Feeding Ourselves 2015: 11-12th April in #Cloughjordan

FEEDING OURSELVES
A NATIONAL GATHERING ON COOPERATIVE AND COMMUNITY FOOD SYSTEMS

Hosted by Cloughjordan Community Farm at the WeCreate Centre, Cloughjordan Ecovillage Tipperary, Ireland

Conference - Saturday 11th April  10.00 – 17.00
Side Events - Sunday 12th April  12.00 – 16.30

You are invited to a gathering for people involved, or getting involved, in community supported agriculture (CSA), food coops & buyers clubs, community gardens, and local food supply and distribution systems. Discover how a cooperative approach can strengthen and build more resilient and sustainable food systems, while at the same time supporting our communities and local economies.

If you want to create and support jobs in your area, help secure your food supply, are interested in food solidarity or sovereignty, part of a community that wants to strengthen its local economy, or are a grower looking for a rewarding and potentially profitable way of supplementing your income, this event is for you.

The conference will bring together growers, producers, and consumers who are finding new ways to produce and distribute food in our local areas. It will also explore the benefits and opportunities of developing an Irish network of cooperative/ community food initiatives, to interact more with others in Europe such as Urgenci (the European and International CSA network).

Conference ticket only €35 - Pre Booking Essential – (€20 for Cloughjordan Community Farm Members, and €25 for Cloughjordan Ecovillage members) Other side events are priced separately, or by donation. This is a much-needed Community Farm fundraiser. We have kept the fee for the event as low as we can but if that is still a barrier for you, come along and pay what you can.

For booking and further information contact davie@thevillage.ie

With the side events and opportunities for seeing the ecovillage and the community farm, do consider making a weekend of it. Limited accommodation is available at Djangos EcoHostel
Book through Pa Funucane at 087 2569348 or at <pafinucane@gmail.com> www.djangoshostel.com

Saturday 11th April

Feeding Ourselves Conference
2015  - 10.00 – 17.00
Details Below

Other Saturday Sessions and Side Events
12.30 – 13.30  - Farm Lunch €6 (Places are limited)
Soup and salad from the Cloughjordan Community Farm and bread from the award winning Riot Rye Bake House and Bread School, both based in the Ecovillage.

17.45 – 18.45  - Community Farm Tour €Part of the conference ticket
An opportunity to see what is growing down on the farm and how we do it, led by Kevin the producer.

19.00 – 20.30  - Eating Together (price to be announced, limited places booking essential)
A pop-up evening meal with delicious local food in a convivial setting, a perfect way to end the day.

Sunday 12th April

Sessions From Midday
12.00 – 16.30 - Working with horses, beyond the tractor. A demonstration from the Irish Workhorse Association on the Community Farm.  €5.00
With fab food from Eliza Ward's Country Choice on Tour!

15.00 – 16.00 – Tour of the Ecovillage € donation
A tour of the features of the Ecovillage and the story of its journey so far. Leaves from Sheelagh na Gig Bookshop on the Main Street of Cloughjordan.

The Cloughjordan Community Farm is an example of community supported agriculture (CSA) that provides fresh vegetables to over sixty member households in Cloughjordan. WeCreate is a co-working with a Fablab, a digital fabrication workshop, which is an innovative way to bring prototyping capabilities to communities. WeCreate and the community farm are located in Cloughjordan Ecovillage, which features 55 high-performance green homes, over 20,000 newly planted trees and the country’s largest renewable energy district heating system.

Detailed programme for day 1

Feeding Ourselves

A Conference on Cooperative and Community Food Systems

Saturday 11th April 2015 - 10.00 – 17.00

At the WeCreate Centre, Cloughjordan Ecovillage, Tipperary, Ireland

Organised by Cloughjordan Community Farm

Schedule

10.00 – Opening - Welcome - General orientation - WeCreate, Ecovillage, Farm

History of Feeding Ourselves - lots of new community and cooperative food initiatives

10.20 – Voices from the Field. Short presentations/ case studies on different cooperative approaches to growing and distributing food. The aim of this session is to introduce ourselves and hear stories from local, national and international community and cooperative food initiatives.

Kevin Dudley – Cloughjordan Community Farm

Eliza Ward – Outsiders, curator of the Global Green Food Project

Fergal Anderson - A member of La Via Campesina.

John Brennan - Leitrim Organic farmer's Co-op

Be ready to tell your community food story.

11.15 - Break

11.30 - Discussion - This session will feature short observations from the panel and an open discussion with everyone in the room around the following two questions.

“What are the opportunities of a cooperative and community led approach to food production and distribution?”

“How do we best network and collaborate to progress cooperative and community led approaches?”

Judith Hitchman – Urgenci – The International CSA Network

Oliver Moore – Cloughjordan Community Farm, Arc2020

Noreen Byrne - Centre for Co-operative Studies UCC

Plus others to be announced

12-30 - Exploring the topics for the conversations after lunch.

An opportunity to propose topics of conversation for the session after lunch. There are three proposed strands and space for other conversations to emerge.

13.00 - Lunch

13.30 - Feeding Ourselves Conversations - Breakout Discussions

Strand 1 - Setting up and maintaining a CSA – The nuts and bolts - Held by Oliver Moore

Strand 2 - Solidarity and Sovereignty – A cooperative approach to food - Held by Fergal Anderson

Strand 3 - Community growing, seed saving and soil – A Producer Focus - Held by Kevin Dudley

It is expected that other emergent conversations will also take place.

15.30 - Networking Break

16.15 - Making Community Food Systems Work – Sharing the harvest from the breakout conversations and looking forward to more cooperative and community food initiatives.

17.00 - Close

Detailed info for day 2's work horse event

Upwards of 14 working draft horses will converge in Cloughjordan for a day of ploughing and practical demonstrations. The event will take place on Cloughjordan's Community owned farm, which takes up 10 acres of the 67 acre ecovillage site on the Step road, Cloughjordan. This event, run in conjunction with the Irish Work Horse Association (IWHA), runs for noon until 6PM, and costs just E5 to enter, with tickets available on the day. Fab hot food will be available on the day, thanks to Eliza and Evie Ward of Country Choice on Tour.

Cloughjordan has been chosen by the IWHA for this event because the Cloughjordan Community farm now works with its own draft horses, and is investigating the option of moving fully over to working with horses and away from tractors.

Participants have already committed to coming from Clare, Cork and Mayo, These include Harry and Mona Bartlink, Jim and Rebecca Cronin, and Eamon and Gereldine McDonagh. Local or regional participants are also welcome to get involved.

Pat Malone is one of the two farmer's contracted to produce food for the Community farm members. He has also begun to work with horses on the land in Cloughjordan.

William O Sullivan and his partner Emma, who will also be in attendance, have mentored Pat Malone over the winter, to guide him in the handling of the 15 hand cobs on the Community owned farm in Cloughjordan.

William and his family have up to 200 horses, a mix of heavy draft and sports horses. William will be bringing a pair of Percheron horses, Daisy and Paul. These are 12 year old trained to a very high level.

Currently, Cloughjordan Community farm has a pair of heavy cobs, 8 and 9 years old, which have progressed to harrowing and working as a pair over the winter period. They will be paired up with experienced horses on the day.

According to Pat Malone, on April 12^th “ploughing will be done in unison on the 10 acres. A hitchcart with three point linkage capable of pulling and ploughing with a one or two sod plough, for example a Ferguson tractor plough, will feature” the Laois native adds. “This is a very innovative piece of equipment, which allows you to use existing tractor implements, but pulled by horses. As well as the 3 point linkage, it has 500 and 1000 RPM PTO - power take off – allowing for the use of a sprayer or spreader.”

A two sod Sulky reversible American plough will also be operational on the day.

The IWHA focuses on farms working with horses and what they call hybrid farms, which work with farms with tractor back up. “IWHA want to display what the work horse can do, and that's why they are coming” Malone concludes.

“We are investigating the viability of workhorses on an intensive market garden scale up to 10 or 20 acres” Pat Malone says. Horses are able to get out on the ground in bad weather, plus there is also a compaction issue with tractors. A tractor wheel leaves a line of compaction, whereas horses hooves break up the soil A challenge is finding work for them every day though.”

Evie Ward

In this revived area of farming interest, he points out that “a lot of innovation is coming from north America, with harnesses and equipment. Modern innovations with crumbling bars, potato hullers - as opposed to ridge ploughs – are performing in a more effective manner than the older equipment. This may be a way back in for the horse as a working animal on market gardens and possibly also on bigger acreage. Three pairs of work horses can do 3 jobs at once, a 140 hp tractor can only do one job at a time. This is especially an issue at hay making time. With horses, you can turn, bale and bring in hay all in one day.”

Cloughjordan Community farm feeds upwards of 40 families in Cloughjordan and environs. This event is part of a weekend of activities in the town, including a community food conference on the 11^th April Feeding Ourselves (above).

Food on the day will be provided by Eliza and Evie Ward (pictured, left) of Country Choice on Tour. in tandem with Killian Boyle of Larkin's GarryKennedy. This team has worked with the Cloughjordan Community Farm at the Global Green area of the Electric Picnic, using farm produce to create a north Tipperary Terroir offering. This in turn was the judge's choice for best food at Electric Picnic 2014 - quite an accolade!

To participate in the IWHA event in Cloughjordan with a horse, contact Pat Malone on 087 1338139. Otherwise, just turn up on the day. Entry, E5.

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