Cloughjordan Community Farm

Cloughjordan Community Farm, in County Tipperary, Ireland, was established in 2009 by a diverse group of people who felt passionately about growing their own food. Many of them had moved to the area to build their homes in Cloughjordan Ecovillage, a pioneering project committed to ‘building sustainable community’.

“We called a town meeting and invited everyone who was interested to come along and look at ‘could we do this, could we make this farm happen’,” says Wendy Bailey, a musician and primary school teacher who has been involved since the beginning.

“The initial motivation was wanting to grow our own food, not wanting it to come from miles across the world. Also having a connection with the people who grow our food, to have control over saving seeds, and providing local employment.”

It is Ireland’s largest example of a CSA farm. CSA is an alternative socioeconomic model of agriculture and food distribution that allows the producers and wider community to share the risks of farming and to secure local access to healthy, organic food.