yours2share - sharing stuff & collaborative consumption » land share

Farm shares

sophie — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:53:42 +0000

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.

Successful garden sharing

admin — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:38:14 +0000

It’s good to see examples of garden sharing or landsharing in action and Totnes in Devon has been encouraging this for a year or more and has 21 garden shares currently in place. There is lots of useful information for anyone considering setting up a landshare, either as a landowner or as a gardener. yours2share enables people across the UK and indeed anywhere in the world, to find local partners to share gardens, allotments and land for growing fruit and vegetables, keeping bees, goats, sheep, pigs, horses or any other livestock, or share land for any purpose. Here is the current list of garden sharing opportunities.

Garden sharing or landsharing in Totnes

10 top tips for land share

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:00:22 +0000

If you are thinking about allowing someone who will grow vegetables in your garden, here are ten top tips to ensure a successful sharing arrangement.

Make sure there is a water source, if there isn’t one, you will need to provide one.
Work out where the composter will be located and what is to be done with non-compostable rubbish.
Ensure there is reasonable access to the vegetable plot. Can a car be parked nearby? If there is more than one access route, can they all be used?
Decide the times of the day and days of the week when the gardener can have access
Agree exactly who other than the gardener is allowed on the vegetable plot.
Establish how long the arrangement lasts. Don’t go over a year, but the gardener will need the whole season. 364 days may be the answer.
Agree the rent or amount of fruit and vegetables in kind.
Determine any favourite fruit and vegetable that must be grown.
Can the gardener have a bonfire? Or hold a BBQ and invite some friends around?
Finally, and most importantly of all, write down whatever you both agree and both sign it.

These points, and a few more, are covered in more detail in the landshare guidance. For me point 8 is particularly pertinent and easily forgotten. If I was a landowner, I’d want to make sure I was going to get rhubarb, raspberries and sweet peas at some point in the year!

Here is the current listing of people who want to landshare.

Home for honey bees

admin — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:16:23 +0000

I was delighted to see this recent yours2share ad. The member is looking for someone with some spare land in HIgh Wycombe for his honey bees and their hives.

As the idea of land sharing takes hold of people’s imaginations, fruit and vegetables are not the only thing for which people are looking for a small unused plot of land. There are many people who dream of rearing honey bees, hens, a couple of goats, cows or pigs, if only they had some land.