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Join us to save Babbinswood Farm! Be part of our mission to protect organic farmland for purpose, not profit, and support the wild community
by Babbinswood Farm Community Benefit Society in Oswestry, Shropshire, United Kingdom
Learn more about
Community Shares on Crowdfunder.
Please #investaware — investments of this nature carry risks to your capital.
Caption - Some of Team Babbinswood Farm on one of the permanent pasture fields for sale, photographed in December 2024. Listed from left to right: Barbara Jones, Andrew Cristinacce, Robert Morris, Alan Southcombe, Casha Bowles-Jones with kids Amber and George, Daisy Kirtley, Lynda Marchment and Ben Shatford.
Babbinswood Farm Community Benefit Society Ltd. are a passionate group of volunteers dedicated to saving and growing the legacy of Babbinswood Organic Farm. We believe in stewardship, not ownership, protecting and safeguarding our local land through organic management, known as Babbinswood Farm South.
We care deeply about retaining the biodiversity and organic nature of this land – we want it to sustain livelihoods in our community and provide green space that the whole community can all benefit from. This land has too much to give to the local community to become industrially developed or intensively farmed, to be lost to that same old story. We are dedicated to raising £1.5m by the 31st March so that, this time, we can change the story..
We intend to raise the £1.5 million through a community share offer, donations and grants to purchase 116 acres of permanent grassland, woodland and some of the traditional red brick farm buildings known as Babbinswood Farm South.
If not purchased by the community, the land will be sold on the open market. Its organic status gone and its future potential to serve our farming and local community will be lost. We have until 31st March 2025 to raise the funds to save this land and to allow us to utilise it as a community asset (shown yellow on the map below) and we hope that you will come on that journey with us.
The yellow area is a guide to area the CBS could purchase. Photo credit to Olly Boon Earth Repairs who is doing some amazing drone footage and modelling for us.
We care deeply about keeping the land organic– we want this place to sustain farming livelihoods in our community, and to keep providing green space that people and wildlife can all benefit from. We want to save this precious land to grow food to keep on feeding it’s community.
Our aim as a CBS is to raise £1.5m of funds by the 31st March 2025 to change the story through community co-ownership. But we need your help!
We intend to raise the £1.5 million through a community share offer, donations and grants to purchase 116 acres of permanent grassland, woodland and some of the traditional red brick farm buildings. This part of the farm is known as Babbinswood Farm South.
After purchase, the CBS will rent land and buildings back to the tenant farmers to maintain the working organic farm.
The rental income from this will be used to develop and run community activities from the farm. An absolutely brilliant example of this way of farming is Fordhall Farm near Market Drayton, which is owned by a CBS called the Fordhall Community Land Initiative. Shareholders in the CBS have a life-long say in the future of the farm that they landlord, and we operate on a democratic one-member, one-vote basis so that influence can never be bought.
If not purchased by the community, the land will be sold on the open market. Given land prices and buying patterns, it is highly likely that its organic habitat and farmland will be lost , along with it’s future potential to serve our local community directly. We could see food production cease completely due to development or absentee landlordism. Some of the pastureland becomes temporary wetland during wet weather, reducing the flooding risk for local houses in an area already suffering from repeated flooding.
As members of a rural community, we are tired of seeing the same old story of small family farms lost and our rural heritage destroyed. We believe that rural communities can lead the way to a wilder, safer, and more connected world.
We have until 31st March 2025 to raise the funds to save this land and to allow us to utilise it as a community asset and we hope that you will come on that journey with us.
The land and buildings that BFCBS is raising funds to buy are highlighted in yellow here, with the community woodland at the centre of the pastureland.
The story so far
Barbara Jones is the current owner of Babbinswood Farm. Barbara and Casha, a mother-daughter farming team, are co-directors of Babbinswood Organic Farm Ltd. Casha represents the 5th generation of her family to farm at Babbinswood Farm. Their current farming business produces, processes, and retails organic food directly to the local community www.babbinswoodfarm.co.uk The farm is certified organic and has been focusing on holistic management across the whole farm since 2016. Both organic and holistic management fundamentally focus on caring for the soil through good land stewardship and high animal welfare standards. All the produce grown on the farm is sold directly to customers through their charming rustic farm shop and online.
This story, is like many other small family farms across the country that represent the core of the English countryside. They care about the land, they tend and they have diversified to sell their produce direct, to support their extensive and regenerative approach to managing the land, however they have been left in financial gapping due to the exponential increase in land prices.
The Jones family at Babbinswood are being forced to sell half of their farm to finance the divorce settlement. This is not a lone story. Farmers are often asset rich but cash poor, and as asset accumulation and development drives up the value of land, this disparity only grows.
Across the country and indeed the world, small family farms are being sold every day, often lost to development, commercial interests or investment funds due to land’s high and increasing value.
It seemed as if this could happen here too, but the community have come together to change that story. Now is the chance for everyone to own part of Shropshire’s beautiful landscape and safe guard the land for purpose, not profit.
We have hope for a new way forward.
A vision where the land is owned for purpose, not for personal financial gain. We want this land to stay in the ownership of people who care, and we want it to be stewarded organically – food production and the care and love of nature hand-in-hand.
Barbara, current owner, says "I feel this is the best contribution I can personally make to the future of the planet, which is why I fully support this land going into community-ownership".
As the family looked for ways to retain their family home and the future of their land in 2023, a JustGiving page was started by a friend. An amazing £19,500 was raised by supporters of the farm – we all rallied together to help bide more time.
Barbara and Casha also met with Charlotte Hollins from the Fordhall Community Land Initiative – England’s first community-owned farm – who has been supporting community ownership of farmland across the UK for a number of years.
On a wintery afternoon in December 2023, our community came together to discuss how we could help secure the farm’s future. We all agreed – we did not want this land sold and farmed with little respect for all the hard work that had gone into preserving it. We want it to stewarded for the benefit of our community and our planet.
We are now fully incorporated as a Community Benefit Society and recognised by HMRC as an Exempt Charity (Ref Number ZD34883). Co-ops UK have been very supportive during this whole process.Our Community Share Offer has been awarded the Community Share Standard Mark, which affirms the robustness and fairness of the offer.
A philanthropist who believed so strongly in what we want to achieve reached out to Barbara with an offer of financial support, giving our community until the 31st March to raise the funds before Barbara is forced to put Babbinswood Farm South on the open market.
We are now launching our community share offer nationally to offer you the opportunity to be co-owner of Babbinswood Farm South.
🐕 Over 2km of Dog-friendly farm walks
🌳 Community woodland – woodland activities, managed public access
🍁 Education – courses and resources for self sufficiency, gardening and farming
🐓 Therapeutic activities – arts and crafts, horticultural therapy, care farming
🪴 Volunteering and job opportunities
🖼️ Buildings – meeting rooms, workshop space, capacity for eco-build rentals this might include a community cafe
For further information and before buying shares in Babbinswood Farm CBS, we recommend you read our Society Rules, Share Offer document and Business Plan (Links at the bottom of the page).
A Board of Directors will be elected from our new base of shareholders. As members and landowners, you will help to guide the direction of this farm for the future, ensuring we meet our charitable objects and create a landscape which nourishes us all.
Please note: The purchase of community shares is at full risk, and investors can lose all or part of their capital invested without recourse to the Financial Ombudsman Service or right to compensation under the Financial Service Compensation Scheme. Please do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Thank you for reading our campaign, for supporting our story and sharing!
from,
The Board of Directors (See images below), The Land and Our Future Generations
Ways to keep updated with our progress and sharing our campaign... LETS GET THIS GLOBAL
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