A BIG step forward…

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Thanks everyone for your continued interest in our project and how it is developing. We have spent much time looking at the sustainability of delivering our project at the Alpha House site and, regrettably, are unable to go ahead with the original proposals in this location. The combined challenges of the size of the building, and the overheads required to maintain it, risk developing an unsustainable model in the long-term without the beneficial impacts on local community and food networks that we want to achieve.

However, all is not lost, as from our feasibility work have come two important outcomes…

Firstly, we are working with local partners in the local community of Wythenshawe to develop new proposals to BIG Lottery’s Communities Living Sustainably programme which, if successful, could bring up to £1million investment into the local community to live more sustainably. This is a great opportunity to develop and shape a 5-year project focusing on new ideas around sustainable food production – including ideas around indoor and outdoor growing or farming – which have a longer-term impact and potential for greater sustainability. We’re successfully through the first round of applications and are down to the last 30 so there is a 1 in 3 chance that we’ll be successful. Over the next few months we’ll be working closely with our partners to develop a strong bid which will take inspiration from the Alpha Farm ideas, but look at different, more sustainable models. If you are interested in food in the Wythenshawe area, and would like to contribute thoughts or ideas to this proposal, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Secondly, the challenges that arose with Alpha House were specific to the building, so they haven’t put us off and we remain committed to our objective of developing a vertical farm project for the next Festival in July 2013. As a result, we are exploring a prototype project in a location free of the challenges of scale and overheads that we faced at Alpha House. More information will be available later this year so please check back in with this blog to see how these ideas develop.

News for a New Year…

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Happy New Year all! We’re excited about what 2012 has in store for urban agriculture across the world and have been enjoying keeping up to date with a range of brilliant projects here in Manchester and further afield. We’ve been meeting like-minded folks at Feeding Manchester, MERCi and The Orchard, and some of our favourite online finds have included: Futurefarmers and Bright Farms. Also, check out Carolyn Steel’s TED talk How food shapes our cities.

Closer to home we had an important presentation from our partners URBED and Something & Son last week. Conscious of the level of investment needed to set the project up, we wanted to make sure that the project we are working on – and the way that the project is delivered – is a financially sustainable, and replicable, model for urban agriculture.

So the team were tasked with coming up with some creative solutions to some pretty big challenges – such as how to maximise the potential income from crops (what to grow and when, routes to market); how to incorporate mixed-uses of the building to secure a range of income streams (sufficient to cover the building rent and overheads); under what circumstances and timescales could the project start to become self-sustaining and what the potential outcomes and legacies for local communities could be.

Their findings have given us much food for thought and lots of creative ideas but have also highlighted the scale of the challenge, where the key pitfalls lie and importantly, some key challenges with the building itself – things like the current condition of the building, the level of overheads required to maintain it and the balance of set-up costs versus project lifetime. Our next phase of work will explore these issues further and we’re also eagerly awaiting the results of project funding applications which will, or will not, allow us to secure the future of the project in that particular location.

So watch this space for updates and for publication of some of the work done to date…

So what has been happening…

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…since we launched Alpha Farm at the Manchester International Festival in the summer?

Firstly, we would like to thank everyone who has shown such interest and enthusiasm for the project so far. It’s great to think that we are tapping into a genuine interest and people want to get involved with our urban food experiment.

It may appear quiet on the surface, but here at MIF we have been busy working with our partners at Urbed and Something and Son on the feasibility of the project. We have been looking at what scale of project is possible, how we might raise funding as well as what crops could be grown, where they might go and more importantly whether we can provide sufficient heat, light and water to keep them alive!

Just to re-cap, Urbed are a Manchester based sustainable design company; Something and Son set up FARM:shop, Dalston, which is a transformed empty shop into a urban farm, café and arts venue.

Aside from this we have also been spending time touching base with a range of groups in Wythenshawe – and getting some very helpful feedback about community priorities and what would be most exciting in terms of this project. During the City Garden Festival in September, we had a pitch outside ASDA where we met with members of the public to talk about the project and were also invited to present at the Real Lives Wythenshawe Ambassadors event where it was great to learn more about the wider community offer for the Wythenshawe over the next year.

We still have much work to do to get the finances, frameworks and structures in place to make the project secure, but we’re optimistic and hope to be back in touch in spring next year with another update. In the meantime, if you would like to be involved in the project as a volunteer when we get going, we are collecting people’s contact details so please do get in touch.

Please contact Tracey Low via tracey.low@mif.co.uk or 0161 238 7300

For any press enquiries, please contact Nadja Coyne on nadja.coyne@mif.co.uk

Dickson Despommier speaks

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At our launch event yesterday, on the last day of the Manchester International Festival, vertical farm expert, Dickson Despommier, gave a presentation about his research over the years: some of the problems facing global food production and how vertical farms can be part of the resolution.

It was a sold-out event, so if you didn’t make it, don’t fear – Steve Connor, CEO of Creative Concern, has made the slides from the presentation available on his blog right here.

Our vertical farm project is go!

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Today, (Sunday 17 July), at the Manchester International Festival Pavilion in Albert Square, we launch our Alpha Farm project. Chaired by Steve Connor, CEO of Creative Concern, the event features leading scientist and pioneer of the vertical farm movement, Dickson Despommier.
Here, we’ll be lifting the lid on our ambitious two-year project which will see a disused office block in Wythenshawe transformed into – we hope – a living, breathing vertical farm: Alpha Farm. By the time the next Manchester International Festival rolls around, we hope to be harvesting up some of the goods for you to try.
And it seems you’re as excited as we are: the event is fully sold out. If you’ve missed out this time, make sure you check back here for updates, and to learn how you can get involved.

Why Wythenshawe?

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Alpha House, Wythenshawe

Wythenshawe is a suburb to the south of Manchester. One of the original ‘garden cities’, it has suffered from negative publicity in recent years.
The Real Lives campaign, a partnership between Manchester City Council, Wythenshawe Regeneration Team (MCC), Wythenshawe Forum Trust, Parkway Green Housing Trust, St Modwen’s, Marketing Manchester, Willow Park Housing Trust and Creative Concern, aims to challenge these negative stereotypes by showing Manchester and the world Wythenshawe is a great place in which to live and work.
Critical to the campaign is the ambassador: currently around 60 individuals who live and work in the district, who are proud of Wythenshawe and its achievements. They help the partnership run the events and activities programme, planning for and influencing the future.
Because of Wythenshawe’s negative perceptions, people forget that it is actually one of the greenest suburbs, with the enormous Wythenshawe Park (and its community farm) at its heart. Alongside the current crop (sorry!) of allotment users, it made sense that the vertical farm should live here – and the campaign ambassadors may help us to find willing volunteers.
For more information about the Real Lives campaign, please visit the website

Inside Alpha House

Team Alpha

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An extensive study into the feasibility of this project, entitled Another day at the office, has been authored by URBED, Creative Concern, Capital Relations and Debbie Ellen. The report details the kind of challenges we are likely to encounter when transforming a derelict office building in Wythenshawe – complete with pigeons on the top floor! – into a successful vertical farm.
But, as you can imagine, such a lengthy document probably isn’t suitable for blog post reading, so if you’d like to see the report, please drop Sarah DOT Hiscock AT mif DOT co DOT uk a line and we’ll email you a copy.

What could we grow?

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Growing crops at The Plant, Chicago

Briefly, the four growing techniques can be defined as:
Aquaponics: the integration of hydroponics (growing plants without soil) and aquaculture (the cultivation of the natural produce of water such as fish or shellfish); the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a recirculating environment. Crops and fruiting plants suitable for this system are: Lettuce (leafy varieties), Herbs (e.g. Basil, Chives, Oregano), Spinach, Rocket, Watercress, Brassica salad leaves, Chinese leaves such as Pak Choi
Hydroponics: a technique of growing plants (without soil) in water containing dissolved nutrients. Paignton Zoo recently piloted a hydraponic ‘Verticrop’ system, growing a wide range of leaf crops (herbs, lettuce, rocket, spinach, chard) and some fruiting crops (tomatoes and strawberries).
Aeroponics: a plant system where the roots of plants are misted with a nutrient rich solution to promote growth without the use of a medium. This growing system was developed by NASA and has the potential to grow a wide range of crops. A brief look at the research literature on aeroponics (searching Science Direct) revealed that this method of growing food is largely confined to growing in space. The assumption has been made that any crop that can be grown using aquaponics or hydroponics could also be grown with this system, but this has not been verified.
Soil based growing: There are a small group of plants traditionally grown inside that could be grown inside the building in soil. These include tomatoes, cucumbers, chilli peppers, peppers and some herbs. The challenge will be to adequately deal with drainage in a building not designed to cope with growing plants, whilst also succeeding in growing food that justifies the investment in materials and power (e.g. a system to deal with indoor drainage issues).
Given the amount of outside space our generic office building offers, it would be more sustainable, and offer a more practical example to local people, to grow some of the food (e.g. root vegetables and larger, longer growing brassicas) outside.
One key challenge for this project is how to adapt the building to maximise available daylight inside the building so that plants grow well. Other factors affecting healthy growth of plants, using any system, are adequate (but not excessive), water supply, temperature control, ventilation for good air circulation, humidity control and electrical conductivity within the growing media/nutrient solution.