Meet the Makers & Maintainers: Tamar Grow Local

Tamar Grow Local is one of ten community businesses funded by the Power To Change Makers & Maintainers programme, which supports community businesses who are already on a journey of creating community tech – technology that can meet their specific needs, respects their autonomy and creates value that sticks to places.

About Tamar Grow Local

Tamar Grow Local is a community interest company based in the Tamar Valley, which includes parts of rural Cornwall and Devon and the City of Plymouth.

The area has a strong market gardening history, including a substantial number of fruit and flower crops that are unique to the area and a strong demand for allotments. This was the starting point for launching the organisation, with many family connections with the industry. Tamar Grow Local’s membership is now drawn from amateur growers, professional growers, beekeepers, vineyard members, apple co-operative members, allotment and Farmstart tenants, as well as shoppers.

Tamar Grow Local promotes local food and growing including community projects such as allotments, orchards or vineyards, increasing local production including through cooperatives and a Farmstart project. They also work with a range of organisations such as food banks, local authorities and housing associations, to support local people experiencing food insecurity with fresh local food deliveries.

How Tamar Grow Local is creating and using community tech

“Our online farmers' market is central to all of our work at Tamar Grow Local, from taking and processing orders from customers, to helping local producers develop their own online retail presence, as well as recording customer donations towards our community projects.

“Being part of the Open Food Network, the global food sovereignty movement, and contributing towards the development of this open-source software aligns with our core values and priorities."

Sara Rock, Tamar Grow Local

A key priority for Tamar Grow Local is to provide a platform for their members to buy and sell their produce. Over the years, the team has realised that developing and maintaining tech that is uniquely theirs is expensive and time-consuming.

So, instead they have decided to cooperate with hundreds of community food enterprises across the UK (and thousands around the world) who are collaborating to develop an Open Food Network. The Open Food Network is an online platform designed for farmers to sell produce and create food distribution networks, built using open-source software that can be adapted to meet the requirements of different types of food enterprise. By creating their own online platform via the Open Food Network – an online farmer’s market – Tamar Grow Local has been able to create a space for over 60 local producers to sell their products online.

And their work never stands still. Shoppers and producers have a voice and influence on the direction of the platform, and the team benefits from ideas created by other communities who are part of the Open Food Network.

As Tamar Grow Local expands their network of local shoppers, producers and food hubs, they are learning the most effective ways to develop the technology to meet a wide range of needs. They hope to use funding from the Makers & Maintainers programme to enable them to enhance the software, so that shoppers, growers and producers can more easily access and sell local food.

For example, they hope to develop their online farmer’s market to meet the needs of participants referred by local children centres, who have shared they would further benefit if they could tailor their order to their individual preferences, instead of a standard ‘veg bag’ that may not be suitable for their needs.

How community tech is strengthening communities

Tamar Grow Local’s use of community tech supports small growers and producers to make their businesses more sustainable, and makes it easy for shoppers to access healthy food at prices they can afford.  Producers receive 85% of the selling price for their goods, are paid on time, and only harvest to order – therefore reducing waste, time and effort.

Alongside helping to make the Tamar Valley community more resilient, the online platform is building a circular economy which benefits all involved. This includes employing a greater number of staff from the local area, reducing supply chain waste, assisting people who are experiencing food insecurity, as well as supporting agroecological and regenerative farming practices.

Beyond this, the online platform is helping to address food insecurity in the local area, which has become increasingly important due to the rising cost of living. Shoppers can make donations to provide fresh local food for people referred by local partners.

Together, the growers, producers and shoppers who are part of Tamar Grow Local are proving that everyone in the community benefits from food that is healthy, produced locally, and accessible to all.

Find out more about the programme

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We’d love to hear from you as we shape this exciting, growing field in 2023.