If you would like to build your own home on a smallholding, and produce food, fuel and other products for your family and your local community, but can’t see any way that it could happen, then the Ecological Land Co-op want to hear from you.  Read more

Here’s a quick overview of what the Ecological Land Co-op does, before going on to their latest news. The problem that they were formed to solve is that many people who would like to build a home made from local, sustainable materials, Read more

Working outside and sometimes in remote situations requires a certain mindset to not only enjoy the experience, but also have an overall philosophy of self-reliance. Read more

Many city people yearn to be involved with the land hands-on—and to do so on a long-term basis. But leaving the city for good is too big a step for most people; they need to keep a stake in the city for work or social reasons. Read more

Landmatters co-op is a low impact community in Devon. We’re seeking letters of support for a new round of planning application. Letters of support are invaluable commendations and hugely boosting for a project’s prospects – and morale.  Read more

Sometimes, when I’m sitting in front of my laptop screen, I forget how many great people there are out there doing wonderful things, and it’s easy to believe that we’re never going to get rid of this damaging system, and that it will eventually damage ecology so much Read more

I’m at the Real Farming Conference in Oxford, and I’m writing this as a session on GM food is taking place. I’m sorry to have missed it, but I fell into a conversation until it was too late to join the session. However, I know someone who attended that session, and she’ll hopefully write a… Continue reading Live from the Real Farming Conference: why genetically-engineered food is about politics not science Read more

I’m blogging from the Real Farming Conference in Oxford, in Oxford Town Hall. This is the seventh annual conference, set up as a counter to the corporate farming conference running at the university in Oxford. I wasn’t expecting such a huge affair – 850 attendees, with some fantastic sessions. Read more

A new report from the US Department of Agriculture assesses the potential effects of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership on farmers. It’s pretty difficult to decipher, but our position is that we don’t want an increase in Transatlantic trade when it comes to agriculture. Read more

Have you seen any of the TV programmes about food waste, hosted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall? He’s trying to highlight the amount of food that gets wasted in the UK – which is truly phenomenal, and a ridiculous waste of land, money, energy and time. Read more

Being able to go through the process of making a planning application for a low impact development may be a sign that there has been some progress for those of us who have hitherto lived, to paraphrase, as outlaws on the planning frontier. Read more

My vegetable field has some problems. It’s not that vegetables don’t grow there; over two seasons I’ve had some notable successes, it’s just that there’s verdant weed growth throughout, more slugs than you can shake a stick at, and the soil needs improving Read more

There are radical changes on the table when it comes to land ownership in Scotland. The Land Reform Scotland Bill is intended to address the huge disparity in land ownership in Scotland – but there is one clause that is making some people extremely hopeful, and other very worried. Read more

We moved to Wales because of an extraordinary Welsh Government policy. I shan’t lie, despite all experience and political conviction to the contrary, we were optimistic. One Planet Development seemed to be the kind of advance for low impact living and sustainable land use that we had been hoping for Read more

You are invited to Ffynnon Teilo Farm Activity Weekend, to explore creating a co-operative farm – Saturday 26th & Sunday 27th of September. Activities will include: pond clearing, footpath and step renovation, fire making, campsite cooking and farm tour. Camping space available Saturday night. Read more

In 2014 we had pigs for the first time. Up until then we had only had chickens. We don’t have a freezer in the woods and where you can eat a chicken before it goes off at fridge temperatures, a pig requires preserving. Read more

We got back from a holiday in a yurt at Old Chapel Farm in Powys last night. We were bowled over, and this article is a little advert for yurt holidays on farms and smallholdings in the UK, although several of the points below are specific to Old Chapel. Read more

There’s a general feeling – and a growing one I think – that we’re headed for disaster, and that no-one is in control or able to steer us away from the precipice. Here are four categories of reasons that people give for pessimism about the near future: Read more

If we want to: help set up organic smallholdings; allow people to build natural homes on their land; preserve rural skills and livelihoods; and develop a sustainable, non-corporate food supply, we have to do more than just talk about it. Read more

On Wednesday evening I attended the AGM of the Ecological Land Co-op at Freightliners City Farm in London. I was standing for election to the board after being invited to apply by Shaun Chamberlin of Dark Optimism Read more