Conservation, history, green living and local self-sufficiency are the priorities for these volunteers.

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Friday Jan 27, 2012

Learning to grow

A little over a year ago, I decided to take the plunge into full-time volunteering. I had dabbled in work days, but I knew that if I really wanted to work in conservation I needed to be brave and throw myself into it completely. Last January I was lucky enough to get a place on a brilliant project down in Devon which involved living in a yurt for three months whilst working on a country estate. Finally I was able to focus my efforts completely on developing my skills and experience in the conservation sector, and even more importantly, find out what my main interests and motivations were. As well as the obvious benefits for my CV, working as a volunteer is a great way to try your hand at lots of different things and find out more about yourself, as well as about the job. I discovered that I really wanted to be involved in education and engaging people with food and farming. And fortunately for me, the perfect project was just around the corner...

Since June I have been a trainee on a community farm project with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. We're at the early stages of the project and it's all very new and exciting! The Trust took over a farm with derelict buildings and 240 acres of poorly managed land just over a year ago, and now the project boasts a successful half-acre vegetable training area for people to come and learn to grow their own food, a herd of 14 beef shorthorn cattle which will graze the fields extensively to encourage biodiversity and increase wildlife value, and a team of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers and local supporters. I have been working on the project for six months now, and the pace has never let up! We have been very busy getting the farm buildings and boundaries ready for the cattle, maintaining and extending the food growing area to include an orchard and a forest garden, and organising and running events. I've learned lots and my self confidence has rocketed, but at the halfway point of my placement I still feel like I've got so much more to learn! 

After I've finished my placement, I'm hoping that I'll be able to get paid work on a similar kind of project, but volunteering means so much more to me than CV building. I've met lots of amazing people and had some incredible experiences, and I get a lot of personal satisfaction from knowing that I'm doing something really worthwhile. Food is something that unites us all, but we seem to have got worryingly disconnected from it. Talking about food is a way to engage people with all kinds of issues, from health to the environment. Lots of people are puzzled when they hear that the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust has taken the leap into farming, but really it's a very logical step, and one that many conservation organisations are now taking. Cattle and sheep are often the best way to manage nature reserves, with the resulting meat being a bonus by-product. Not everyone can have livestock in their back yard, but anyone can have a delicious, low-carbon, wildlife garden – even if it's just a window box!

I'll be sharing my volunteering experiences here with you, so expect to hear a lot more about food, farming, and plenty more about other projects I'm involved in too!

 

Posted by Charlotte Holgate ( 12:25 PM )
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