Cooperatives Yorkshire and Humber

The cruelty of factory farming, particularly in the poultry industry, has been well documented over the last 18 months via high profile TV programmes shown in the UK. This has reportedly had a positive effect on the consumer conscience, with organic and free range sales soaring in the first half of 2008, however a community in Leeds is going one step further to improve its local fowl welfare.

Members of Headingley Development Trust, an organisation that aims to promote and develop a sustainable community in the Leeds suburb, have created a consumer co-operative which contracts directly with Swillington Organic Farm where the hens are reared fully free-range. The Headingley Fowl Co-op pays the farm in advance for the purchase of organic free-range chickens which are delivered to its stall at Headingley’s local farmers’ market for members to collect. Members have also visited the awardwinning Swillington Organic Farm, which is registered with the Soil Association, to see for themselves how the birds are reared, slaughtered and processed on the grounds.

Helen Seymour of Headingley Development Trust says: “It’s a great mutual solution: members have access to high quality poultry, humanely reared and killed at a reasonable price - certainly competitive with supermarket prices - that cuts out the middleman and the supermarket, while Swillington Organic Farm can plan and is assured of a market for its high quality produce.”

At present the co-operative is running as a pilot project with 21 members until October 2008. If it proves to be successful it will seek more members, possibly including institutions. Each member paid a one-off joining fee of £5 to cover administration costs, and is paying a specified sum each month from May to October in return for a free-range organically reared bird.

Headingley Fowl Co-op is one of many community supported agriculture (CSA) schemes now operating across the country as more and more people are choosing to reconnect with the land and make informed decisions about where and how their food is grown, produced and reared.

Other examples include Stroud Community Agriculture - a Gloucestershire-based community co‑operative in which members pay an annual subscription for vegetables and/or meat produced on a farm that’s owned and controlled by its members. It’s hoped that the growing trend continues and CSAs are currently being
promoted by the Soil Association as part of ‘Making Local Food Work’ which is an initiative managed by the Plunkett Foundation and funded by the Big Lottery Fund to explore community enterprise approaches to connecting land and people through food.

As part of the initiative, which is running in England only, the Soil Association is providing practical support to new initiatives. It is currently looking to work with more interested communities and farms like Headingley Development Trust and Swillington Organic Farm.

www.headingleydevelopmenttrust.org.uk

www.makinglocalfoodwork.co.uk

Credit to New Sector