Food Co-op

With the aid of a Millennium grant, members of a North Devon community are trying a new experiment in food-growing co-operation. Marian Van Eyk McCain reports.

Sky is caretaker of the Hartland Parish Hall. He also plays trombone in the Town Band. An American, happily transplanted to North Devon, he is a familiar sight on Fore Street, with his grey beard and bushy eyebrows, his smile and his battered Aussie bush hat.

Everyone who knows Sky knows that he loves being outdoors. His chief passion is the Earth, the care of Her plants and creatures and the health of the soil. He loves gardening.

Tracy and Natalie often stop to chat with him as they walk their dogs down the lane. Both are young mothers with small children, living on low incomes. Health-conscious, and aware of all the benefits of eating organically grown vegetables, they just wish they could afford to buy them.

Another regular on the morning dog-walking shift is Merlyn. She is an artist, who runs a B&B in the village, with a studio attached. She also has a plot of land which she has long dreamed of turning into an orchard and a wildflower meadow - a place to sit and reflect and find inspiration for her paintings, a gift of habitat to local birds and butterflies. But she is so busy...

Kevin and Anna are busy too. They run a pub just across the square from Merlyn; the King's Arms, well known for its home-cooked meals and cosy atmosphere. Out back, on a sunny, south-facing slope, are some spacious terraces. The topsoil there is rich and loamy and the aspect is perfect. Kevin has often thought how wonderful it would be to grow things there - maybe even start a cut flower business. But all that has grown recently is brambles. When you are running a busy pub and working so hard to make a living there is simply no time to care for a garden as well.

One day last October, Sky heard about Millennium grants. Money, it seemed, was available for people to start projects which would be of use not only to themselves as individuals but would also be of significant value to their local community.

It was one of those light-bulb-type moments.

Within a week, he had put together a proposal which he thought could benefit many in this village he now called home.

Networking works wonders. And in a tiny town like Hartland, it works them quickly. Within two days, both Merlyn and the folks at the Kings Arms had lent their support to his plan and offered to lease him their land.

The grant application was successful. Hartland was to have its own, community food-growing co-operative. There would be money for seeds, for tools, for education, for organic certification fees, and - best of all - for a polytunnel. They would be able to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, all the things that don't grow well outside in this wild corner of Devon where trees are sculpted into permanently windblown shapes by the Atlantic gales.

Sky resisted the temptation to pre-organise the whole scheme in his head. A co-op it was, and co-operative it must be, with all important decisions made by the group. He called the first meeting.

Not many came - half the village was down with winter colds and flu. But the handful who turned up were very enthusiastic. Sky had invited Rob Gittins, from Co-Active, in Plymouth, who told the group about the legal ins and outs of co-operatives.

No-one seemed keen to volunteer for tasks involving paperwork. But there were three eager young men who promised that if someone else would take care of that side of things, they would concentrate on the practical part, for they, like Sky, loved gardening.

They were true to their word. Within 24 hours, tasks had been assigned, manure was being collected, wood for raised beds was being sourced, seeds and seed potatoes, onion sets and garlic bulbs had been ordered. Three days later, the first seven fruit trees were in the ground in Merlyn's long-dreamed-of orchard; Devon heritage apples, both cookers and eaters. It was all beginning to happen.

To the second meeting, came people who could not attend the first. Interest - and excitement - grows. The garlic is in the ground, seed trays are being made ready.

Soon there will be a talk on Biodynamics and a compost making workshop. This will be the first Biodynamic gardening co-op in the UK, it seems.

Not everyone can yet fulfil the requirement of two hours work a week. Tracy cannot wheel the baby buggy down to where the gardens are. Several people have bad backs that preclude gardening. But come the summer and the harvest, there will be tasks for everyone who has joined the co-op. Not only secretarial tasks, but things like visiting the housebound elderly people and taking their veggie orders, pricking out seedlings, bunching cut flowers, making jam from raspberries or sorting the hoped-for surplus produce into boxes and selling them to raise money to sustain the co-op in future years, after the grant expires.

Sky knows that the way to resist the erosion of community by the acid of economic rationalism and globalisation is to revitalise our local economies. Local food for local people. Tracy and Natalie and many of their friends will be feeding their children organically grown, local food later this year. Kevin and Anna's garden will bloom and their pub dinners will feature the freshest veggies ever. Birds and butterflies will come to Merlyn's wildflower meadow, under the steadily growing apple trees. All the pieces will fit together. That's the vision.

Will the reality match the vision? Watch this space. We'll keep you posted.