Chagford CSA is crowdfunding to invest in a new borehole & irrigation system to build drought resilience for the farm in a changing climate
Chagford CSA is a 10-acre community-supported market garden on the north-east edge of Dartmoor. Founded in 2010 the CSA now supplies freshly-harvested, seasonal & Organic veg-shares to 120 households in Chagford and our neighbouring parishes every week. After farming on rented land for 12-years we moved our field-scale cropping to our permanent site, which we now own, at Stiniel Down in 2022.
As a small-scale market garden under five-hectares we've been unable to access the public funding streams available to larger producers to invest in infrastructure and capital items. Instead all of our tools, machinery, fencing, buildings and inputs are funded solely through CSA subscriptions. Selling fresh, Organic vegetables directly to our local community.
Since we took on our new cropping site in 2022 we've relied on an historic borehole to irrigate 10-acres of field crops using second-hand piping and ariel-sprinklers. For our first couple of seasons this supply was just about adequate, however the unprecedented droughts of 2025 and 2026 have exposed the limitations of this system.
This season - 2026 - Dartmoor experienced its most prolonged drought since records began in 1836. At the peak of the drought, for a period of four-weeks, our borehole only produced 45-minutes of water every 24-hours. Despite endlessly moving the sprinklers and watering by hand at dawn and dusk we've ended up losing around 30% of our crops. A significant impact on our livelihood.
In anticipation that drought conditions like this season's are likely to become the rule rather than the exception, we've researched and designed a solution to future-proof our field-cropping from the impacts of a changing climate.
We would like to commission and drill a new, deeper borehole at a much lower elevation. We would like to invest in state-of-the-art Sumi-Soaker porous piping that can deliver irrigation much more effectively to our field-crops and minimise losses to evaporation and drift. And we would like to power our irrigation system from our existing solar-array - reducing our dependence on fossil-fuels and generators.
The full cost of our proposed project is as follows:
Borehole drilling, lining & pump installation: £8,800
32mm header piping to bring water to cropping areas: £1,240
6mm Armoured cable to connect borehole pump to solar array: £2,890
800m of Sumi-Soaker hose: £1,380
Irrigation fixtures & fittings: £520
Estimated delivery of Crowdfunder Rewards: £170
Grand Total: £15,000
We appreciate that Crowdfunding has become ubiquitous over the years. And we're also wary of asking for public support when everyone it seems is struggling. However we've never launched a Crowdfunder before in our 17-years running a community enterprise - vowing to only do so when the going got really tough. Well - the drought of 2026 was undoubtedly our toughest season yet - and if we don't raise the funds to invest in new irrigation we can't guarantee the CSA will survive another extreme drought.
Although we're only able to offer a few modest rewards to incentivise our pledging community - our greatest hope is that you can share in the satisfaction of supporting us with however much you can afford - in demonstrating the best of Food Sovereignty in action. And being the change we want to see in the world.
With Massive Thanks - Ed & the Chagford CSA team
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 27th November 2026 at 11:59pm