Urban Farming Jumps In Popularity

More than 2,000 new spaces for growing food have been created over the past three years, and allotment owners are beginning to sell fresh fruit and veg and products such as honey and jams to retailers.

Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, has launched a report advising small-time producers how to grow for sale.

Polly Higginson, author of the report, said, “There has been a real change in attitude in the community food sector towards how they see their projects.

“Trading is a good opportunity to generate income to contribute towards project costs and to lift the ambitions of those involved,” she added.

Retailers across the country are already forming business relationships with small, local producers. Fenwicks, in Newcastle, stocks honey made by bees that are kept on the roof of the store, and a vegetable box scheme in Nottingham delivers produce grown in allotments throughout the city.