I’d heard of cow sharing, where people pay for the purchase and upkeep of a whole, half or quarter of a cow which is then managed by a farmer, and this has always seemed such an easy idea.
I’d love to find someone to keep a chicken for me alongside their other chickens and as we will be moving to a permanent home shortly I may try harder to find someone locally that will do this. We probably only eat half a dozen eggs a week and that equates to about one hen, and you have to have at least two hens or I’d think they would get lonely. We have a further problem in that few hens would probably want to share a garden with our dogs. Our neighbour’s hens lose a feather or two every time the wander over for a visit.
But I digress, I’ve just read this blog about sharing a farm: the idea being that you buy a $2,000 share in the farm and either get paid in dividends or milk. I would have thought this concept could be interesting for many farmers, particularly those who are organic farming or workign with rarer breeds. I would have thought that buying a share in a farm would appeal to the increaing number of people who want to know just where their food is coming from.
On yours2share we’ve had ads in the past for farm shares where the farmer is loooking for one or two people/couples/families to own a farm with them so that they could share the work and development of the farm, possibly as they near retirement age, and also enable the owners to take holidays or breaks. We also have loads of landshares, where people looking for land to grow fruit and veg can find people with unused gardens.