The Procurement For Good project team visited Cultivate in Newtown and other inspiring community food hubs in Powys, celebrating local sustainable food initiatives, new grower schemes, and the future of public sector food procurement.
On a sunny Wednesday in April, the Procurement For Good project team convened in mid Wales for the final installment of the hub visits. The visits were planned to give the project team an on-the-ground view of how the food hubs currently function and to see some of the fantastic work they’re doing firsthand. Our destination this time? Cultivate in Newtown; a thriving community food project nestled amongst the rolling hills of Powys.
A tour of Cultivate
We started with a tour of Cultivate’s home site in Newtown. Richard Evans, senior manager for Cultivate and one of the original three founders, began by telling us about the project’s origins back in 2014. The organisation formed out of a project that was originally aimed at creating three new community gardens and supporting food projects with schools and community groups across Powys.
One of these gardens, the site in Newtown, now forms the base for a multitude of community initiatives centred on food, sustainability and growing, including a community garden, micro allotments, horticultural teaching areas, social spaces and various volunteering and wellbeing groups.
After an inspiring walk around the beautiful gardens, we gathered in the meeting room together with representatives from Social Farms & Gardens and Lantra to hear about Cultivate’s work in developing the local sustainable food sector. Some highlights included Cultivate’s involvement as one of the food hubs on the sustainable public procurement pilot funded by Welsh Government, the recent launch of the Bwyd Powys Food strategy, and hearing from a new entrant grower on a scheme to create three new food enterprises on council-owned farm land just outside Newtown. This groundbreaking project, which has just recently seen three new-entrant growers move onto the site, has been coordinated by Our Food 1200, Powys County Council and the Future Farms Partnership. Cultivate and the new entrant growers hope that they will be able to supply into the public sector as part of the Procurement For Good project, so we look forward to seeing them get growing this year!
Later that evening, we met for a delightful dinner at Hafan Yr Afon, another community hub in Newtown. We enjoyed a unique Welsh slant on various curry dishes, with all produce except the spices themselves sourced exclusively from the surrounding area. Who knew for instance that cooked oats made such a delicious rice swap?!
Visiting local agroecological growers & projects
The second day of our visit to Powys began in yet more glorious spring sunshine with a visit to Ash & Elm Horticulture, one of the growers who will be supplying into the procurement project. Emma, one of the founders, showed us around their 5 acre market garden site and outbuildings as their team of pickers worked around us, selecting produce for their Community Supported Agriculture box scheme. Emma told us about the income streams they operate at the agroecological site, which as well as vegetables and fruit include cut flowers, short skills courses, and willow whips for basket weaving.
It was then time for a pit stop at the Hanging Gardens for lunch, a Wilderness Trust community café project in Llanidloes. We saw how building work was progressing on the development of a formerly dilapidated chapel attached to the café that will soon become a market hall, where locally produced food will be sold in an environment truly befitting its calibre.
For the OFN team, who last saw the site a couple of years previously when it was a mere ruin, it was particularly heartwarming to see how this building will soon be another focal point for food in the local community.
To cap off an inspirational trip to north Powys, what better way to end than with visiting the Future Farms site and meeting with another of the new entrant growers who was busy preparing the ground in preparation for planting. Since our visit, at which point there was only a large barn on the site, the homes for the new growers have been installed and the growers have moved in – so things are moving quickly! We look forward to seeing how Cultivate and the many fantastic community food projects continue to evolve and feed into the Procurement For Good project over the next few years – Powys is undoubtedly setting a brilliant example in the local sustainable food sphere.
Check out the Procurement For Good project website for more information, and you can also sign up to the project newsletter to receive updates.