STORIES WE LOVE
A Shropshire farm held by its community for twenty years
By Sam Marwood
Story from Farmers Weekly (UK), 28 April 2026
Every now and then I find a story that shows exactly what we're about at Cultivate Farms: real people finding a way to keep a farm working and bring someone new onto it. I share them here because seeing it done by others makes it real. Here's one I love.
From Farmers Weekly (UK), 28 April 2026: "Community-owned farm marks 20-year milestone", by Albie Matthews. Read the full story at fwi.co.uk.
Why I love it
I love this story because it shows a community owned farm still working twenty years on. In 2006 a brother and sister in their early twenties set out to stop the sale of their family's tenanted farm in Shropshire for industrial development. Their father had farmed it organically since shortly after the Second World War.
They asked the public to help, and more than 8,000 supporters from around the world got behind them. The land is now held by a community benefit society on behalf of its members, and the brother holds a 100 year tenancy. It's still a commercial farm, with livestock, a butchery, a farm shop, a care farm, school visits and a café, and it employs up to 150 local people.
Why it matters for towns like ours
A farm doesn't have to be sold off because the family can't go on. Here the land stays in community hands for good, and a farming family stays on it. The brother says that even as a tenant, the long security makes him feel it's his farm too. He plants trees and builds up the soil, knowing his children could take on the tenancy after him.
One step you could take
If a farm in your district is facing the same choice, sit down with a few neighbours and ask what it would take to keep it working. Start by picturing it: who would farm it, who would hold the land, and what it would offer the district. Read what a community owned farm could look like in our Community Owned Farms guide.
I share these stories because each one shows it can be done, by ordinary farming families, in places like yours. If you know a story like this, or you're living one, I'd love to hear it.