residential weekend course

low-impact smallholding

venue: Redfield Community, Bucks

This course is run by Simon Fairlie of Chapter 7, former co-editor of the Ecologist magazine, trustee of Tinker's Bubble Community, and author of Low-impact Development.
Are you thinking of establishing a smallholding? Are you planning to live or build on your smallholding? Are you hoping to make a full-time or part-time living from it? If so, this course is designed to help you plan ahead and avoid the many pitfalls. The course will cover:

  • first find your land: assessing a plot of land; what you can do with it and what it will demand of you; different social structures; family / individual smallholdings; community smallholdings and subdivided farms; ways of acquiring land
  • buildings: existing buildings; getting planning permission; options for low-impact dwellings; barns and outbuildings
  • managing the land: different habitats and their needs - grassland, woodland, orchards and arable; relationship between animals, crops and wildlife
  • laying out the infrastructure: how intensive? what sort of power - tractor, horse or spade? layout of buildings, tracks and fencing; water and energy supply; waste management
  • ethical and environmental issues: can one be both sustainable and profitable? reducing fossil fuel use; relations with wildlife; animal welfare
  • making it pay: subsistence production; commercial production; processing and adding value; marketing; diversification; grants
  • paperwork: simple business plans; organic certification; insurance; environmental health; DEFRA paperwork
  • avoiding burn-out: gauging workload; limiting aspirations; getting help

We will be looking at a number of smallholdings (eg Tinker's Bubble, Fivepenny Farm, The Trading Post, Northdown Orchard, Prickly Nut Wood etc) and finding out what has made them successful.
Tinker's Bubble is a community smallholding, started in 1994 on a bareland holding, comprising 26 acres of woodland and 13 acres of agricultural land. Fivepenny Farm and The Trading Post are family-run commercial smallholdings, started by former residents of Tinker's Bubble.
NB: the course will consider vegan systems of land management, and vegans are welcome, but they will have to put up with a considerable amount of stuff about animals. The course will cover woodland holdings as well as purely agricultural holdings.

dates: see 'book online' below

more on land / smallholding


how to book:
  

if you can't open the booking form, you need Acrobat Reader - it's free
arrive:
  
Friday evening at 6.30 for dinner at 7.30
depart:
  
Sunday after lunch (served at 1.00)
directions:
  
click here for directions by bicycle, public transport and car
what to bring:
  
pen and notebook; towel (meals and bedding are provided)
NO DOGS PLEASE
let us know:
  
if you are vegan or have any food allergies, or any special needs
accommodation:
  
3-4 people sharing single-sex rooms
prices:
  
£190 high-waged; £170 waged;
£150 student / unwaged
Refundable up to two weeks prior to course (minus £30 admin fee)
No refunds for cancellations within two weeks of course
car sharing:
  
visit our car sharing forum to offer or request a lift
 

 

 

 


a woodland smallholding in Wales, where a family make a living from woodland crafts, herbs and poultry; living in a cabin and presently applying for planning permission

 

 


 



Fivepenny Farm's market stall



 

 


one way of getting the hay in - one horse-power at Tinker's Bubble




 


the communal roundhouse at Tinker's Bubble