Urban Co-operative FarmFood co-op takes new members for the year 2020!

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.

Nobody can afford to hire a grower on their own, but in the Urban Co-operative Farm concept about 200 people hire one collectively which makes it possible. The grower doesn’t cultivate one are, but a hectare. Participants can volunteer to work in the field anytime they wish. Households invest an annual fee in advance and the harvest from the field is distributed amongst participants weekly during the harvest season.

About us

• we're about 200 households, organised into a co-operative (Herttoniemi food co-operative)

• our way of operating is similar to Community Supported Agriculture, with the difference being that we don't work with an existing farm but rent a field (about 30 km from central Helsinki) and employ professional growers to farm it

• each member (household) pays a joining fee and a yearly harvest fee (year it is 351 €). These are collected in the early spring to enable us to make the necessary investments such as seeds and tools and to hire growers in advance of the growing season

• we have tree full-time growers and several interns from agriculture/gardening schools

• there is no obligation for members to work for the co-op, but members are welcome to help out in the field every week

• during the harvest season, vegetables are transported weekly from the field into the city where we currently have two distribution spaces, and members come to pick up their share. Distribution is handled by the growers and volunteers from the co-op.

• the crop this year has been good and varied. Each week we get several kilos of produce each, for example carrots, cabbage, green beans, leeks, corn, zucchini, lettuce, herbs, potatoes, beetroot...all organically grown, of course!

• each growing season ends with a traditional harvest party where we all gather to cook and eat together

Join the Food Co-operative

Food co-op takes new members for the year 2020!

The membership fee for the co-operative is 70 €* plus a joining fee of 100 €. In 2020 the annual fee is 351 €.

Join today!

* This is returned to you if you resign from the co-operative

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

is an agricultural model in which a group of consumers collectively pays a farmer at the start of the growing season, enabling the farmer to make the necessary purchases and investments to grow food for them. Usually CSA members also help the farmer out by volunteering on the farm. In the CSA model, the farmer doesn’t have to spend time or money marketing their products or negotiating with wholesalers and retailers. Consumers on the other hand get fresh, high-quality produce that they know the origin of, and have the opportunity to see what  a farmer’s working day looks like. The consumers share the risk with the farmer: if there is a bad crop, the shares of the harvest are smaller. There are about 10 000 farms operating a CSA model in the US and the model is also in use in many European countries. The first CSAs were established in Japan in the 1960a. For more information about CSAs: www.localharvest.org/csa

Together everything is possible!

New members welcome!

And read more about Urban Co-op Farm and Foodcircle. Thanks Ann!