Here are some details of a survey being conducted on behalf of the Landworkers’ Alliance which may be of interest to North Pennines Smallholders:

I am writing to invite you to take part in a survey of the productivity of small farms in the UK? I am undertaking this work on behalf of the Landworkers’ Alliance, in conjunction with the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University. We are hoping to gather data about the productivity of at least 100 farms of 20ha and less, on which people are earning at least part of their livelihood. A link to the online questionnaire can be found here
https://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/coventry/amatterofscale/.

Please don’t be daunted by the length of the survey! Unless you operate a highly diverse farm, you will probably not have to fill in many of the tables, which are the time-consuming part. However, realistically it is likely to take a couple of hours to complete, and we realise that this represents a significant investment of your time. As an incentive to take part, all those who complete the questionnaire will be entered into a prize draw to win a £250 voucher for a short break with Organic Farm Holidays (http://www.organicholidays.co.uk) , at a B&B or holiday cottage of your choice, or one of five Opinel knives.

If your farm is highly diverse, we are particularly keen that you should take part, so that we can explore the relative productivity of diverse farms with those that operate monoculture.

Even if you don’t feel your farm is particularly productive, it would be helpful to understand the barriers that prevent it from becoming more productive. Completing the survey questionnaire might even be a useful exercise in evaluating the recent performance of your farm.

In addition to productivity, the  survey results will also provide a clear picture of the range of small scale farms in operation and who is running them (i.e. young/old, male/female, new entrants/people from farming families).