Urban co-operative farm

What is Urban Co-operative Farm?

The Ur­ban Co-op­er­a­tive Farm con­cept orig­i­nated with the idea that par­tic­i­pants each get an area of a farm the size of a nor­mal al­lot­ment, with a pro­fes­sional grower (whom we call a Per­sonal Farmer) look­ing af­ter it. The Per­sonal Farmer cul­ti­vates your piece of the farm and keeps you up to date with what is be­ing done there.

The agreed mon­e­tary amount for the next sea­son’s har­vest is paid in ad­vance by the mem­bers to the farmer; usu­ally in the be­gin­ning of the spring.  The sea­sonal prod­ucts are then de­liv­ered once a week to the food co-op­er­a­tive.

Perho & Co-operative Farm of Herttoniemi

Perho started a part­ner­ship of agri­cul­tural co-op­er­a­tion with co-op­er­a­tive farm of Hert­toniemi in the spring of 2013.  Since then, ev­ery spring, Perho pur­chases fif­teen shares of sea­sonal prod­ucts from the farm. The cost of one share is ap­prox­i­mately 450 eu­ros.

Mem­bers of the co-op­er­a­tive farm have the op­por­tu­nity to par­tic­i­pate in the field work and the dis­tri­bu­tion of the har­vest. Co-op­er­a­tive farm of Hert­toniemi is lo­cated in Ko­rso, (in city of Van­taa). Two pro­fes­sional farm­ers are hired to plan and or­ga­nize the field work to­gether with mem­bers.

Land sur­face area of the field is about 3 hectares; in ad­di­tion there is also a pri­vate herb gar­den and a green­house. Cul­ti­va­tion is car­ried out or­gan­i­cally, so all the prod­ucts are or­ganic and bio­dy­namic. Va­ri­eties of prod­ucts are cul­ti­vated in the field: pota­toes, onions, broad beans, sal­ads, and a num­ber of root veg­eta­bles (over 40 va­ri­eties).

Fur­ther in­for­ma­tion about co-op­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture and co-op­er­a­tive farm of Hert­toniemi: http://ruokao­su­uskunta.fi/eng­lish/

Sustainable development action-plan competition

On it’s 10 year an­niver­sary event on 12.11.2014, OKKA-foun­da­tion an­nounced Perho as a win­ner of the na­tion­ally or­ga­nized sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment ac­tion-plan com­ple­tion.  Com­mu­nity Sup­ported Agri­cul­ture was the theme of Perho’s ac­tion plan.