Transcript
Speaker: Land is going on the open market. It's being sold to investors or pension funds and communities are wanting to do something about it. On the other side, think you've got farmers that are struggling to be able to plan long-term on the farm. You've got farmers that want to come into the industry that can't afford to.
Speaker: Community ownership breaks down some of those barriers. It's such a wonderful model to strike and cut through all of development capitalist approach to land in our food system and actually generate a food system which is within our control, which is purpose and values driven and which produces some food in the way that we want it to be produced.
Speaker: We often talk about how the food system is broken, but what would it look like to build one that is better? This mini series from Agrarian Futures re-imagines a food system rooted in cooperative principles.
Speaker: What if we didn't live in a winner-takes-all economy, but one where cooperatively owned enterprises worked in partnership with each other across the food supply chain? Through deep dives into examples on the ground, we'll chart a path from our present moment to a better food future.
Speaker: If we're serious about building a better food system, we have to start with land. Across the world, land is getting more and more expensive. In the United States, farmland values have nearly doubled since 2011.
Speaker: What we're witnessing is an unprecedented land rush. one that's driving prices to levels simply unattainable by farmers and ranchers and the people we're actually asking to grow our food.
Speaker: As land is sold to development, we are losing an estimated 2,000 acres of farmland every single day. But the bigger story is what's coming. More than 40% of American farmland is owned by people over the age of 65.
Speaker: What this means is that roughly 370 million acres an area larger than Texas and California combined, is expected to change hands over the next 20 years. Who ends up owning it will shape our food system for decades.
Speaker: This mini-series is about what a food system built on cooperative principles could actually look like. In a world where land is becoming a speculative asset, owned by distant investors, people like Bill Gates, what would it look like to take land back, to hold it in common, to make sure that people actually farming it can afford to be there?
Speaker: We need alternatives. And one of the clearest working answers I've come across is Fort Owl Community Farm. The story in the UK looks similar to that in the US. About 32% of English farmland is rented rather than owned by the people farming it.
Speaker: And among the land that is owned, the concentration is difficult to overstate. Roughly 1% of the population, largely aristocracy and corporations, own close to half of England.
Speaker: Meanwhile, there's Ford Hall Community Farm in Shropshire. The Hollins family have farmed the land for over 400 years, and under Arthur Hollins, in the mid-20th century, it became one of the birthplace of organic, pasture-based farming in the UK.
Speaker: In the early 2000s, however, the landowner wanted to sell to development, and the family faced eviction. What happened instead is one of the most remarkable stories of what a cooperative future could look like.
Speaker: Charlotte and Ben Hollins, Arthur's children, 19 and 21 at the time, launched a national campaign to buy the farm back and put it into community ownership. They raised the money in $50 shares from more than 8,000 people.
Speaker: Fordall has now been a community-owned farm for nearly two decades. And Charlotte has become one of the most active voices in the UK's growing community land ownership movement. Well, Charlotte, welcome to the show.
Speaker: I've read in some of your materials that your family has been farming this land for over 400 years. That's a really long time. Could you walk us through your family's history with this land and how it came to the edge of being lost after such a long time?
Speaker: That's right. Yeah, we've been at Ford Hall Farm many, many generations, as as you said there, but only ever as tenant farmers. And so my late father, Arthur Hollins, took over the tenancy back in 1929 when he was only 14. His dad had died. So dad then left school to take on the tenancy with his mom. And he turned the farm organic, spent his life, you know, investing into the soil, the land the pastures at Ford Hall. But it was in the early 1990s that Muller Dairy became our next door neighbour and our landowner then saw the potential to sell Ford Hall Farm for development.
Speaker: But he couldn't do that as we were there as tenant farmers. And because we had been there for such a long time, we did have a very secure tenancy. So it took a lot of fighting for him to try and get us out. fact, nearly 15 years, my parents were fighting eviction notice after eviction notice through the courts to try and stay at Ford Hall.
Speaker: Through each time, more and more money was being invested into legal fees, less money was being reinvested back within the farm. Dad was advancing in his age and Ben and myself were his second generation of children. So there was quite a difference in, you know, dad in his 80s trying to work on the farm. I mean, my brother both still at school. That generation gapped together with the family fighting through court cases and all the money going into that battle. meant the farm deteriorated in the 1990s. And that eventually gave the landlord the ammunition to evict us in 2003.
Speaker: And from thereafter, community ownership started to be born. What was happening with respect to like land more broadly in the 1990s that was leading the landlord to want to push you guys off the land?
Speaker: ah Essentially the biggest pressure on us in the 1990s was from local development. We're right on the edge of our local market, town market Drayton. And Muller Dairy had moved next door to us and they wanted to expand their yoghurt factory.
Speaker: And we were the neighbouring field. So it was quite natural for them to want to move our way. And our landlord simply wanted to capitalise on his asset. And if it wasn't Muller's, he was then looking for local supermarkets. He was looking for the cattle market. He was looking for any way he could capitalise on his land because for him, owning land was merely about that capital asset and they wanted to maximise its value as much as possible. And us being there as tenant farmers didn't help that plan and and therefore, you know, they needed to evict us to be able to free that land up.
Speaker: But I don't think they were prepared for the fight that they were going to have on their hands. And in the UK, like in the US in the 1990s, probably even before land was appreciating in value massively and getting very out of whack with the revenue you could make farming it.
Speaker: So i imagine those dynamics were becoming challenging for lots of farmers, especially smaller farmers. Absolutely. but it was challenging then and it's even more challenging now. I mean, that gap just continues to widen.
Speaker: You know, in the 1990s and early 2000s, it was impossible to be able to get a mortgage on a piece of land and be able to pay that off on a farmer's income. And it's even more impossible today as land values continue to increase far quicker than a farmer's income does.
Speaker: And if you're farming the land in a regenerative way, in a you know very extensive organic way, as we are doing at Ford Hall, where we're focusing very much on quality over quantity, that gap unfortunately becomes even wider. And it's it's just not possible to bridge it unless you come into the industry with a huge amount of capital resource already behind you. It's almost impossible to enter the agricultural industry in England 20 years ago and and even more so today. Yeah.
Speaker: It's now the early two thousand s You're Ben is You've been fighting eviction for a number of years, a lot of money going into legal fees, and you're finally given a final Hail Mary and given a year, I think, or a year and a half to come up with the money to buy the land from the landlord if you want to stay on it.
Speaker: What happens then? Yeah, see, you're quite right, Emma. Ben and I were fortunate in 2003, you know, it was just 2004, sorry, 24 hours before the family were due to be evicted, we managed to get a short-term tenancy for 18 months while the landlord reassessed what he was going to do. And that was essentially because Muller Dairy had shifted their focus on another piece of land. His immediate buyer weren't just sitting and waiting anymore and he had a very run-down farm. He couldn't really rent out to anyone else.
Speaker: So I was 21, Ben was 19, had 11 cows, six pigs, six sheep. No idea what we were doing, no money to our name. We're very excited that we had this farm to run, you know, as you do when you're at that young age and you have this blind ambition and and belief that anything is possible.
Speaker: And the first actions for us really during that 18-month tenancy was to be able to pay the rent. So we both got jobs off the farm, but we also knew that the only way we'd be able to build the business up was to sell what we had direct to the public.
Speaker: So one of our six pigs went off to the local laboratory, came back as sausages and a little chest freezer and a very small lean-to on the side of the farmhouse with a little chalkboard at the end of the drive. And we made about £50 in the first weekend and thought we were rich.
Speaker: And thought, oh my God. gosh, this is so easy. You know, we've just made £50, which back then in the early 2000s when we were, you know, previous to that living at university and college would have gone a long way. But, you know, when you're renting a 140-acre farm, it doesn't go that far.
Speaker: And as I said, we supplemented the income with our own jobs. That was enabled us to pay the rent. And during that 18 months, we then reached out to our local community and we reached out to people to Ask them what they wanted from the farm in the future. Did they want to be part of that journey? and It started with some volunteer weekends where people came and helped us clear the place up, tired of the scrub and overgrowth and helped get it to be more presentable.
Speaker: They really enjoyed it. And then other people joined in. We held held events at the farm. It was really anything we could think of. to get the local community on the farm, hopefully for them to see it as an asset to the local area, something they'd like to help be there for the future and potentially something then they'd like to help us save for the future.
Speaker: And all of this culminated in a community meeting that we held at Ford Hall in February 2005. So it was almost a year into that 18-month tenancy agreement. It was a month after Dad had sadly passed away.
Speaker: And we asked the local community at that point, you know, what they wanted from the farm, both then or 10 or 50 years down the line. And we then said what we wanted from as farmers, both then and in the future. And it was by putting those two kind of visions and ideals together that we came up with the community structure that we still have at Ford Hall to this day. which is where the community were able to then help us raise the funds to purchase the farm. They would own the farm. It would be in their custodianship. The farm would be utilised as a community resource, offering school visits and and different education and recreational opportunities. At but and the heart of it, there would be a tenant farmer with long-term security on the farm, and running a normal business, having his own livelihood there, but working very much in partnership with the community landlords.
Speaker: And so we came out of the community meeting with ah an idea that a community benefits society structure as it is now would be the legal model that would facilitate that and then sought to get an option to buy the farm from the landowners, which took a number of months of us really pushing and working hard to get.
Speaker: And we eventually, in the July of 2005, managed to get the option to buy the farm and they gave us 12 months to come to them with £800,000. And it was a take it or leave it offer. Our tenancy was going to be extended to cover the period.
Speaker: So we took it. And by the time we got ourselves legally incorporated, we were left with about six months to raise £800,000. And we carried on in in some ways our own naive way of, you know, believing that anything was possible. And I think there was a lot to be said for that young enthusiasm and naivety at the time that really drove the campaign through. you know, more volunteers, more members of our community got involved. Everyone came with ideas or skills or energy or pens and paper or spare desks, you know, which all helped contribute to, in the end, what was a hugely successful national campaign.
Speaker: And £800,000, especially in 2005, that's a lot of money. How did you go about raising all of that just through crowdfunding? Yeah.
Speaker: That's right. So crowdfunding wasn't even a term back then, you know, so it was all very novel. um Community shares weren't really known about or well understood. We set the price of our community shares at £50 each. They were non-profit making, so they never returned a financial dividend. They're lifelong shares with the community benefit society structure. It's a one-member, one-vote system. So regardless of the number of shares any individual held, it would stay completely democratic because every member only holds one vote.
Speaker: And we were hoping through that £50 community share scheme, we'd be able to raise the funds to eventually purchase the farm. So as I said, it took us about six months to set up our legal structure. We called it the Ford Hall Community Land Initiative.
Speaker: And we started selling our £50 community shares. And all we really did from the very beginning, you know, and it sounds so simple, but And essentially it was, was we opened the farm gate, allowed people to get involved, took people's ideas on board. And that's how the project developed along the way. And it opened up doors along the way. You know, about two months into our fundraising, we'd raised about £30,000, which, you know, to be honest, I'd never seen that kind of money in my life before. So I was pretty excited. But we'd set up a board of directors, which were all volunteers from within our local community that were supporting us moving forward.
Speaker: And, you know, I'd be meeting up with them and giving them progress reports. They'd be offering advice and guidance. And they're like, oh, Charlotte, you know, it's great. We've raised £30,000 in the last two months.
Speaker: But we've still got, you know, four months left to raise over £770,000. Like, how on earth are we going to do it? And I'm there going, I know, isn't this great? This is going really well.
Speaker: And they're kind of like, yeah, I think we need to pick up speed a bit. But, you know, in that February, we had a volunteer weekend where about 50 people came from across the country and all helped us do some tree planting and some hedge laying.
Speaker: And one of the gentlemen that came on that volunteer weekend had come up from London. He'd read about what we were doing, went to come and find out a little bit more. He was really passionate about farmland not being built on and especially the fact that we'd been farming organically there since just after the Second World War, so in the nineteen forty s And he, you know, he went back then after this volunteer weekend, really enthused, told all his friends and family, wrote letters and emails out to people to encourage others to buy shares in the farm. And he also went knocking on the doors on his street and one of the ladies on his street happened to be a journalist for the Daily Telegraph.
Speaker: And this article subsequently came out in the middle of April 2006, by which point we'd raised about £77,000. So I so had two and a half months to still raise over £700,000.
Speaker: And this amazing article came out in the Telegraph, which was two full pages. And it just snowballed thereafter to the point that we had to install an extra phone line in the farmhouse to cope with the volume of calls that continued to come in from this article. And a lot of other press picked it up at a similar time. The Observer, The Guardian, The Mail, Express, Country Living Magazine, some international press. I think we were in an American Horse magazine and eco magazine and in Greece, Italian fashion magazine, you know, and it went online, of course, as well.
Speaker: And it it really snowballed. In the final two weeks the campaign, we still had a quarter of a million pound to raise. And it came in in those final two weeks. And back then, as any of the older listeners will be able to appreciate, things were done by check and pen and paper more than they were done online. So we had literally sacks of post being delivered to the farmhouse every single day. And so many amazing volunteers, and my colleagues Sophie and Ben, of course, who were all there to help process all of these share applications as they were coming through.
Speaker: And it was only 24 hours before our deadline, which was the 1st of July 2006, that we managed to get confirmation from the bank that we had enough funds cleared in the bank and we had that £800,000. And it really was an incredible time. And, you know, there was lots of different reasons that people got involved. It wasn't just because of...
Speaker: them having a connection to our farm in Shropshire. Many of our shareholders had never visited us at the time and had never this was the first they'd heard about us. But it was everything that the farm was representing. You know, not just the fact that it been organic since the 1940s or the fact that, you know, it was being faced from industrial development or it could have been the fact that people wanted their children to know where their food was coming from. It could have been the fact that it was wildlife and biodiversity being saved on the farm.
Speaker: Or the fact that people have just seen how hard it's been in the agricultural industry. And while this is a real practical, tangible way and that people could support it and support a way of farming that they wanted to see going forward for the future.
Speaker: That's incredible. And it's incredible how so many people, like you said, that had no connection to the area, even to Shropshire, just read about your story and ah resonated with it. And, you know, decide to send $50 check to you without, you know, having any personal, you know, gain coming out of it just because it mattered so much to them.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, we've got over 300 shareholders outside of the u k you know, right across the world in North and South America, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Europe. And again, it as you said, it was because people cared about the principles of what was happening. But also, I think a lot of people could resonate with what was happening and had very personal experiences themselves of being connected with the land, or a family member that had been connected with the land. And they they'd lost it over recent decades because of the struggles that farming is in, because of the financial pressures it's been put under, because of the way it's been forced to grow and expand and become more factory-like, as it were. And a lot of people didn't want to be part of that process, couldn't afford to stay in farming the way they wanted to, and had lost those connections. and And this was a way, as I said, to kind of really support a way of farming that they,
Speaker: believed in and cared about. And I think at the heart of it, because Ford Hall is a working organic farm, you know, it's not a show farm, it's not a petting zoo, it is a working farm at the heart ah of it. And I think that has been something that's been really important for all of our members throughout.
Speaker: And I want to double down for a second, because I think it's pretty key on the structure. So the Community Benefit Society, which was very novel at the time. How does that work?
Speaker: When someone buys a share, what does it look like after that? That's right. So our shares, as I said, are £50 each. and People can buy as many shares as they want, but only if entitles each member to one vote.
Speaker: They are lifelong shares. They give each member a vote at our AGM. They give them a say in that the many surveys that we put out to our members, which help guide our strategic direction.
Speaker: If members want, they can put themselves forward to be on our volunteer board of directors and they get the ability then to be a bit more involved with the strategic direction and governance of the organisation as we move forward. They get a lovely presented share certificate and it essentially means that they part own Ford Hall Organic Farm for life and they're supporting a way of life on that farm as well.
Speaker: As I said, they're completely non-profit making, so they don't return a financial dividend, but they are withdrawable. So if someone no longer wants to be a member, they don't go up or down in value, but they can withdraw their shares should they wish to. And we've never stopped selling shares, you know, throughout the life of Ford or being in community ownership because we need that membership to continue to evolve and grow. We need to make sure that we are a voice of our membership and community today as much as 20 years ago. so it's really important to us that that membership continues to evolve and grow continue to bring in new members to make sure that we remain relevant as an organisation. And the surveys that we do with our members ensures that the direction that we take is in line with what that wider membership wishes.
Speaker: And so you have 8,000 shareholders, a little bit over 8,000, each that has one vote. What does it look like to you know be accountable in that way to so many people?
Speaker: And how do you think maybe that has affected the direction that the farm has taken? I think him it gives us a great deal of security, actually. Many people think that, oh my gosh, you know, having over 8,000 different people that can vote on something or that have that ownership stake, really, and and are really empowered to be part of the journey, that must be an absolute nightmare. And actually, it's it's the opposite, Emma. It's a really, really lovely place for us to be. And I think part of that is because the values are really clear and really strong and the vision is really strong and people buy into the organisation. So from that point of view, we have 8,000 people that are already so aligned, already part of the same story, the same vision. And that means that as we progress, we progress with a huge strength behind us.
Speaker: you know There isn't arguments, there isn't disagreements that are massive. And if you get one or two individuals that really don't like what you're doing and want it to go in a different direction, actually their voice isn't powerful enough fallen off to shift anything because you've got another 8,000 people that do want it to go in that direction. And I think that's where it's really important that we continue to do the surveys with our members and listen to our members so that we are continuing to reflect that broader view. And actually having a bigger membership safeguards that vision in one way and it makes sure that it only moves alongside
Speaker: a big group of people and the minority aren't able to shift it in any one direction that could make us vulnerable or could make us go against our values for any reason. And because the shares are non-profit making, it also means that the organisation is able to stay true to its purpose and stay true to its values because our members are not making decisions based on how much money they can make out of it.
Speaker: They're making decisions on what they believe the right thing to do is. You know, as a community benefit society, it's different to a normal charity. You know, the trustees are there to reflect, the directors are there to reflect the view of the members. They are not there to make decisions of just what they think as individuals. So it's a very open, transparent process. It's very much a bottom-up process rather than a top-down process, which is really nice.
Speaker: you know And I said the farm's in community ownership for perpetuity and that community organisation, the Ford Hall Community Land Initiative, and we're we're a charitable organisation as well. We're there not just as a landowner, but we're also using the farm as a community resource.
Speaker: A number of different projects on site, including school visits and managing public access and keeping it free for our local community but to be able to visit. We also run a care farm that supports adults with learning disabilities and autism. We have a youth project, which is an alternative curriculum, so that's supporting vulnerable young people that are struggling with the school environment.
Speaker: We offer apprenticeships in conservation. We have conservation volunteering opportunities. We also offer residential visits on site for schools.
Speaker: We run the cafe and meeting room. We also do events and activities through the holidays. But we even host weddings and have yurts, which we went out for glamping. So we're always looking at different ways that we can utilise the farm and the landscape for the benefit of our local community, which is not just our members. That's everybody that lives locally to Ford Hall Organic Farm. And then at the heart of that, we have our tenant farmer that's got a 100-year tenancy agreement, manages all the livestock on site, also runs the farm shop and butchery and pays a rent. You know, and that's the normal tenant landlord relationship in many respects. But some of the main differences are he has that 100 year tenancy. He has that security of tenure, which means he can invest in the farm in a different way to a tenant farmer that might have a five year tenancy would be incentivized to do.
Speaker: And he pays a rent. But he's not just paying rent to a distant landlord who just wants his rent check at the end of the month. He's paying his rent to the charitable community which owns the farm, which is then using that rent money to reinvest back within all of the community work that we're doing on site.
Speaker: So you end up with two organisations, a community landlord and a tenant farmer, utilising the same piece of land with our own purposes and objectives, but rely completely on each other. And actually one can't sustain be sustainable without the other.
Speaker: And together we create this amazing partnership, which is not only safeguarding and providing a livelihood on the land, you know, we're employing over 150 local people between the two of us, but we're also using the land as this amazing community resource alongside it.
Speaker: You guys recently celebrated your 20-year anniversary. What does the farm look like today with respect to types of livestock, vegetable, a number of people employed by the farm,
Speaker: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, Ford Hall today is a world apart to Ford Hall 20 years ago. the fields look much the same. And that's the nice thing about the fields and the trees, which have been there, some of them for hundreds and hundreds of years, are some of the stables on the farm. But the infrastructure has changed completely. and then The building, the farm was so dilapidated when we took it on because there hadn't been any money to invest in it for so long.
Speaker: Then now we have this cafe, community cafe on site. We have the farm shop and butchery and we have a classroom space and meeting room. We've got a lovely straw bale building, which has accommodation for up to 30 in it, which we use for residentials or eco retreats or yoga holidays.
Speaker: We've got a lovely community garden space, which is where our care farm with adults with learned disabilities reside, which is lovely horticultural project. We've got a lovely greenwood shelter, which is where our youth project is based. You know, we've also got bird hides and pond dipping platforms. We mean we recently built a cow bathing pool, which is really exciting. And and lots of spaces for children to build dens, climb trees, ah you know, look to the views, enjoy a picnic. and And from a livestock point of view, in which we're predominantly livestock as a farm, you know, we're a pasture farm. Ben's got over 200 cattle, close to 400 sheep and around 60 or so pigs on the farm. and And, you know, we're at full stocking density. And that's with Ben as the tenant renting some other land local to Ford Hall as well that isn't being able to increase his stock because of that. Because it's a very extensive system. We're 100% pasture based So we don't feed our livestock any corn, any grain. You know, the cows and sheep are on pasture year round.
Speaker: We've got over 70 different plants within our pastures at the farm, plus all of the trees. So they have a hugely diverse diet. But obviously we can only rear as many cows and sheep as we can grow grass. You know, Ben the Tenant sells everything direct to the public.
Speaker: That allows that farming system to be viable. and and sustainable and and and to a degree profitable as well and he's even expanded and diversified his business further and goes out to do event catering so he also sells burgers and sausages at large events across the country and that means that there's no wastage you know anything that can't be sold in the farm shop can pretty much go into a burger or sausage and go on his catering trailers so he's been able to add value to his product and reduce wastage and And employ, you know, lots of people in the process. We said over 150 people between the community landlord and the tenant farmer employed on only 128 acres, which is phenomenal on a very extensive organic farming system.
Speaker: In a traditional system, that would be one farmer, maybe, if they're even able to to make benefits. Yeah, yeah. If you're lucky, you can sustain one farm on it. Yeah. And instead of that, it's 150.
Speaker: Zooming out a little bit, you've moved into doing a fair amount of like mentoring for other organizations and other farms across the country, helping them start this type of model, turn into a community or raise money to turn into a community-owned farm.
Speaker: Why do you think this model is so important, especially within the context of u k and land ownership in the UK today? Over the last few years, we've kind of used our learning to support many other community-owned structures across the UK. And that's been really, really important to us. And the the value that we see in it is kind of twofold, really. is it's One is land is so expensive. And it's pretty much impossible to be able to buy a piece of land and pay that mortgage off on a farmer's income.
Speaker: But by placing it in community ownership, you take the land value out of the equation and you safeguard it for perpetuity. You know, Ford Hall Farm is in community ownership for perpetuity. That membership is changing and evolving all of the time. And because it's in community ownership and because our shares are non-profit making, there's no incentive to put that land into a place where they're thinking about the financial return of it. So you you remove the development potential from it. You turn that custodianship into a really purpose-driven activity. And as a result of that, it means you can offer long-term tenancies, as I said. So we offer 100-year tenancy to our tenant farmer to Ben.
Speaker: That gives him the incentive to invest in the soil, invest in the land, invest in trees, invest in the infrastructure and the buildings on site because he's building a legacy which he wants to pass on to his children. The average tenancy in England now is not much for more than five years.
Speaker: And in five years, you can't do a lot where you'll see the improvement on a piece of land. know, it takes decades, centuries for soils to build soil, for it to to grow and evolve. But you can kill a soil very quickly and you can damage a soil very quickly. And in those five years, if you're tenanting a piece of land, understandably, you're thinking, how much money can I make over the next five years? Because I might need to take those assets with me onto another piece of land.
Speaker: But when you've got a 100-year tenancy, the mindset's completely different. And you're thinking, how do I invest in this land, in in my infrastructure, so I can leave a legacy for my children to take on, so they have a better livelihood than even I've had here?
Speaker: And if a piece of land is in private ownership and you wanted to offer that 100-year tenancy, straightaway the value of your asset drops dramatically. You're know, the moment Ben signed that 100-year tenancy agreement at Ford Hall, what was bought for £800,000 back in 2006 was suddenly worth less than £400,000 because for the next 100 years it can't be solved for anything other than a working farm with a sitting tenant farmer. That hope value that was attached to it is disappears. And that's why no private landowners offer these long-term tenancies, because they might have that land as a retirement fund.
Speaker: They might have it as an inheritance for their children. It could be a pension fund or and or an overseas investor that's even bought it. More and more in in the UK, and I'm sure it's happening you know globally as well, land, because it's increasing in value, is seen as a very safe investment and people are buying it purely as a financial investment. And they are then only offering short-term tenancies because they want to keep the options for that piece of land open so that they can sell it to the highest bidder when they want to so they can realise that capital investment.
Speaker: And community ownership strikes through all of those barriers and those challenges. And it says, no, this piece of land is coming off the market. It is going to be owned by the community with a real strong purpose around food security, around looking after the land, our wildlife, our biodiversity, and around allowing our communities to be part of that space and benefit from it.
Speaker: And more and more people now are seeing how when land is going on the open market, it's being sold to investors or pension funds. It's being taken out of the control of local people. And they can see how detrimental that is. And communities are wanting to do something about it.
Speaker: On the other side, I think you've got farmers that are struggling to be able to plan long term on the farm. You've got farmers that want to come into the industry that can't afford to. And again, community ownership breaks down some of those barriers. It's such a wonderful model to strike and cut through all of this capitalist approach to land in our food system and actually generate a food system which is within our control, which is purpose and values driven and which is produces some food in the way that we want it to be produced.
Speaker: And it puts the power back into the hands of the many and out of the hands of the few. And that's something that, you know, as you can tell, we care very passionately about and something that we're looking to drive forward more and more over the next few years as much as we can.
Speaker: Right. And I think the key for for listeners to understand is, like you mentioned, land has become a speculative asset. Its value is based on its highest resale value and not based on productivity or production it can get from agriculture coming off of that land.
Speaker: And so that investors don't want to put any sort of long-term tenureship because that will reduce the value of their land and reduce their optionality to resell it, generally to development or to depending what area you are, and second homes or other higher value uses of the land in our kind of capitalist economic system.
Speaker: And also, like you mentioned, when you end up in a situation where more and more land is owned by absentee landlords that have no connection to the place, there ends up being this fundamental misalignment between what is good for the land and what is good for them, which is maximizing their returns, which means extracting as much as as you can from you know from the place. And when you put it back into a model like yours, where it's owned by many people,
Speaker: who have like a connection to the place, either because they live there or because they heard about the story and care about that. You're kind of realigning incentives and giving them a share in something that they care about and where they have the incentive to make choices that allow for the best long-term stewardship of the land.
Speaker: wonderfully summarized, Emma. Obviously, there's a lot of different types of models. You've been you know doing this like community ownership model. There are also like land trusts, things like that.
Speaker: Why do you think the community ownership model in particular is so promising? Yeah, I think that's a really good question. And there are lots some really great land trusts out there, you know, I have to say. And I think the difference with community ownership is around the volume of people that share the power.
Speaker: And I think that volume of people that share the power adds a lot more safety and security to the future of that organisation as it goes forward. a trust A charitable trust could be run by five or six people, sometimes even as few as three people.
Speaker: And whilst it might be virtuous in its purpose, it is, I think, a bit more of a risky way of going around things than community ownership. And I think the the things that I really love around community ownership is how it shares that power across the many and empowers everyday citizens and individuals to be part of a new narrative of how we manage our land. And I think the more people that become part of that story, integrated into that story of our land, our landscapes, our food systems, the more our food systems will naturally shift to ones which are more regenerative, more organic, they're more connected, they're more localised.
Speaker: People start to cook more, You know, we access green spaces more because we care about it, because we understand it better and because we have the opportunity to really experience what it is like to be part of those land systems.
Speaker: And I think the more we can rebuild those connections between us as everyday citizens and the farmers and stewards of the land, the more secure our climate will be.
Speaker: you know, ultimately, and and the better the future we all have. And it's just such a happy place to be. You know, it's such a rewarding project to be part of. I truly feel, you know, honoured and eternally grateful for all of our community of shareholders that have enabled Fort Hall to be there and still be there today. You know, and it wasn't just purchasing the farm back in 2006. You know, we have gone back to our members over the years and when we've been fundraising to help renovate our buildings, to help build our straw bale, bunkhouse and straw lodge.
Speaker: And the fantastic thing about having so many supporters, you're not asking any one individual for lots of money. You're asking thousands of people for a few pounds. And suddenly those few pounds...
Speaker: add up to quite a lot and it does mean that then you can do some transformative things that wouldn't have ordinarily been possible if you only had a very small number of supporters Absolutely.
Speaker: And you are mentoring a lot of farmers that are starting their own community on farm. As a farmer that is thinking about following this model, what do you need to do?
Speaker: And how can you ensure that you're successful in raising the money and then running it in this democratic model? That's a great question. And it does take a lot of work, you know, and we have to be honest about that. And i I think that work is in the communication. You know, it hangs on good communication, regular communication, transparency, honesty, you know, between those working on the land, those leading the organisation and the community around and and your community shareholders. the first step is to let people in.
Speaker: You know, as farmers, we're not often very good at asking for help. You know, we don't want to be seen as vulnerable. And actually asking for help is probably one of the most powerful things that Ben and I did. And then we were guided by our local community and their vision and their needs you know and it does have to focus on what the local needs are first because fundamentally that's where that piece of land is going to serve first and then once you've identified those local needs from your community and mix them with being honest about what you need from it as a farmer as a steward on that land that's when you start to then take that message out and rider and help bring others on that journey with you
Speaker: It does take a lot of marketing and and talking about it and and learning how to talk about it. You know, Ben and myself weren't trained in marketing communications, talking to the press or anything like that. We learned it along the way. And I think what was important is we weren't, we were okay with saying we don't know what we're doing. And we were okay with asking for help and we weren't afraid to try something. And if it didn't work, go, do you know what? That didn't work, but we're going to use that learning and try something else. And just constantly evolving as we went through, trying opportunities, pushing open doors, seeing where things led. And I think what was important throughout is we never lost the end vision.
Speaker: The end vision, which was created with our local community, stayed strong. But the journey that we took to get there remained flexible. And I think that's really, really important. But we do recognise the amount of work it takes to set up a community share offer, the amount of work it takes to then run an organisation like ours afterwards. Those skills aren't necessarily ones that farmers might have, but that's okay because there are people in the community that hopefully do have those skills and can come forward. And there were lots of really successful community share offers for all kinds of community assets right across the country where volunteers from within in the community have stepped forward to help share those skills and assets. But the research project that we're working at Ford Hall on at the moment called Transitions into Community Farm Ownership is actually is looking at this too and going, actually, how do we use the infrastructure that we've already set up at Ford Hall, the knowledge that we've gained to best support this movement and best support others in it?
Speaker: And is there a way that we can channel this national community of interest? You know, the citizens right across our country and beyond that care about this and they've got the same values into a very place-based, locally-based set of models where farms can be empowered with their local community, but have a national community of support that sits behind it. So, you know, it's that's a very conceptual thing to talk about. And on what that actually looks like in practice, I don't really know. But I think what we're committed to at Ford Hall is kind of sharing our learning, helping others and seeing actually, is there a different way that we can help people, which is not just sharing our learning, giving of our advice, is there a more practical way that we can help to grow this movement? And that's what we're looking at next. Yeah.
Speaker: and And as part of that, we are launching or we've launched a a new share offer for this year, which is to bring in a thousand new shareholders as part of our 20th year celebrations.
Speaker: And really those one thousand new shareholders is part of us bringing in a whole new membership, which will help drive forward this bigger movement and help us expand our knowledge, the skills, our infrastructure, perhaps,
Speaker: to be able to really drive more land into community ownership, to safeguard more land, to offer more long-term tenancies, and to support a better way of looking after our landscapes and our food systems in this country.
Speaker: And there are a little over, I think, 20 community-owned farms now. you You guys were the first, or one of the first ones, and back in the early 2000s. There's now around 20. So the movement is growing and is successful.
Speaker: As part of your project of kind of thinking what this could like look like on a national scale, what are some ideas you have? How could you envision this becoming a broader network and ways in which you know people could support each other to make the movement stronger?
Speaker: The first things we want to do, Emma, is to get all of those amazing people into one room. So everyone that's already running and a community-owned farm, a land-based project, the community land trusts also that exist in the sector. And get us all into one space and kind of say, how do we work better together to build this movement?
Speaker: and And who is has the resource and capacity to help grow the movement? We then want to speak to other landowners that are looking around what the future is for their land. They don't just want it to be sold off to the highest bidder.
Speaker: They want it to stay with a long-term farmer. They don't have children to pass it on to. What are their options? Is there an option there for them to donate their farm to the community and it sit within a community ownership scheme with a long-term tenant under it?
Speaker: And we've got one such farm in Devon that's wishing to do that with us, for example, that wants to donate their farm to us because they don't have a successor in place. They do have an amazing tenant farmer. We would then offer that tenant farmer a 100-year tenancy and we would be put in place a governance arrangement with that local community who can guide that piece of land and that farm as it moves forward. So we become wider custodians, but with a very locally based, locally governed model. And so we want to speak to other farm landowners to kind of go actually, would something like that work for them? It might not be under Ford Hall. It could be under a different banner. But do those transitions into community farm ownership, what is the potential there?
Speaker: And then we're talking to citizens. We're talking to our members. How would they like to be involved into a wider movement? And so this research project is really talking to all the key partners in it to then go, right, okay,
Speaker: What is the best mechanism to help develop this movement? And where is the right place for Ford Hall to sit in that? Because we don't want to duplicate work. We don't want to step on anyone's toes. We don't want to compete to it with another land community land trust. We all want to be working together to enhance the movement. And it's about understanding how we best do that in a collaborative way.
Speaker: And the average age of a farmer in the UK, I think, is well into the 60s. How do you see the next generation getting involved and brought into farming and into hopefully this model?
Speaker: The aging rate of farmers in the UK has been a problem for some time and it's not going away quickly. And one of the benefits of community ownership potentially is is offering those new opportunities for our younger tenants to to come into the industry.
Speaker: Part of the aging population is because farmers don't know what their options are in the future. They don't want to risk losing control of of a farm that they've put their heart and soul and their whole life into. And how can we support them to provide opportunities for new people to come in and to allow their legacy to continue on? is a really important question. And it's one that's kind of really core to to this research project that that we're working on at the moment, really. and And if anybody wants to get involved with that, if they're working on projects themselves, if they're working in the sector, if they run a community-owned farm, or if they're just interested in supporting the movement,
Speaker: you know, they can become a shareholder of Ford Hall or they can register an interest to be part of our research project because we really want to have as many conversations as possible. Because you quite rightly point out these problems with high land values, short-term tenancies, ageing populations, difficulty in young people being able to enter the industry are really big problems alongside climate change, industrial farming, the capitalist movement.
Speaker: How do we balance this off and empower everybody's citizens to be part of that journey? I think community ownership has a really, really strong role to play.
Speaker: And this mini-series is about reimagining the food system according to kind of cooperative principles. looking at different areas along the supply chain in which you know we could imagine a ah more cooperative community ownership models and you know what could it look like if that became the norm rather than the exception.
Speaker: To help us kind of foreshadow you know some of the questions we might look at in future episodes, this episode with you is around land, but obviously then you know the food has to be transported, distributed, sold.
Speaker: What are some other areas along the food supply chain that you would love to see shifted into a more cooperative model? You can shift any enterprise into a more cooperative model. The first port of call, I guess, on that would be supermarkets, wouldn't it? Because, you know, it's not that there isn't money being made in food anymore.
Speaker: It's the fact that the money goes to the wrong people in the food system and is not going fairly to those who are putting all the time and effort in on the ground. And I think the food distribution system and the marketplace, which ultimately ends up with the big players of the big six supermarkets, You know, if that could be broken down and that was put in citizens' hands, I think all of a sudden they would be operated in a completely different way.
Speaker: um I think farmers would be getting a much fairer price for their food and they wouldn't be pushed into these horrible situations of been having to focus on volume constantly, having to produce as much as possible just to pay the bills.
Speaker: when 25% sometimes of all that food they're producing is ending up as wastage, which is just criminal, really, when you think about it. And actually, we could be producing 25% less food, producing it better, better for our planet,
Speaker: better for our health, better for our farmers, both mental health and physically, and having a fairer price attached to it and not having all this horrific waste. Our food system has been broken for a long time. And I think if you ask the average citizen, they say they want farming to be done and the food system to operate in a different way. And in fact, there's ah's a very but good survey being done recently by the Food and Farming Commission.
Speaker: ah can't remember what it's called now. Your Voice or the people's comp no the People's Conversation, where they've been doing just that. And they've been interviewing Joe Bloggs off the street and asking them what how they want to see the food system run. And it's about it being connected. It's about it being fair. And it's about it being kinder to the planet.
Speaker: Well, I think that's a great place to end. Thank you so much, Charlotte, for for taking the time and for the work that you're doing. Florida Hall Community Farm is really exciting. beacon of light in this movement. And I i really urge any listener that's interested to, you know, go to their website, research more. There's a lot of resources online about their story and what they've done and the community ownership, the farm community ownership movement in the UK more broadly, which as an American, I find fascinating.
Speaker: i wish we had that sort of model here in the US. So yeah, thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you so much you know to all your listeners who obviously care enough to tune into the podcast and to follow this journey through. And then the more people who care, the more hope there is in the world.
Speaker: Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexander Miller, who also wrote our theme song. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and leave us a comment on your podcast app of choice.
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