CRESC researcher, Niamh Moore, in collaborations with colleagues at a number of other universities, has been successful in gaining funding from the cross-council Connected Communities research programme led by the AHRC, to research community food growing practices. 

Two year-long projects will draw on Niamh’s involvement in a south Manchester allotment with local young lesbian and bisexual women (http://www.likt.org.uk/activities/allotment).

One project will focus on histories of community food growing, and the second will focus specifically on the role of community food growing in supporting health and well-being.

Both projects will be novel in involving young women, who have recently had training in peer-research, as co-researchers. They will interview each other, and other allotmenters, take photos of their work and play, document the process of organising and planning the allotment, and trace the history of the site in south Manchester through local records, as well as reflecting on the relationship between working outdoors, growing and then eating food collectively, the making of community, and their sense of health and well-being.

 Two other sites involved in this project with Professor Neil Ravenscroft (PI) from University of Brighton, and Dr Ed Welch at University of Durham, are Spitalfields City Farm (http://www.spitalfieldscityfarm.org) and Tablehurst and Plawhatch Community Farm in Sussex (http://www.tablehurstandplawhatch.co.uk)

The second project focusing on health and well-being is in collaboration with Professor Andrew Church (Brighton), Professor Neil Ravenscroft (Brighton), Professor Richard Mitchell (Glasgow) and Dr Anne Ellaway (Glasgow).