We’re Hiring! - Co-Head Grower
Job Description
Hours: 32 hours per week (4 full days, Tuesday to Friday, with occasional Saturdays). We may be open to a job-share arrangement in the right circumstances)
Contract: 12 months (with option to extend) - starting January/ February 2025
Salary: £20,966.40 (Real Living-Wage, £12.60 p/hour)
Additional benefits: Landworkers Alliance, Farming Connect and CSA Network UK membership, training and exchange, networks, unlimited FREE veg and other foodstuffs, a part in a vibrant community of practice.
PLEASE NOTE: At present, accommodation is not included with this role, though we can support to find accommodation nearby.
Deadline: 5pm on Friday 6th December 2024
Interviews will be held on the farm on Saturday 14th December 2024. If you are unable to attend on that day, do let us know and we may be able to find another time.
Glasbren is a non-profit, Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) project based at Parc yr Arglwydd | Lords Park farm in Llansteffan, southwest Carmarthenshire, Wales. Established as a Community-Interest Company in 2019, we have been producing agroecological vegetables for our CSA membership, welcoming volunteers and running courses, workshops and seasonal events for five years. Through the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, we explored solidarity models to make our food accessible to low-income, food insecure households. We built an engaged community of practice, a supportive following and a committed veg box membership.
We believe that growing food together is a powerful way for us to breathe new life into our relationship with the living world. Food binds us to our soil, seed and our local land. It could be a vehicle for an authentic place-based culture and resilient, supportive communities. It also empowers us to heal ourselves and our planet in the face of climate chaos and biodiversity collapse.
In 2023, we were selected as the new tenants of the 134-acre National Trust farm, Parc yr Arglwydd | Lords Park farm, with a mandate to work for nature, people, planet, a robust business plan and a vision for how we could grow the work we’ve been doing the past five years - feeding more people, stewarding more land for nature and unlocking the potential of farms like this for community-scale climate action, building community and reconnecting to food, land and culture.
We are looking for a Co-Head Grower to be a part of that.
You would join us in the early stages of an exciting new chapter for Glasbren, with the opportunity to build a flagship for the National Trust’s new vision, a beacon of community-supported agroecology, a peaceful and welcoming community hub and a centre for regenerative culture. This role is a key part of growing into this new chapter and is an exciting opportunity to help fulfill its limitless potential - taking our CSA veg box scheme to a new level, developing new markets, and expanding our food production to meet a growing demand. After a fallow year as we transition, we want to come back in 2025 better than ever, on this new site, with more space and better infrastructure, growing our membership and our harvest year on year. We also want to grow into new markets, supplying local restaurants, our village store and the Welsh Veg into Schools project.
THE ROLE
We are looking for a Co-Head grower, to work with our Project Lead and directors, with alot of market gardening experience between them, to coordinate the production of vegetables, herbs, fruits and salads, using agroecological principles, for our CSA weekly member shares, wholesale customers, our farm shop and for our events. You will take the reins on delivering a crop plan and horticulture strategy and responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the horticultural wing of the project. It’s an opportunity to join us at the beginning of a new chapter, to experiment, innovate and shape this role into the future. We are looking for someone passionate about local food systems, community-scale agriculture and dedicated to growing high-quality, nutrient dense vegetables all-year round, and who resonates with the spirit, values and mission of Glasbren.
Responsibilities include but not limited to:
Crop planning and site planning for human-scale, field-scale and protected cropping.
Coordinating seasonal workers, volunteers and other staff members to deliver on the growing plan each week.
Sowing, propagation and plant care
Compost systems, biofertilisers, soil amendments.
Water systems and irrigation
Seed orders, seed saving
Machinery and tractor work
Coordinating the harvest team on CSA harvest day
Managing wholesale orders and issuing invoices to wholesale clients
Working with the Packing Shed manager to plan the weekly veg share contents.
Coordinating buy-in of additional produce with the Packing Shed manager
Co-managing and streamlining the market garden budget
Record keeping - harvest yields, weather, sowing and harvesting dates etc. - quality control
Communicating with volunteers, visitors and CSA members about the practices, approaches and techniques we use to grow food at Glasbren.
Developing and innovating veg producing systems to be more productive, more regenerative and more resilient.
Maintenance and care of key horticulture infrastructure (polytunnels, water systems, machinery, tools etc) & ensuring the site is safe and presentable to visitors.
Occasional deliveries
Demonstrating and communicating biodiverse and productive agroecological veg production systems.
Relationships with wholesale customers and development of new markets.
Training assistant growers, seasonal workers and Glasbrentices
Acting as an ambassador for Glasbren’s vision for Lord’s Park farm and for small-scale, agroecological community agriculture
EXPERIENCE
Essential
Hands-on horticulture experience growing field-scale and protected cropping fruit and vegetables, no-dig and low-till methods
practical experience of organic crop management, including rotations, fertility building and plant raising.
Crop plan design and implementation, successional cropping, catch-cropping and companion planting.
Knowledge of plant health, disease & pest control.
A working knowledge of permaculture, agroecology and biointensive principles
Clean driver's license
Accurate record keeping, quality control and attention to detail
Desirable
Experience with tractor work and machinery
Experience working in the CSA model or other community food models
Ability to communicate to the public, speak publicly and demonstrate the why’s of what we do.
Experience with farmers markets
Knowledge and experience of seed saving techniques
Welsh speaking or interested in learning to speak some Welsh
Knowledge in developing perennial food growing systems, tree cropping, fruit tree maintenance, orchard craft
Experience of relevant basic mechanics, carpentry, plumbing, building and/or repairs
Biofertilisers, JADAM, native microbes.
An interest in developing additional stacked enterprises, such as commercial seed crops or cut flowers.
THE WORKING ENVIRONMENT & CULTURE
We want to cultivate a culture of care, respect and solidarity here at the farm. Through weekly check-in’s and team meetings, we’d aim to support fellow team members, share struggles and challenges and understand how to best work together. This role is an opportunity to support an exciting new chapter for Glasbren, but also for personal and professional development and the chance to be part of a passionate, driven, caring team, a thriving local food network and a movement for agroecology and food sovereignty.
Though some of the work will be solitary, you’ll be working in day-to-day relationship with Abel, our Project Lead, and often with our team of directors, HelpX/Wwoof exchange volunteers, our weekly local volunteers and seasonal workers. The farm is often abuzz with activity and is very public-facing - the Wales Coast path even runs right past the veg box packing shed!
Weekly volunteer days bring life and vibrancy to the farm, as do our monthly Community Farm Days. Whilst these are not part of the formal role, they are an essential part of the spirit of the project, and a great opportunity to experience the benefits of community-scale food production for wellbeing, resilience and a sense of togetherness. We’d strongly encourage whoever takes on this role to participate in these days, and in the Glasbren community, and enjoy the multiple benefits of our community for themselves. Our CSA is about far more than just a veg box scheme, and our hope is that whoever takes on this role, can embrace and support the bigger picture of why we’re doing this for food security, food systems change and for our community.
HOW TO APPLY:
To apply, send a cover letter and CV to hello@glasbren.org.uk, with the subject header ‘GROWER ROLE APPLICATION’. Please include 2 references. Deadline for applications: Friday 6th December 2024 at 5pm.
