Capital Growth’s Harvest-ometer – recording and predicting harvests
Capital Growth is a network of over 2000 growing spaces which vary, from small food growing spaces in schools to larger allotment plots with communal or individual growing, right up to commercial or semi-commercial horticultural sites and farms. ‘Growing a Million Meals for London’ was a campaign launched by Capital Growth in 2013, to help and inspire more Londoners to grow delicious, healthy food in their growing spaces, schools or back gardens. Inspired by Vertical Veg, whose founder grew £600 of food on his balcony, they wanted to investigate the potential of the Capital Growth network to grow food particularly at a time of rising food prices and increasing food poverty.
Using the concept of growing a ‘meal’ they encouraged food growing groups to pledge to grow a certain amount of food towards the overall target. This could then be recorded using and online tool named the Harvest-ometer, to make it easy to record harvest figures and to convert them into a financial value. Alongside this there were various competitions and promotions that encouraged people to record their harvest.
Capital Growth has continued to work with groups to collect date through the Harvest-ometer in 2014 and 2015; finding from 2014 have reinforced the conclusions of the first year and show the potential of the community food growing network.
The data collected was used together with existing data on the different types and size of food growing spaces in the Capital Growth network. The results include:
- 160 groups recording harvest data regularly in 2013 and 90 in 2014
- 21 tonnes of food recorded in 2013 worth approximately £150k and a further 19 tonnes worth £137k in 2014.
- Average productivity across the two years was roughly the same (£3.49 in 2013 and £3.47 in 2014)
- Over 500 000 meal portions grown and recorded in 2013 and 2014 seasons.
The key findings are summarised below and more detail can be found in the Reaping Rewards Report, published in 2014.
The data has helped to make predications of the potential of the community food growing network to produce fruit and vegetables, which is estimated at over £.15 million pounds of produce with a weight of 357 tonnes. It has also provided an insight into the most popular produce to grow and the ways in which growers could be supported to grow more food for the benefit of London’s communities. The data has proved useful with funders and policy makers and has also provided ideas for further research.
Source: Capital Growth. 2014. Reaping Rewards: Can communities grow a million meals for London?. London: Sustain.
Links
http://www.verticalveg.org.uk/