Matt Appleby
As an example of what the Stockfree-Organic certification scheme could become, Coed Organic is a pretty good one.
Farming vegetables on seven acres in South Wales, the three-person cooperative grower sells via an oversubscribed box scheme and a farmers’ market.
Stockfree-Organic Certification was developed in the UK by Vegan Organic Network and farm inspections are carried out by Soil Association Certification. Certified farms grow without the use of manure from confined animals and build soil fertility through on-farm sources such as green manures.
Coed Organic’s head grower Scott MacLean says he is now in the process of applying for certification.
The reasoning behind this is not an economic one but “more wanting to be part of the wider vegan organic movement,” he says. “That’s something I’d like to add to and contribute to. I’m vegan and we are already stockfree organic here so to be certified felt like I was joining the gang. We pay to be certified stock-free so I pay that money, then it goes back into building the certification business.”
MacLean, who has been at Cowbridge-based Coed for seven years, adds as the farm is already certified organic by the Soil Association “we’re already halfway there” with annual audits from the Soil Association already running. “So it’s not that difficult to pay a bit more to the Soil Association and when they come to inspect they will inspect for stock-free as well.”
Some 6.5 acres of the farm are being cropped as a market garden for the box scheme, Riverside Farmers
Market in Cardiff and to a vegan business, also in the Welsh capital. One-third of the ground is laid down to green manures at any one time to build fertility.
The veg growing business has been going for 15 years and has been stock-free for five years. Scott’s
background is 20 years in commercial horticulture: “Before that at university I studied physics so I don’t have a gardening background at all. After university, by chance, I got into horticulture at a local organic farm because I thought it would be a nice place to work for the summer. I dropped in and 20 years later I’m still in horticulture.”
He has been a vegan for 23 years and has seen veganic growing develop more recently: “When I began I
didn’t know anything about growing and was under the impression that you needed animal manure, like a lot of people still are, thinking it was necessary for production.
“Today I see so many farmers who should know better still push that false idea. The first farm I worked
on was a biodynamic farm so livestock was an essential part of that. They were under the mistaken belief livestock was necessary for fertility and I accepted it.”
After four years, he moved to an organic market garden in Hastings for nine years: “I was not aware until I discovered Vegan Organic Network and Tolly [veganic farmer Iain Tolhurst of Tolhurst Organic] and started really thinking for myself. I was inspired by Tolly to look where fertility comes from and that made me realise livestock don’t actually produce any fertility themselves. That led me to where I am now.”
Towards the end of Scott’s nine years at Hastings, he became more frustrated with the difference of opinion in farming methods and “becoming more confident in my own ideas” he seized the opportunity to move to Wales to become a head grower where he could put his ideas into practice.
“We grow a massive wide range of crops. Because we run a box scheme you need the variety to be able to do that. It upsets customers if you don’t do that variety. We’re on a relatively small scale at 6.5 acres, so we don’t grow many potatoes and carrots because it seems to me the UK is already self-sufficient [in organic crops] so it made sense to concentrate on growing other crops – I can buy potatoes and carrots in from the local wholesaler. But hopefully we’ll step those up in the coming years.”
Coed recently added two acres in an adjoining field, which has been in organic conversion for two years ahead of first cropping in spring 2023.
This will help add production to meet growing demand: “We’re pretty much always at capacity and are
oversubscribed. Lockdown was a difficult, stressful time. We had a lot more enquiries but couldn’t do much more than we were already doing.” Expansion is in small steps from a financial point of view.
However Scott agrees that there are opportunities nationwide for veganic commercial production: “That
seems the case to me. Certainly here we could sell all the veg we grow five times over. We’re at capacity with our box scheme. There’s another box scheme locally that’s not a producer so we occasionally supply them but that could be a lot more. And there’s a local wholesale organic place that hardly ever has any Welsh produce, so we could be selling to them if we had spare crops available.” The Cardiff farmers’ market where Coed has a stall has three organic veg sellers. Nevertheless, “we sell out every single week”.
But there is a price ceiling: “If we charged more than other organic boxes I don’t think we’d get customers and for wholesale we have to match market prices.
Wales provides a good climate for production: “I was told when I first moved here that it rains every week in Wales, but not this summer it didn’t. I’d done all my growing previously in South East England which is very dry. Coming here it was a bit easier to have more rainfall.”
In winter, Coed reduces sales. There are weekly box schemes from June-Christmas and from January-June there are fortnightly boxes, which frees time to do other jobs and to propagate plants.
Plans for the future include on the new extra land a couple of extra polytunnels to be added this winter to
keep the same balance of indoor and outdoor cropping as before. And as well as stock-free certification, “next year there’s extra cropping from the new land – it’s all very exciting.”
