today we are taking a visit to a village in rural Ireland where a number of sustainability
initiatives are based Cloughjordan is home to Ireland's first eco village a pioneering
initiative demonstrating how at a community level we could all live in a more sustainable way
Cloughjordan is located in north Tipperary where just off the main street is the eco
village a fantastic place to live work and learn set within 67 acres of beautiful land dedicated
to ecological housing woodlands and allotments the ecovillage currently is 55 households along
with an eco hostel an award-winning bakery an enterprise centre a community amphitheatre and
a number of other cooperative enterprises which are based on site one of these is the Cloughjordan
community farm a community-led social enterprise that provides healthy produce all year round
to 80 plus families in the Cloughjordan area demonstrating a fresh approach to local food
production through community supported agriculture the farms organically produced food is delivered
fresh from the ground packaging free to a collection point on the main street for local
families whose monthly subscriptions pay the farmers and support the running costs of the farm
young people from across Europe volunteer here for one year supported by the European
Solidarity Corps and courses and visits are offered to the public a new farm initiative
is to set up a food hub enabling local produce from other farms and producers to be distributed
through an online farmers market platform today we are going to hear from some of the people working
on this game-changing local initiative that communities across Ireland could easily reproduce
hi there my name is Josh I coordinate projects on Cloughjordan community farm welcome to the
virtual visit where you'll get some insights into what we do here and you can meet the different
people in the community who help out on the farm so Cloughjordan community farm has been around
for over 10 years since about 2008-2009 it took a little while to get started because we crowdfunded
to to get it going it's yeah it feeds about 80 families in Cloughjordan the vast majority of
their vegetables especially in summer and autumn and to the constant supply all year round so we're
12 months CSA it's it's in an ecovillage the land is in an eco village two-thirds of the members
would be from the eco village one-third are from the town of Cloughjordan and it's a mostly vegetable
farm and has been we also have some fruiting bushes it's just a really good way to access
local food and have a say in how food is produced in our community so the inspiration for Cloughjordan
community farm really came from a group of people who are coming together anyway to try and
live differently share more resources be as efficient as possible with their resources
they also wanted as part of that to have the food production as something that we shared
that we worked on together so because people were coming together to form an eco village
forming a community owned and operated farm as part of that was a next step so CSA stands
for community supported agriculture and what's specific about CSA and which makes it different
to box schemes or farmer's markets and so on is that you share the risks rewards and responsibilities
of production so it's not a case of turning up at a farmer's market and buying whatever's there it's
a question of being involved in the process from beginning to end so you have a say and you pay up
front so whatever scale is produced is produced if there's a tough year you get a little bit less
if there's a good year you get more but you always get a stable set amount so that's kind
of what's specific about a CSA it's more of a partnership between the producers and consumers
different CSAs have different levels of engagement different types of ownership our CSA in Cloughjordan
is member owned and operated so the the members hire farmers really to to farm the land
for us and then we have a say and we contribute in various ways to run the production yeah
Cloughjordan community farm has a lot of kindred organizations that we work with and that we share
ideas and practices with in Ireland we have a strong relationship with the food sovereignty
movement which means Talamh Beo so Talamh Beo are the Irish version of the Land Workers
Alliance or Via Campesina so it's an organization focused on sort of a people and planet friendly
approach to farming and food production so tolerable will be strong partners we also work
well with NOTS which is the National Organic Training Skills net we have a good relationship
with OGI the Organic Growers of Ireland the main one I suppose in some ways is the CSA network
for Ireland and then at the European level URGENCY so URGENCY are the European representation of the
CSA network um in Europe so we try to bring in as many Irish kind of farming organizations and food
organizations as we can and then connect up with similar organizations in Europe
hello I'm Torben and I'm the farm here in Cloughjordan community farm together with Rebecca we
grow food here for our members it's a CSA and yeah I've joined here in the summer I come from a dairy
farm and I'm passionate about all things plants and yeah with 80 members in our in our CSA we
grow all year round and crops ranging from our root crops to our polytunnel salads we
produce food on around eight acres we have four polytunnels one propagation tunnel and
the three production tunnels we produce food all year so there's an acre that goes into potatoes
an acre that goes nearly an acre that goes into brassicas and we're about half an acre of onions
and keeping the vendors fed and providing a lot of staple food we also have an agricology field
which the previous farmer Kevin set up about two years ago they planted about five rows of trees
and five meters between each row the idea being that we'll be planting vegetable crop between the
tree rows and they're creating a symbiosis between the trees and the vegetable crop
as the trees pick up the carbon they'll be sequestering it into the ground and giving
it off the vegetables meaning we have to prep the ground less we won't need to till and hopefully
reducing the workload for the farmers and we also have a lot of support there's a board that
supports us from the financial and legal aspects we have a steering circle which support us in all
the larger infrastructural issues like putting in irrigation or putting up new tunnels and then
we also have support from our European volunteers in the day-to-day tasks of running the farm this
allows us as farmers to focus much more on growing crops and on taking care of the soil and making
sure that the crops grow well and healthy and in the end providing our community with better food
hi my name is Chris Kirwin I'm from Ennis county Clare I came to Cloughjordan community firm about
just about last summer I came here to learn how to grow food organically I thought it'd be something
really good for me to learn how to do and I'm super excited to be here with like a really
great team from across Europe here from Germany Spain Belgium it's a really unique experience
to be able to be here there's a really vibrant and supportive community here in the eco village
there's a very unique range of people here that all have their own their own passions and their
own interests hi my name is Rosa I'm from Bolton in England I came to Cloughjordan in September
I stayed for a two-month project it was called Building Bridges and then
afterwards I had such a good time I wanted to stay longer and now I'm part of the farm team
yeah now I'm progressing to do some design work it's nice that I can bring my creative side
I'm Jessica I'm from Germany I came here to Cloughjordan last September for the one year program I
came through the European Solidarity Corps which means I'm on the farm in the middle of Ireland but
we're working with so many people from all over Europe which just gives us a lot of diversity
learning about different cultures it's very nice they also give you the opportunity to
bring in your own skills for me that's photography I also want to learn more about videography and
there are so many people around in the community as well in the village
hello I'm Susan and here is Conor we are the volunteer coordinators for the European Solidarity
Corps program at the Cloughjordan community farm so we've been hosting volunteers on Cloughjordan
community farm for probably about 12 years now but only in the last couple of years did we discover
the benefits of the European Solidarity Corps the European Solidarity Corps is this incredible fully
funded opportunity for young people between the ages of 18 and 30 to go and work in solidarity
with a community organization anywhere in Europe and in some partnering countries
on the on the farm we've had all sorts of volunteers over the last 12 years we've had
woofers and just various people passing through and obviously you know their commitment was always
limited by you know their financial circumstances their ability to get accommodation now but now
since we've discovered the European Solidarity Corps a lot of those issues have been solved and it
it's allowed us to kind of give a really great in-depth placement for these volunteers for up to
a year on our farm and in our community it gives us the opportunity to to train them train them
in properly and give them give them a full years growing experience the main thing that connects
the CSA model and the European Solidarity Corps is the solidarity principle and a way that both
community is supporting agriculture and support the farmers for the entire year
commitment on the production and the volunteers are here and help us during the entire process
but in return we offer and promote a really full learning experience during their placement
the integration of the ESC program with the farm's normal activities has had incredible
kind of benefits outside of what we originally imagined you know we started off working with with
volunteers coming in and really just supporting the farmers with productions but the ESC
volunteers bring so much more to both the farm and the community when we take the time to find the
particular interests of the volunteers and give them the opportunity to kind of share these other
skills that they bring with them to the program the community and the farm benefits much more
than just in terms of a bit of additional labor and that's really kind of made all the difference
you know the energy that comes with each new group of volunteers and the effect it has on a small
rural community that is like many others afflicted with a lot of young people leaving town you know
bringing these volunteers in has has really kind of replaced a missing demographic in our community
and given the opportunities to young people who would otherwise leave to remain in our town
hello my name is Tamara I moved to Ireland in 2007 at the end of 2007 just before the crash
with my Irish husband we moved here from Seattle Washington the west coast of the United States
and my husband was really desirous of moving home after being away for 24 years
we were very much looking for a community that would have some of the elements that
we enjoyed so freely in the United States and particularly around food high quality food so
food that was grown with the intention of being highly nutritious being local
and you know affordably available to people I felt that there was a little bit of a
lack of care for members so what members information that they wanted the way
distribution was operating I wanted to see things become a little more standardized in that we were
responsible for getting things here at a certain time so that members that do travel from you
know by car here to pick up their vegetables would always have vegetables available when they arrived
so we are right now in the winter season and the distribution is quite um much smaller than it
will be in the summer and autumn seasons at this time of year it's really important to be eating
vegetables that are very warming to our bodies and we have a lot of root vegetables so we have
a wonderful supply of root vegetables available to members right now we have the carrots potatoes
parsnips onions we have things like kohlrabi we have a variety of greens but they're much smaller
and we encourage people to be working with the vegetables that are seasonal the distribution
system has been working really well over the years and we keep fine-tuning things so that
it gets better and better I also produce a harvest report twice a week
which I let members know what vegetables they'll find in the coach house on that day
hi I'm Eileen Brannigan and I'm the educational coordinator here in Cloughjordan community farm
and recently we've completed some infrastructure here that is allowing us to sort of launch
a proper education program here so we're quite excited about that uh we've made
some buildings we have a like a dutch cabin for the winter we have an educational poly tunnel
and we have even built a disability access compost toilet which is quite a first for us you know the
farm actually at the moment already does a lot of it does run quite a few courses on seed saving and
food storing how to grow sustainably how to store your veg a seed saving program is quite central to
to what we do here a big part of what we're doing is obviously networking with other people as well
as connecting to the wider public we are parts of like national and international networks
and as a CSA which is a community supported agriculture farm we're part of CSA Network
Ireland which we kind of led on developing and we're also part of other really useful
European networks when we get our young volunteers through our European
Solidarity Corps program and as well as that we're involved with a few Erasmus plus type
projects which are a European network of partners looking at how we can get young people to
have learning and and work get greater work experience on each villages throughout Europe
hi I'm Davy Phillip and what I'm involved in Cloughjordan community farm is the Open Food Hub and
the Open Food Hub is a digital response to the needs of farmers and other producers in regions
and our counties to access local markets and for consumers in local areas to be able to access good
nutritious locally produced food and so the idea is that we would have a food hub on the farm
in the We Create centre in the eco village that would be like a one-stop shop for Open Food Hubs
across Ireland we're developing training and we're going to build capacity of CSAs
and other co-ops and food hubs across Ireland every year at Cloughjordan community farm we
hold an event called Feeding Ourselves and it brings together from across Ireland progressive
farmers other communities that are doing community supported agriculture or people interested in food
security and local economies in March last year we had a whole session from the Open Food Network
which is a global network that have developed a platform which is a virtual farmers market and so
after that event the first lockdowns happened and with other farms and co-ops we actually brought
OFN to Ireland set up of Ireland and established the platform so we're currently getting producers
onto the platform in different places across Ireland and and really it's a it's a unique system
that allows consumers in rural areas to secure produce from local farmers and local producers
really what this does the platform which is now operating in 20 countries it sort of
strengthens and enables people to exchange and trade in your county strengthen the local economy
and really helping us reduce our environmental impacts by reducing long and vulnerable supply
chains through the hubs location in the ecosystem Cloughjordan village and it's based in rural
Ireland we feel that the food hub and will be a fantastic place for local food distribution
but also nationally for training and upskilling for rural foods and resilience across Ireland
Cloughjordan community farm really is developing a model that's replicable for all communities
to help us strengthen our food security our local economic resilience and through the production and
distribution of local food securing livelihoods that's really at the heart of our objective
that we can grow food in a healthier way that regenerates soils that is
serving the community and is a model that can be replicated anywhere thanks for visiting and
we hope you enjoyed the virtual tour you can find us online at clockjordancommunityfarm.ie
or we're on social medias Instagram Facebook and Twitter if you're under 30 you should consider
having a look at the European Solidarity Corps to see what volunteering opportunities are available
and we hope to potentially see you here in the future if you're interested in that type of
thing and also we love having people come to visit the eco village in person there's tons to see and
do so we're really looking forward to that in the future when we're able to travel and gather again