Funding Enlightened Agriculture (FEA)is a network of organisations and individuals who wish to support agricultural and food production practices that are economically sound, socially just and promote long-term protection of natural resources.
FEA’s mission is to support and finance British small and medium-sized enterprises in the sustainable food/farming sector, and to explore and solve some of the issues around obtaining support and investment at an early stage.
Over recent decades, food production systems have developed to involve far fewer workers, longer supply chains and unhealthy dependence on imported food. There are only 150,000 farmers left in the UK and their average age is around 60.
New social models for farming are needed, that will attract the young and groups working cooperatively to create both financially and socially successful businesses on the land.
In addition to providing new livelihoods, we need to develop food production systems that benefit rather than harm the environment. There is now an urgency in the need to advance sustainable agriculture in the face of climate change, resource destruction, and food insecurity.
For more information on the FEA click here.
The Loans for Enlightened Agriculture Programme (LEAP)offers you a mix of affordable loans and grants, side by side with a comprehensive mentoring programme and hands on approach.
LEAP is a new model for financing and supporting food and farming enterprises that puts people and the biosphere at the heart of our food system. LEAP will provide a critical next step for community based agroecological enterprises that have relied on grant funding to date and who have had nowhere to go to finance their onward development.
For more information on the LEAP programme click here.
