Feeding Ourselves in Cloughjordan
Farm walk open to public this Sunday
Minister of State Pippa Hackett will launch the Feeding Ourselves event in Cloughjordan this Thursday, March 21.
The event will see farmers and researchers, advocates and academics come together around topics of agri-food policy, local food economies and building more agroecological approaches to food production.
Sunday’s farm walk is open to the public. This will be done as part of the CODECS Horizon Europe research initiative, which event organiser Cultivate is part of.
CODECS involves over 30 organisations from around Europe working on “sustainable digitalisation” - in other words, better understanding the full range of benefits and costs of farm digitalisation, and how to maximise the net benefits of digitalisation.
The walk starts at 2pm on Sunday and will last two hours, starting at the Food Hub at North Tipperary Green Enterprise Park - Cloughjordan Ecovillage (E56VP86). The two hours will outline and explore digital technologies as used on or related to the Cloughjordan Community Farm, which is a member-owed and operated farm.
It will start at the Food Hub with an introduction to the Open Food Network (OFN) digital platform, powering the North Tipperary Online Farmers Market. Discover how this open-source community tool can enhance your farm or community food project.
A guided walk around Cloughjordan Community Farm will follow, with Oliver Moore (CODECS), Sean O’Farrell (Cloncannon Biofarm); Torben Marl (Cloughjordan Community Farm) and Davie Philip (CODECS).
Participants will have a guided walk and visit to better understand how production and digital technologies interface in real life working farm conditions. There are also opportunities to learn about Community Supported Agriculture and engage in discussions on soil health, biodiversity, and agroecology. The connection between farms and local distribution is also part of the Friday on Feeding Ourselves.
A CODECS workshop led by Cultivate will delve into strategies for increasing farmer and community adoption of digital tools and how these tools can support Food Hubs and small farmers. This is all part of a climate action and local food day, which will point to the opportunities provided by Food Hubs. These can be be focal points in communities for food security by enabling thriving local food economies, via value-adding, diversification and sustainable routes to market for local food producers.