SUNDAY 15th OCTOBER | SAVE THE DATE! | COMMUNITY FEAST TO CELEBRATE WORLD FOOD DAY AND OUR FOURTH BIRTHDAY!

We incorporated CoFarm on World Food Day in 2019 so that we would always be celebrating the work of all of the amazing agroecological farmers and sustainable food heroes around the world on our birthday. And not least of all you - our amazing CoFarmers!

This year we’re proud to be working closely with two of our wonderful partners - Cambridge Sustainable Food and Sodexo - to bring you this gathering. Together, we will be celebrating the work and achievements of all our lovely CoFarmers throughout the year and the brilliant Community Food Hub volunteers across Cambridge.

Places are FREE, but limited. To reserve your place, please use this direct booking link.

CoFarm Cambridge is happy to have registered for ‘Good to Grow’ again this year, for the third year running. Good to Grow is an online platform to support food growing in the UK, which is run by the lovely people at national food and sustainable farming charity, Sustain. The Good to Grow Network is all about getting people involved in their local community garden and this is, of course, is very close to our hearts. Click here to find out more and see our entry on the Good to Grow Network.

Please note that volunteer co-farming places are strictly by appointment only, as usual, by visiting our booking page at www.cofarm.co/booking.

This volunteering event is for adults only but do feel free to come for a walk around the farm if you want to bring your family for a Sunday stroll.

SUNDAY 16th OCTOBER | SAVE THE DATE! | COMMUNITY FEAST TO CELEBRATE WORLD FOOD DAY AND OUR THIRD BIRTHDAY!

We incorporated CoFarm on World Food Day in 2019 so that we would always be celebrating the work of all of the amazing agroecological farmers and sustainable food heroes around the world on our birthday. And not least of all you - our wonderful CoFarmers!

This year we’re proud to be making our celebration part of the week-long ‘Food for The Planet Festival’ convened by Cambridge Sustainable Food CIC. We are working closely with CSF and Abbey People to bring you this gathering. We are delighted to announce that Sodexo are generously supporting the event with food and soft drinks - and volunteers to help serve up. Together, we will be celebrating the achievements of all of the fantastic Community Food Hub volunteers across the city, as well as our lovely CoFarmers.

Places are FREE, but limited. To reserve your place, please use this direct booking link.

* PLEASE VISIT THE RAMBLERS WEBSITE BELOW FOR FURTHER DETAILS AND TO SIGN UP*

https://beta.ramblers.org.uk/go-walking/wellbeing-walks/wellbeing-walk-edge-cafe-cofarm

Join Maria for a gentle-paced circular walk from The Edge Café on Mill Road to Cofarm, a community farm that supplies locally grown vegetables for Cambridge city's food hubs, just off Barnwell Road. We will aim for a 1h stroll and find out more about two local organizations who bring people together and give back to the community.

WARNING: not suitable for all abilities, as there is uneven terrain and might be muddy (if it ever rains again!) so appropriate shoes are recommended.

This walk will start on the 11th August 2022 and then repeat on the second Thursday of every month, from 2-3pm.

The Edge Café is a community café and recovery hub and set up the first community fridge in the city and runs Mon-Sat with the help of volunteers. You are welcome to grab a cuppa or cake before or after the walk. CoFarm is powered by professional horticulturists and volunteer co-farmers and supplies organically grown fresh produce to the city's community food hubs. We will have a 20-25 min wander around the farm while a volunteer session is happening and marvel at the at the eco diversity that has been created in a field that was unused until 2020.

https://beta.ramblers.org.uk/go-walking/wellbeing-walks/wellbeing-walk-edge-cafe-cofarm

CoFarm Cambridge is hosting an informal event at the farm. Led by Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) and funded by WWF UK on 12th May, this is really important work which we are pleased to host. We wholeheartedly encourage you to come along and and share your thoughts if you can. We’re thrilled that Cambridge Sustainable Food CIC will be serving up a tasty seasonal lunch on the day. Our friends Abbey People CIO are also supporting the event. The listening event runs from 1030 to 1230, with lunch ready from 1230. More event details and a booking link from FFCC below:

We ask a lot of land. We need it to grow food, restore biodiversity and nature, decarbonise the economy and adapt to climate change – while also providing space for new homes, access to nature for leisure and wellbeing and the infrastructure for business, energy and transport. In England, there is currently no coordinated way of balancing all of these pressures.

Planners are often faced with agreeing the ‘least-worst’ development proposals. Local people have little say when their valued open countryside, green spaces, or even allotments are lost to other uses. We want to test ideas for a more strategic and effective approach that will support action to deliver net zero, nature recovery, clean air and water, economic development, and food production. A land use framework will also help individual landowners and farmers make long term plans as they face a raft of new support mechanisms; to help assess what their land is best used for in the context of the wider landscape.

We want to hear from people about the places where they live and work and what they value most there. We want to hear people’s hopes, fears and aspirations for their local environment and what they would like to improve. We’re interested in towns, villages, farms, landscapes and wildlife, food, roads, rivers, transport, heritage and employment. What changes are coming and how can they best be addressed? How can local people be involved in defining what Cambridgeshire is like in 20 years’ time?

We hope the meeting will be interesting and lively, and that you share your views. We will include a short introduction to the topic about how places have been changing over time and the competing pressures on land to open up the discussion.

These meetings will form part of a wider “tour” gathering views right across Cambridgeshire. They will all contribute to a Land Use Framework being developed by people and organisations right across Cambridgeshire.

PLEASE LET US KNOW THAT YOU’RE COMING USING THIS EVENTBRITE BOOKING LINK.

Walk wild landscapes in your imagination with Kate Fletcher, author and Professor of Sustainability, Design, Fashion at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, University of the Arts London. A collaboration with Cambridge Junction Associate Artist Zoë Svendsen, and sound designer Carolyn Downing. 

(ALL TEXT REPRODUCED FROM CAMBRIDGE JUNCTION WEBSITE. TICKETS FREE BUT BOOKING ESSENTIAL VIA CAMBRIDGE JUNCTION WEBSITE.)

Wild Dress, published in 2019, uses clothes as a way into a changed understanding of the natural world, stitching  together experiences of bodies and landscapes through the medium of what we wear.  

We are at the first stages of creating a sonic performance piece that explores these texts in varying environments; making with, as well as, for our audiences. 

We would like to invite you to be part of our first audience - and to draw on your experience of listening to Wild Dress to shape the next stage of the performance development. 

Come to CoFarm Cambridge on Sat 24 July 2021 to walk and listen - wander the hybrid landscapes of Coldham’s Common and then return to share your thoughts with us (either by chatting it through with us or in writing). We will provide biscuits (please bring a flask of tea to go with them!)

"I think we need some hybrid vigour… a nature-culture hybrid which bleeds through seams, races into a weave and labours into a garment’s cut. A hybrid with a more integrated relationship with the natural world. This is how I want to dress. A wardrobe that welcomes wildness." Kate Fletcher, ‘Wilding Clothing’, Wild Dress (2019)

TICKETS FREE BUT BOOKING ESSENTIAL VIA CAMBRIDGE JUNCTION WEBSITE.

Developed by METIS; produced by Artsadmin, presented by Cambridge Junction.

Publicly funded through Arts Council England. 

Photo credit: Charlie Meecham

Words: Cambridge Junction/University of the Arts London.

Learn about gardening and nature at this fun day at CoFarm Cambridge, run by our lovely partner Abbey People! This is an event for the whole family, with activities including gardening, woodland activities and a campfire cooking session.

There will be lots of things to do for all ages – this is a group activity, so bring along your household, close friends, family and support bubble together with your children.

You’ll be able to see the progress at CoFarm Cambridge, and have a guided walk along Coldham’s Brook, our very own Chalk Stream.

The morning session is now full but please email here (community@abbeypeople.org.uk) to add yourself to the waiting list.

To book for the afternoon session ( sessions are free but we will require adults who attend to complete forms to allow Abbey People to draw down the funding for the event) please use this Eventbrite link.

And if you’re interested in volunteering to help out on the day, please email Nicky and Claire at Abbey People at community@abbeypeople.org.uk

CoFarm Cambridge is happy to have registered for ‘Good to Grow’ this year. Good to Grow (the new name for the Big Dig) is an online platform to support food growing in the UK, which is run by the lovely people at Sustain. The Good to Grow Network is all about getting people involved in their local community garden and this is, of course, is very close to our hearts. Click here to find out more and see our entry on the Good to Grow Network.

Please note that volunteer co-farming places are strictly by appointment only, as usual, by visiting our booking page at www.cofarm.co/booking

Join Dr Steve Boreham - Geologist, Ecologist and Palynologist - for an active morning of learning all about soils and taking part in a soil survey on the community farm we're establishing next to Coldhams Common, off Barnwell Road. We'll be using hand augers and other techniques to take soil samples from the farm, so we can get a better picture of soil health and structure now and over time as the community farm develops. This session is open to adults only so, apologies, no children this time around.

Please note that places are limited to 16 adults Click here to reserve your place!

You are warmly invited to come along to Horizon Resource Centre for the first of several community drop-in sessions to hear about - and help to shape - a new community farm which we are in the process of starting on 7-acres of farm land just off Barnwell Road and next to Coldhams Common.

Any residents of Cambridge City - and nearby communities - are very welcome. We know that not everyone who is interested will be able to make this time and date, so we will aim to hold more meetings and drop-in sessions like this one in the coming months.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas about how to make the community farm a lovely place to spend time and provide you with fresh, safe, local and delicious organic fruit, vegetables, flowers and herbs.

If you plan to come, it would be really helpful if you could let us know, using this booking link, so we can make sure we have enough tea and coffee etc. available on the day. You can drop in any time between 10:00 AM and 3:30 PM.

Please note that the community farm site is just around the corner off Barnwell Road. If you’d like to visit the site after dropping in to see us, it might be a good idea to wear shoes you don’t mind getting muddy or wellies.

We look forward to meeting you!