sammy says that the diversity of crops and wildlife are important for the farm, which offers three types of veg box – all for under £20.
He added: "It's a mix between wildlife and farming, we're trying to meet the two, that's what regenerative agriculture is.
“We grow about 70 different types of veg, so a lot of diversity because it's good for the land.
"The boxes vary every week with fruit from the orchard, eggs, apple juice, greens, beans, peas etc.
"We have three different sizes of boxes this year, a £12, £15 and £20 box.
"The smallest box is best for about two people, whereas the bigger box is good for a family of five or so.
"They're great value and we have more slots available so people are welcome to make orders.
"It's great for people with wider economic constraints as well because it makes things nice and affordable for lots of people.”
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