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Annual Report
2008-2009
Dear Members,
I love autumn – the colour, the smell, the tangible sense that the seasons are changing and that nature is hard at work. Not in the brazen in-your-face way of spring, but quietly and determinedly consolidating and preparing – storing up resources and spreading seeds far and wide in order to find favourable conditions in which to flourish in the spring.
And Growing Communities has been busy too. Despite the recession, the box scheme and the farmers’ market are holding up well - last year we appealed to people to stick with us and you have! Thank you. In fact, we continue to grow – in all areas, as the following pages show.
And we’ve spread some seeds! We said in last year’s Manifesto for Feeding Cities: “We know that what we are doing is tiny in the grand scheme of things but if we can find people willing and able to use the Growing Communities model in their areas then we could start to make a real difference.” So, we organised a workshop in February this year for the 30 groups who contacted us. Joel from Hastings and Jules from Margate were among those who came and now we are working together to launch two new community-led box schemes using the Growing Communities model and principles as a framework. We’re excited to help get these projects off the ground and fascinated to see where the communities involved will take them.
But autumn makes me feel a bit anxious and melancholy too – the nights are drawing in and winter is on the way. So I try to live in the present, enjoying the beautiful colours while they last while doing what I can to prepare for the winter that is an inevitable and in its own way, wonderful part of the cycle of life.
And at the risk of stretching this autumn metaphor thing just a little too far, that’s how I feel about our global situation. It’s very difficult not to feel anxious as we approach the ecological limits of the planet that we and millions of other species depend on for our survival. But, it seems to me there is something inevitable about where we are heading: to a world where our use of energy and resources will be constrained. We need to constrain it voluntarily to prevent runaway climate change and it will be constrained through limits on our ability to find and process sufficient supplies of oil and gas.
The choice we do have is whether we accept that change or whether we deny it. If we accept or even embrace it, we can get on with sorting out how to live our lives in this new world.
Growing Communities is trying the first approach. We believe there is still time for society as a whole to do likewise. Which brings me back to the seeds we’ve been spreading. Those two new box schemes will be launching in March 2010 and by the time we write next year’s Annual Report we’ll have a much better idea about whether what we’ve created here in Hackney can help to create change in other places too.
So, thank you for making it possible for us to try. Together we might just be able to create a sustainable food system that can feed us all.
Julie Brown
November 2009
What we’ve achieved in 2008/9
The box scheme and farmers’ market together provide a key outlet for 30 small-scale local organic producers and processors.
Growing Communities’ box scheme supplies fruit and vegetables to over 520 households across Hackney. As a result we estimate that the box scheme and market combined now provide sustainably produced food to over 3,000 people in our community every week. Over the last year we’ve set up two new community pick-up points, bringing our total number of box scheme pick-ups across Hackney to eight.
33% of people on the box scheme consider themselves to be on a low-income.
900 bags of fruit and vegetables are packed each week – over 95 tonnes annually. Over the past year, 81% of the veg and 23% of the fruit in our fruit bags came directly from local farms while overall 87% of our vegetables came from the UK.
The Stoke Newington Farmers’ Market supports small sustainable farmers from counties around London, but over the last three years we have also worked with six local food producers from in and around Hackney to help them set up and develop their products to sell at the market. Producers from our immediate area include Hatice Trugrul, who makes traditional Turkish börek from ingredients at the market, Fat Cat cakes, Cakes A Go Go and Global Fusion, who bake Creole-style vegan cakes and soda breads. Our newest producer is local resident Anthony Ferguson of Niko B. Organic Chocolates, who makes delicious chocolates flavoured with spices and seasonal fruits.
Shopping at the market reduces car use in Hackney with 92% of customers at the Stoke Newington Farmers’ Market walking, cycling or taking public transport to get to the market.
The turnover of the organisation as a whole for last year was just over £348,000. 100% of that income was self-generated. The combined annual turnover of producers at the market is just under £500,000.
Salad production from our sites reached a peak of 300 bags per week this year during the summer months. Yields were the equivalent of 21.5 tonnes per hectare per year and we generated just over £9,700 from sales of Hackney-grown produce – from a total land area of 0.2 hectares.
In a recent survey, 92% of our box scheme members said that being on the box scheme had changed the way they shop and cook.
In October 2008, Annie Stables and Sean Hearn, both graduates from our Urban Apprentice programme, took on Growing Communities’ first micro-site. The 10 metres by 10 metres plot in the back garden of local vicar Niall Weir forms part of our new Patchwork farm. The site started to produce salad for the box scheme in June 2009.
Over the last year we have trained three Apprentice growers on our Urban Apprentice scheme. Two of our Apprentices, Ida Fabrizio and Sophie Verhagen, will be managing our second micro-site when it is set up at the beginning of 2010. Our third Apprentice, Robin Grey, has gone on to set up a community food-growing project on a local estate.
We employ 20 part-time members of staff. 120 volunteers worked with us over the past year on a regular basis as part of our volunteer work team on the sites. In addition we had over 1,000 visitors to the sites last year.
In June 2009, the Stoke Newington Farmers’ Market became the first farmers’ market in London to accept Healthy Start vouchers. The vouchers from the government-backed scheme, which are targeted at low-income families, can be used at the market in exchange for fresh vegetables,
fruit and milk. The box scheme also accepts
the vouchers in part payment for a vegetable or fruit bag.
We launched Marketchef at the market in August 2008 with the aim of encouraging people to do more seasonal cooking and eating! Customers at the market cook a range of seasonal dishes in our outdoor kitchen using fresh market produce. Since we started the project one of our regular Marketchefs has gone on to set up a seasonal cooking business.
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