Saturday, October 1, 2016 - 09:00 to Sunday, October 2, 2016 - 14:00Tombreck Farm, Lawers, Perthshire, PH15 2PBPrice: £40 plus booking fee
Living a good life on hard land - an event to explore the tools and techniques for an ecologically sustainable future for farming in Scotland
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This event will bring together farmers, growers, crofters, orchardists, agroecologists, fabricators, tinkerers, engineers and IT programmers to demonstrate and share tools, skills & ideas. Over the two days there will be field demonstrations, practical workshops, seminars, entertainment, good food, local ale and celebration. We will adopt a participatory 'hack' style approach - as well as learning new skills and seeing farm tools in action, we will be putting our collective heads together to think about and design better ways for small scale upland farming in Scotland.
Farm Hack is a community of farmers and growers developing appropriate tools for small scale ecological farming. Farm Hack is founded on the principles of open source technology meaning that tools and techniques are shared and developed on the online forum. It was founded by The Greenhorns in the U.S. in 2010 and has since held regular events to bring the community together on farms and in workshops across the USA. In 2015 the Landworkers Alliance held the first UK FarmHack in Gloucestershire and we were inspired to host one in Scotland. FarmHack Scotland is being organised by a team of volunteers from across the food sovereignty movement, supported by Common Good Food.
Programme
This is a draft programme and subject to change.You can read more about the individual workshops and facilitators here.
Friday 30th - Arrive any time after 5pm, set up camp and settle into Tombreck! There will be a pot of soup on the go in the kitchen between 6 and 8pm, feel free to also bring a dish, some bread or cheese for others to dip into as they arrive.
8pm - showing of The Greenhorns documentary, exploring the lives of America's young farmers movement.
Saturday 31st
Breakfast from 8 - 9am, registration desk open.
9.30am - Welcome to Farm Hack Scotland. Introductions, what are we trying to achieve?
10.30am Field demonstrations, including horse-drawn field equipment with Biochar demonstrations, blacksmithing with the Grass Roots Turf Roof University, and innovative market gardening tools.
12:30 Lunch
1.30pm Workshop session 1
- Scything
- Sausage making
- Land Access in Scotland
- Farm engine maintainence and mechanics
- Green woodworking
3.30pm Workshop session 2
- Blacksmithing
- Handy fencing skills
- How do design a smallholding
- Horse-drawn implements with Ed Hamer of Chagfood
- Design solutions with MAKlab
5pm Plenary session
7pm Dinner
8.30pm Music and dancing with The Chaos Quartet - please bring your own drinks for the evening party, and an instrument to join in the late night ceilidh!
Sunday 1st October
9 - 10am Breakfast
10am - Overview of the day and introduction to Open Space - do you have a farming problem we can hack? Is there a burning issue you'd like to discuss? This is your chance to get the Farm Hack crew to sit down and talk it through!
10.45 am - Open space session 1
11.45 Open space session 2
12.40 Presentations from open space, finished hacks and auction.
13.30 Lunch. Depature from the site by 3pm.
Got any questions? Get in touch with us at [email protected]. or call Mags Hall on 07562 604140
Important Information
CHILDREN: This is a farm-work focused event, and we are not planning on running children's activities. However, we do not wish to exclude people with families so have provided the option of a child's ticket. You will need to supervise and entertain your own children thoughout the day though! Many of the workshops will be suitable for older teenagers with an interest in food and farming.
DOGS: As Tombreck is a working farm with sheep and free-range poultry, we unfortunately cannot allow attendees to bring dogs with them. Sorry.
CAMPERVANS: There is a very small amount of space available for campervans. If you would like to bring one along please email us at [email protected] prior to or as soon as you have bought your ticket - it's first come first served on spaces!
TRANSPORT: Tombreck is in a beautiful but remove spot in Perthshire, and unfortunately there is little to none public transport. We will be organising car shares nearer the time, and hope to provide a free mini bus from the nearest bus and / or train station. We will send round information for both these over the coming weeks to all attendees.