 Supermarkets have enormous influence over the animal welfare standards used to produce the meat, milk and eggs they sell. The vast majority of fresh animal produce in major supermarkets is sold under company own labels, where they have direct control over how the animals are reared and slaughtered (CIWF, 2002).  It should be noted that as a result of supermarket buying power, which drives down prices paid to suppliers, farmers are expected to work to impossibly small margins. In many cases they have no option but to intensify production in order to try and cover their costs. In addition, many of the big supermarkets have forced farmers into direct supply contracts via favoured slaughterhouses. The decline in the number of slaughterhouses and livestock markets means that animals must often travel long distances by truck to be slaughtered. This capture and control of the whole food supply chain by the supermarkets is a major contributor to poor animal welfare. Church Farm poultry is slaughtered at the farm and we use two small, local abattoirs for our beef, pork and lamb. Being local reduces the distance live animals have to travel thereby minimising stress, reducing food miles and contributing to the rural economy (after all every little helps)…. Source: http://www.tescopoly.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=385&Itemid=192 |
Thursday 24 November 2011
Shopping Locally
Church Farm Christmas Poultry
Thanks to all those who have placed their Christmas orders. The turkeys and geese are thriving, our geese have the run of 6 acres and the turkeys a 3 acre pen in the woods. What difference does this make you ask? Why do you call it Real Food / Real Meat?
The main differences between ours and mass produced free range birds are:
- Our birds are truly free range and able to live naturally
- We use traditional breeds - the Norfolk Black Turkey, Aylesbury Ducks and Embden Geese, these are slower to grow and mature
- The birds eat a tremendous amount of grass and roughage. Not only does this make them healthier, but the science shows that if you eat animals who have access to greenery, the fats contains more of the “good fats” rather than the bad fats. A happy coincidence!
- They are kept in small flocks of 100 geese and 300 turkeys. There are flocks of 30,000 so called free range birds existing on a couple of acres, that are then sold as such in supermarkets. So there is “free range” and free range
- All our birds are dry plucked, hung and prepared by hand. Look back at last week’s newsletter to see how much better this is than the more usual wet-plucking method.
- Ranging and getting to maturity enables to the birds to build proper muscles and muscle is meat. Real meat has a totally different texture. Most poultry never move more than a few yards
As well as turkeys and geese, we also have Aylesbury duck in the Farm Store - again these are kept in a small flock and grown to maturity. Did you know that there is one farm in Lincolnshire that produces 7.5 million ducks. That’s 75% of the duck eaten in the UK. These ducks live to about 6 weeks and are “grown” in barns. Thanks for supporting us by eating Real Food!
Thursday 17 November 2011
Thursday 10 November 2011
Everything you need for a Real Christmas in Hertfordshire
Our new Christmas Fayre 2011 brochure is now available to download.
Includes lots of information about all our Christmas produce, Christmas Gifts and Christmas Events.
http://www.churchfarmardeley.co.uk/images/churchfarm/downloads/pdfs/christmasfayrebrochure2011%20to%20print.pdf
Includes lots of information about all our Christmas produce, Christmas Gifts and Christmas Events.
Monday 10 October 2011
The Alternative Bonfire Night
Church Farms' Alternative Bonfire Night
No fireworks please, as they will scare the animals
Saturday 5th November
Remember remember the 5th of November!
Celebrate bonfire night on green and pleasant land at Church Farm, Ardeley.
There’ll be
camping, jamming around the campfire and
camaraderie.
Feel free to bring your own BBQ, games and entertainment.
Make your own Guy
Have a go at making your own guy with our activity expert in the field.
Get ready to throw it onto the bonfire when it gets dark!
All customers and people of good nature are welcome -
suitable for all ages.
Limited spaces available so please book in advance.
Contribution:
Adults £10, Under 16s £8, Under 2s £2.
Free for musicians and farm members.
BOOK NOW!
Pop into the Farm Store,
call 01438 861 447
or email
info@churchfarmardeley.co.uk
Remember, remember
- No fireworks please, as farm animals are close by -
Thank you :)
Sunday 9 October 2011
Half Term Halloween Events at Church Farm
Halloween Treats
Come and enjoy a spooky day out at the Farm
EVENT 1 (running everyday)
Haunted Pumpkin Hunt
Saturday 22nd - Monday 31st October
Picture courtesy of www.flickr.com
Find 10 pumpkins as you go on a haunted hunt around Home Wood.
Pick up your
free activity sheet in the farm store any time.
Free of charge every day :)
EVENT 2
Eerie Egg Collecting
Friday 28th - Monday 31st October.
Picture courtesy of www.trendhunter.com
Feed the chickens and collect your own freshly laid eggs from the orchard - but beware of a few scary surprises in Grandma’s old chicken shed.
1pm - 2pm.
£5.00.
EVENT 3
Hair Raising Hats and Mask Making
Saturday 29th October
Picture courtesy of www.masksandpuppets.com
. Get creative and design your own hair raising hat and scary mask ready for Halloween.
10am -11.30am and 2pm - 3.30pm
£5 per session
EVENT 4
Halloween Songwriting for Children
Saturday 29th October
Compose your very own Halloween song with musician Neil Nayar.
2pm - 4pm.
£10.
EVENT 5
Spooky Pits Clay Day
Sunday 30th October
Dig clay from our ancient pits and make your own Halloween figure -
will it be a witch, a ghost or something spookier?
10.30am - 11.30am and 2pm - 3pm.
£5 per session
EVENT 6
Pumpkin Carving
Sunday 30th and Monday 31st October.
www.martastewart.com
Buy a pumpkin in the store and have it carved by one of our experts.
You can draw on your own design beforehand or let us do the creepy deed for you.
11am-12pm, 3pm-4pm and 5pm-6pm.
£5 per session
Pre-booking only.
To book, pop into the Farm Store, call 01438 861 447 or email info@churchfarmardeley.co.uk
Thursday 6 October 2011
Half Term Halloween events at Church Farm
Halloween at Church farm - click here for full goulish details
Tuesday 13 September 2011
Thursday 1 September 2011
Autumn Equinox Campfire Weekend
Saturday 24th September
Celebrate the first day of autumn on green and pleasant land at Church Farm, Ardeley.
Sunday 28 August 2011
CALLING ALL ARTISTS !!!!
photo courtesy of AutoArt auto-net.geFUTURE ECOLOGY GROUP - earth:NOW:being - are looking for small format works inspired by the theme of FUTURIST ECOLOGY, to be shown at earth:NOW:being exhibition in Hertfordshire and London between 1st -9th of October.
Feel free to interpret the theme broadly in any 2-dimensional medium. Fifty works will be exhibited on www.earthnowbeing.org. Ten works will be selected for the livw exhibition.
REQUIREMENTS
Size: up to 20 x 20cm, no frame, on paper or thin board
Submission: digital scan or photo of your work with maximum file size of 5MB; your name, address and phone number
If you are selected to participate in the live exhibition, you will need to drop off your work to us in
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 15TH SEPTEMBER
SEND SUBMISSIONS TO: earth.now.being@gmail.com
...........................................................................................................
ABOUT | earth:NOW:being
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Church Farm Presents
earth:NOW:being
Christine Cynn & Valentin Manz
In a time of concern over rising food, fuel, and environmental costs, earth:NOW:being features work created by artists Valentin Manz & Christine Cynn inspired by Church Farm Ardeley over a 16-month collaboration with the high-welfare, ecological farm. Church Farm aims to produce a maximum variety of food sold directly to the public, using 50% less fossil fuels from farm to fork. The exhibition will also show selected works inspired by futurist ecology submitted via an open call to artists (see www.earthnowbeing.com for application info).
......................
earth:NOW:being art exhibition at Church Farm Ardeley
www.churchfarmardeley.co.uk //
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Saturday 1st October 4 - 9pm
Private view of immersive video installation and series of evolving collage works. Concludes with candlelight walk to site of 'In The Pits' ceramic installation.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Sunday 2nd October 12 - 6pm
Exhibition open.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Saturday & Sunday 1st - 2nd October 11am - 3pm
Come participate in a free collaborative sculpture building workshop using locally sourced materials. All ages welcome.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
earth:NOW:being at Hackney City Farm,
www.hackneycityfarm.co.uk // Tube: Bethnal Green // 1a Goldsmith's Row,
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Saturday & Sunday 8th & 9th October 12 - 7pm
Exhibition featuring immersive video installation and series of evolving collage works open in the Eco-Room.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Saturday & Sunday 8th & 9th October 11am - 3pm (in front garden)
Come participate in a free collaborative sculpture building workshop using locally sourced materials. All ages welcome.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
email: earth.now.being@gmail.com
web: www.earthnowbeing.org (*up 26th August)
twitter: http://twitter.com/churchfarmAR
Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England www.artscouncil.org.uk
Tuesday 21 June 2011
A Note from the Grower
The last week has been a busy one. We’ve been planting out leeks, beans, calabrese, melons and summer lettuces. As well as harvesting
A Note from the Grower
Potatoes! This week we’re very pleased to announce the arrival of our first new potatoes! I was so excited that I put them in a plant pot and ran about showing everybody. I really must get out more….
They are available in our Farm Store and
Tuesday 7 June 2011
A Note from the Grower
This week we have planted out over 500
courgettes, summer and winter squash and pumpkins.
A Note from the Grower
Hi there veg lovers, my name is Lucy and since January I’ve been working with Sam, under the watchful eye of our experienced grower Richard, to produce the glorious bunches of bright orange baby carrots that are in all the veg boxes this week! Growing early carrots is no easy feat,
Tuesday 24 May 2011
A Note from the Grower
I’ve been away on holiday. For most people this conjures up images of a hot beach and bikini.
A Note from the Grower
Hello my name is Fanni and I have been working here at Church Farm for the past 6 weeks on the Horticulture Team. I am here on university placement as I am studying Horticulture.
Sunday 24 April 2011
Culinary Crusade - Part 1
“I’ve dwelled on the all-but-forgotten ideas of people like Weston Price and Sir Albert Howard – ecological thinkers about the human food chain – because they point us down a oath that might lead the way out of the narrow, and ultimately unhelpful, confines of the nutritionism: of thinking about food strictly in terms of its chemical constituents. What we need now, it seems to me, is to create a broader, more ecological – and more cultural – view of food. So let us try.”
Monday 11 April 2011
To mulch or not to mulch
A question: how does one reduce weeding, while naturally maintaining soil nutrients and moisture for plants and cut down on manual labour? The answer is mulch. On church farm the Horticulture team combine traditional methods and 21st century sustainable technology to create this.
Tuesday 5 April 2011
Five go Lambing
Spring is in the air and lambs are starting to be born on Church Farm. It was all hands to the deck this week on livestock as we officially had the first lamb of the year born on the last Sunday of March.
Tuesday 29 March 2011
Real Farm Festival - the summer festival with a heart, art and animals!
Real Farm Festival is a people-powered hands-on farming weekend. Come on down and meet the farmers, discover the secret life of vegetables, herbs, fruit, pigs, chickens, sheep and cows, and unwind in the music and food hubs back at farm camp.
Set in the gorgeous green fields and woodland of Church Farm,
Sunday 20 March 2011
From Crouch End to Church Farm
Church Farm offers weekly/fortnightly Farm Boxes to the local area and drop off points further afield. Because we are more than just a box scheme, one of the benefits of being a customer of ours is Farm Membership. This entitles you to free events at the farm and Experience Days when you get to see first hand where the food you receieve in your box comes from. One of our drop of points is at the Haberdashery Cafe in London every Thursday evening linking Transition Crouch End and Church Farm.
Our official Experience Day was held this last Saturday gone but a small number of very enthusiastic young Crouch Enders couldn't make it then so we were delighted to see them up on the farm the weekend before.
The day, lead by Richard Grimshaw, started off with a walk round the farm ending up at the pigs. The kiddies enjoyed seeing them so much that they even wanted to feed them. Then it was off to the Farm Cafe to indulge in some farm produce meals.
Sufficiently fed and watered we walked over to the rare breed Lincolnshire Red wintering pens to see a newborn calf. Then it was time for some real work. We made our way to the Kitchen Garden where all Church Farm Vegetables are grown. As its coming up to Spring, all the beds need planting for the coming year's crops. We were faced with a very long, very straight bed and 2000 broad bean plants to put out. Could we do it?
Well 2 hours later, alot of earth stained hands and clothes, alot of smiling faces, alot of dibbing, alot of compost and we had! Great teamwork by all those involved and many who left telling us they'd be back soon to see how their plants were growing. But of course they don't have to come back to see them, they should be in your boxes in May.
Tuesday 15 March 2011
Half Term at Church Farm
We had a busy half term at the end of February with many visitors taking part in our creative workshops.
For our 'Clay Day' workshops we visited the ancient clay pits of Church farm. Residents have been using clay from these pits for that last 400 years to make tiles and bricks for local buildings. We then visited some modern sculptures made by artist Valentin Manz situated next to the clay pits. His creations used wet bricks made with the local clay, moulded together to form hollow structures resembling termite mounds that are big enough to crawl inside!
We used this same clay to make small sculptures that young artists took home. First we had to warm the clay up by squishing it in our hands. Once warm it also became more compact and supple. Using the clay straight from the ground means it is not as refined as what you might find in an art shop, so we had to keep an eye out for small stones in the clay! The material was used to make a huge variety of pieces, including sheep, hedgehogs, elephants and funny faces. Materials collected from around the farm like twigs, berries, leaves and pebbles were used to decorate the creations. These sculptures were then covered in cress seeds which were watered to grow and become living sculptures!
We also had a fun day making new homes for all the spring nesting birds that are appearing at the moment. Bird boxes were made and recycled from old Church Farm veg and meat boxes! We flattened the boxes and made a template to cut around. This was then refolded and assembled as a closed and cosy box. We then cut different shaped holes in to each box, depending on which type of bird we wanted to attract! Boxes were then given a luxury makeover for 5 star bird accommodation, using twigs and leaves from the farm, crafty bits and a healthy splash of paint. The birds are in for a treat this spring!
Thanks to everyone that took part.... more creative fun coming up over the Easter Holidays!
Written by Lucy Ball who ran the half term workshops.
Sunday 6 March 2011
Diary of a Working Farm Girl: Week 1- Welcome to Church Farm
I moved into my caravan with only a tiny fraction of my belongings yet somehow I had filled the cubbyholes within half hour of unpacking. Tuesday was my first working day and I eat a hearty Scrambled Eggs and Bacon Breakfast with the other Interns. There are 15 of us ranging with interests in horticulture, Butchery to all round farm activities and Business experience.
Saturday 26 February 2011
Diary of a working farm girl - A Country Introduction
Oh England. With its green hills, dark satanic mills and 2for1 deals on the high street. It’s incomprehensible seasons, rainy days and grey skies. It was under such skies that I, a twenty something travel weary girl, first arrived back from a slow grand tour of the world, eager to start working in the environmental sector.
I had found an internship position on Church Farm through an online ‘green job’ newsletter. It looked so appealing that I had whisked myself to see Tim for a Farm tour and talk, which he does every Saturday at 10.30am for the public, almost as soon as I had set my foot back onto British soil.
What a hive of activity I was introduced to. Hens in an orchard that lay up to 500 eggs for farm consumption and sale, rare breed Lincoln Red cattle wintering (off pasture), newly planted fruit orchard, re-generated native woodland, British Lop pigs which are the rarest in Britain and Berkshires, Lleyn and Black Welsh sheep, Aylesbury ducks and Embdem geese, all of which can be seen up close by walking along the open farm paths. We finished back at the Farm Store where I, slightly dizzied and amazed at the development that had taken place on the farm in the last 3 years, continued to browse. Here I found ethical, fair trade, organic produce stocks together with farm vegetables and meat for sale. This place was so diversely stocked that I even found sugar-free jam!
All this made me very hungry. Where better to eat than at the Farm Café. I ordered French Toast with Bacon which I had been tempted with by the fact that the bread came from a local baker and bacon straight from a Farm pig. This, together with a mean Cappuccino (thanks to travelling, its now the only way I can enjoy coffee) meant that I told Tim I would be back in a week to start a 6 month internship. It seemed idyllic. Living in an ancient beautiful village, eating ethically produced food and getting to see the true workings of a future farm model. After all, I’m young and full of energy, I thought – how hard can it really be?
Thursday 6 January 2011
Healthy New Year!
From January 15th, one of the Church Farm team will be at the Letchworth Centre, in the Rosehill Café, every Saturday morning, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
This is a great opportunity for Letchworth locals to get fresh produce direct from the growers…and when you pick up your box, why not check out what’s on at the Letchworth Centre – or relax for a while in their lovely café.
If you live in the Letchworth area, and would like to talk to us about our box scheme, and find out what we can offer you, please come along to Letchworth Centre on January 15th and have your questions answered! For further information, please call 01438 861 447 or email info@churchfarmardeley.co.uk
Happy 2011 from the Church Farm Team!
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