9 minute read
Bath City Farm – farming for life
By Jill White
Bath City Farm has been bringing nature into this historic city for 25 years. Its impact on the immediate community as well as the city is significant.
Farming appeals to us, from the daydreams of city dwellers to the popularity of a range of television programmes following people taking up new lives farming, or making a living in wild areas. No surprise to find, then, that city farms are drawing in thousands of visitors to enjoy animals and food growing first hand. But what has led to this popularity and how are such farms benefitting communities across the UK and Europe? What do they do that is so appealing and how can we as landscape architects use this to inform our work?
City or urban farms have come a long way since they first emerged in the early 1970s, from the community garden movement. The latter had taken over often derelict and abandoned sites a while after WW2 and used them to put people back in touch with nature and provide open space for meeting places and learning to garden. City farms combined this successful model with the introduction of farm animals and teaching how to care for them. The first UK city farm was in Kentish Town in 1972 and there are now around 65 in the UK. They built on projects successfully pioneered in the Netherlands (known there as “children’s farms”) which currently attract millions of visitors. The UK city farms and community gardens joined to form their own Federation in 1980, to enable them to share experiences and develop together and this has now merged with Care Farms UK to form Social Farms and Gardens (SFG). There is also a wider, European Federation of City Farms, of which SFG is a part, thus it is a well-established model of providing nature in the city.
Our own city farms in the UK also achieve high numbers of visitors and offer a massive range of experiences, including petting animals and being involved in their care, learning about farming and gardening, developing skills and abilities, being in contact with living food (plants and animals) and also receiving emotional support and therapy. Along the way, those same visitors can’t help but learn about sustainability and be put into touch with other people in their communities of different ages and social backgrounds. This is the power of landscape to make social change and provides a strong demonstration of why we as a profession should, wherever possible, incorporate opportunities in urban schemes for communities to engage directly with landscape, at every scale.
I visited Bath City Farm (BCF) which is now in its 25th year and covers 37 acres, employing 16 staff and hosting dozens of regular volunteers. In fact, the farm was set up and run by volunteers in 1990 and has now grown to include paid staff, a board of Trustees, around 100 animals and last year welcomed over 24,000 visitors. It also offers people access to emotional and physical wellbeing projects and supports over 700 people a year make a difference in their lives. Social deprivation is not always visible or obvious, if you think of Bath, it is the Georgian terraces, UNESCO status and Roman baths that spring to mind. Deborah, a volunteer Farm Trustee, pointed out to me that Bath City Farm is in the UNESCO Protected Site area, yet sits within a neighbourhood which is amongst the 20% of most deprived areas of England (BCF Impact Report, 2019). This same area has the highest proportion of children living in poverty in the County, according to the project. Issues in this community can include mental health problems, physical ill health and lack of access to high quality open space. Deborah also explained that local people cannot necessarily afford to travel and visit the countryside and the Farm was a way to give them direct and free access to nature in the city.
© Bath City Farm
Bath City Farm provides a landscape which supports and enhances its community. One of their major achievements is helping families in adversity. 38% of children in the neighbourhood are classed as living in poverty 3 and the Farm is a free resource for families to visit. One visiting mum with a young girl told me “Sometimes you just really need to get outside and I can come here and have a cup of tea and she can see all the animals and nature. I wasn’t feeling good today but I could just come here and feel better”. The Farm works in close partnership with a local referral organisation, Southside Family Project and runs joint sessions in the school holidays and at weekends. These are fun activities involving outdoor ventures such as den building, kite making, and “be a farmer for a day”. They have also run “grow your own pizza” sessions and the focus on healthy eating is important in a neighbourhood where 23% of 10-11 year olds are classed as obese. Local schools also use the Farm, taking advantage of the site’s “forest school” and hands-on facilities to meet parts of the curriculum dealing with the natural world and where food comes from. The edible produce is grown in extensive vegetable areas and polytunnels and is used in the onsite café. The meat from animals raised at the farm for slaughter is sold direct from the site refrigerator. There are always social events taking place to encourage community gathering and cohesion.
City farms provide a rare opportunity for people from a massive range of social and ethnic backgrounds to come together for leisure and fun. Research in the Netherlands (Piessens, 2013) 4 found that their “children’s farms” are more valued and appreciated by migrant and refugee communities than the national average. Farms can thus provide an important opportunity for interethnic interactions. Other participants in Bath City Farm’s activities include young people not in education or employment (NEETS) on the fringes of society, or perhaps those with convictions. BCF’s recent “Get Green “project worked with 16-25 year olds, to reduce social isolation and improve skills through conservation, horticultural and animal care work.
Eggs laid on the Farm.
© Bath City Farm
The Farm’s volunteers are carefully and enthusiastically overseen by project workers, including employee Sarah, who has experienced firsthand the personal improvement to mental health brought about by social engagement and being in touch directly with the natural world. Involvement with the Farm as a volunteer helped her through past problems and lead her in an entirely new career direction as a staff member. A survey of participants between 2016-2018 (BCF Impact Report, 2019), found that a whopping 84% of respondents felt that undertaking activities at the Farm had improved their mental health and some 18% of the local population have experienced mental ill health. I chatted to a volunteer affected by this in the polytunnels, who told me “It’s made me a new person – I’m so much better” and showed off her successfully rooted fig tree cuttings. Another regular volunteer explained how they bring nature to the city by selling this propagated stock of ornamentals and vegetables at regular Farm Plant Fairs, which are really popular. Over 90% of respondents in the same survey agreed that involvement with BCF had reduced their social isolation and given them new skills and over 80% felt it had improved their confidence levels and physical health. The Farm also provides opportunities for isolated elderly community members and those in residential homes to visit and experience direct contact with the animals. Sarah oversees some of these activities, including “chicken cuddling”, the benefits of which she which she demonstrated by thrusting a warm and docile fowl into my arms. I can vouch for the very calming effect! Sarah is passionately motivated to bring nature to urban dwellers because “I can just see the massive difference it makes to people’s lives and I know how much it helped me.”
© Bath City Farm
GP practices in the area offer “social prescribing” of community activity sessions through the Farm and this is part of a fast developing and successful national approach to treating depression, anxiety and social isolation. But it needs socially active landscape opportunities to thrive and this is where landscape architects could consider potential in their projects for community use. There is a clear need to allow the open space (especially in urban areas) to evolve through community use and to facilitate contact with the natural world wherever possible. This means not necessarily proscribing and designing it for a specific end use. Instead of creating a pocket park or a playground in a spare piece of ground – perhaps find out if there are other unmet needs from the local community direct. If you want to find out who has active farming and community gardens in your project area with whom you could network, the SFG website offers a handy postcode finder for projects. Landscape architect practices could also consider offering more pro-bono advice to such projects in their own localities. Bath City Farm benefits from close support from Avon Wildlife Trust in dealing with its peripheral vegetation and boundaries, whilst Wessex Water have been assisting with the development of irrigation infrastructure. It’s a good opportunity for raising individual and company profiles, as well as putting something back in your locality. Of course, projects such as Farms are eye-wateringly expensive to keep afloat financially and one of the ways BCF funds itself is to offer team building courses for businesses. These have proved very successful and international banks and Google have beaten a path to their door to benefit from their expertise. They also offer site premises for venue hire, so next time you’re organising a team event or arranging a meeting or conference, why not consider hosting it at your local community garden or urban farm and help to nurture nature in our cities?
Jill White is a landscape architect with experience in designing community gardens and public open spaces.
Jo Southwell, Chair of Trustees, Bath City Farm
Bath City Farm broadcasts live on Saturdays at 11am: facebook.com/BathCityFarm
