Community Farms & Gardens
Overview
City farms and community gardens are community-managed projects working with people, animals and plants. They range from tiny wildlife gardens to fruit and vegetable plots on housing estates, from community polytunnels to large city farms.
They exist mainly in urban areas and are created in response to a lack of access to green space, combined with a desire to encourage strong community relationships and an awareness of gardening and farming.
City farms and community gardens are often developed by local people in a voluntary capacity, and commonly retain a strong degree of volunteer involvement. Some larger community farms and gardens employ many workers whilst others are run solely by small groups of dedicated volunteers. Most are run by a management committee of local people and some are run as partnerships with local authorities, whilst retaining strong local involvement.
For more information on the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens, visit the About Us Page. For details on community farming and gardening, including a history of the movement, visit the Farms & Gardens page.
Emerging Trend
Though the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2010, the interest in local food production in the last 18 months has created a surge of interest in community farming and gardening. Membership of FCFCG has risen to nearly 550 groups in the last two years.
In addition, FCFCG now estimates it supports a further 1,000 community gardens in the wider movement. These are groups not within our membership, but who benefit from our free publications, networking events and representative work at policy level and with funders.
In the last few years, FCFCG has also opened offices in Wales and Scotland, to provide support services, advice and information resources specifically for these countries.
To provide support for new and emerging groups, primarily in England, FCFCG has launched its Growing Communities project. Funded by the Local Food Programme from the Big Lottery Fund, the project provides direct support to new and existing food growing groups through our team of development workers. This support includes advice, training and networking events. FCFCG is also providing information resources and funding information.
Examples
We regularly provide case studies of our member groups in our Public Newsletters. You can download and read a selection of these via the Public Newsletters page on this website.
You can also find out about community farms and gardens on this website in two ways:
- Search a database of places to visit, by using the search facility on the homepage of this website
- Download PDF versions of our current maps by visiting the FCFCG maps page of this website
More Information
For general information about the Growing Communities project, contact Support Worker Caitlyn Jones on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or tel: 0117 923 1800 (Tuesday to Thursday).
For your nearest Growing Communities regional development office, then visit the Regional Support Team page.
