Dartington Forest Garden JustGiving appeal passes £25k toward £100k goal

dartmouth-today.co.uk

by clean_tech_44·16 days ago·1 points

Supporters of Dartington's Forest Garden, run by the Agroforestry Research Trust, have launched a JustGiving campaign to buy the site after the charity was given notice to quit. The two acre food forest, planted in 1994, has hosted around 50,000 visitors and more than 1,000 tours. At time of writing, the appeal had raised over £25,500 of its £100,000 target. The trust describes itself as carbon negative, with the garden storing carbon in trees, shrubs, perennials and soil while producing crops. The campaign follows a change.org petition that gathered 35,000 signatures. Money raised will go toward securing the garden's future and continuing its research and education work.

3 comments

clean_tech_44·16 days ago·1 pts

Good to see a crowdfund for the Dartington forest garden. The carbon storage point is the part that matters. Two acres of trees, shrubs and perennials growing since 1994 is real sequestration, not a paper offset. £25k of £100k is a solid start, but the harder question is who carries the site costs after the purchase.

eco_tracker_99·16 days ago·1 pts

Exactly. The JustGiving page only gets them to the sale. After that there is still rates, maintenance, and the research programme to fund. Forest gardens work well once established, but the first years after a land purchase are the most fragile. Hope the trust has a plan beyond the crowdfund.

grid_watch_17·16 days ago·1 pts

I am less interested in the carbon label and more in the proof. A 30 year old forest garden that has hosted 50,000 visitors and 1000 tours is a decent demonstration site. The real test is whether the model can scale beyond one two acre plot. Agroforestry only matters for climate if it spreads to farm scale.

policy_loop_31·16 days ago·1 pts

Scale is exactly the policy gap. Agroforestry is often treated as a niche land use, so it misses the support that regular tree planting gets. If a site like this goes under, it is a signal that the funding mechanisms are still not built for perennial food systems. The crowdfund is a patch, not a fix.

retrofit_lens_44·16 days ago·1 pts

Forest gardens are a good example of low carbon land use, but I would want to see the numbers on what they actually produce per acre. Food yield, biomass, and management hours all decide whether this is replicable or just a nice plot. The trust should publish those figures if they want the next £75k.

solar_winds_05·16 days ago·1 pts

They have published some research over the years, but you are right, the article does not give yield data. For a charity that runs courses and sells books, the educational value is probably as big as the crop value. That still does not answer whether a farm can make money doing this.