Bookself Mojatu.com Mojatu Nottingham Magazine Issue M025 | Page 18

mojatu .com 18 Community INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY Join Farmeco Community Care Limited By Usama Ibrahim & Evelina Bondareva The story of the farm began in 1933 with David Rose’s grandfather who had 90 acres of mixed farm, lots of livestock and four men working together, selling to local markets. David started in 1980 with 200 acres and in 1995 Farmeco became a joint farming group. In 2000, they took on more land, farming 3000 acres, but David diversified and worked away from the farm. Eventually, Farmeco grew to 6000 acres with only 3 men. But was everything Rosie? By 2005, we realised that big is not always beautiful, as we lost focus by chasing the size. So, in 2010 David came back to the family farm realising the importance of making every acre count and starting the process of getting the balance right in the farm. Since 2010, we have gone back to our own 550 acres of mixed farming and we now have a venture with a neighbouring farm who have two young sons to carry out all the arable work. We also now run a care- farming social enterprise. Our sheep and agro-forestry projects support regular visits from a wide range of people from the local community.   Currently, Farmeco Community Care Limited (FCC) is converting from a private company limited by shares to a community benefit society in order to introduce new ideas, strategies and resources and to launch new and exciting agricultural and farm oriented business operations. Having ran the farm since 1933, David’s family now wants to invent new ways to make the farm more productive and sustainable for local communities. The farm is now open to the public to buy shares through the community benefit society model. We are in the process of forming a group to help develop a business plan and strategic action plans for future. Aims of Farmeco Community Care FCC Community Benefit Society has been formed to bring together like-minded people to help raise funds and determine how to make education, health provision, community engagement and sustainable environment the core focus of Home Farm. The aim is to get people more involved with farm care and to understand the impact of reserving nature for society and the influence it has on community engagement. We are currently living in an unsustainable environment and we want volunteers to try and make local communities to be a lot more environmentally friendly. The FCC are looking for volunteers to help them aim towards their goals of achieving social, educational, agricultural, and ecological equality and welfare. We will also increase access to fresh, healthy, sustainable food and provide a shared space for people to cultivate skills, get exercise and make friends. We work with a diverse group of people and aim to further expand on educational and ecological goals as well as to improve local communities and build positive relationships with local communities surrounding the farm. We are hoping that if we can all work together, we can get a new share offer to aim towards sustainability even further so local communities can benefit. A new share offer would allow FFC to secure the future and make sure we have a thriving, welcoming space for everyone to enjoy. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the support and participation of thousands of people in our community and we want even further participation as everyone working together brings the most amazing response. FCC are aiming to overcome the social, environmental and economic challenges which face our communities, and we aim to tackle these in an ecological and ethical