Aviva Community Fund provided £2,162 of match funding
Rooted in Hull Bee Barge
Hull, England, United Kingdom
Aim
To install and maintain a Bee Barge on the River Hull that would contain beehives and local plants that would be attractive to pollinators
Rooted in Hull is run as a not for profit business with the following charitable objectives:
- To promote for the benefit of the inhabitants of Kingston upon Hull and surrounding areas, the provision of facilities for recreation or other leisure time.
- For the public benefit, to advance education in subjects relating in particular but not exclusively to sustainable development, local food production, diet and the protection, preservation, enhancement and rehabilitation of the environment.
- To provide opportunities for social interaction and support, and to provide education and training opportunities to develop the capacity and skills of the inhabitants of Kingston upon Hull and surrounding areas in such a way that they are better able to identify, and help meet, their needs and participate more fully in society.
As an innovative urban farm in the heart of the city, we host approximately 200+ visitors each week, including regular volunteers and groups supported by sessional workers.
The Bee Barge is an ambitious project where we would develop a barge that could be moored next to the Rooted in Hull site on the River Hull (this would be set apart from the thoroughfare of the main waterway so would not cause disruption to existing river traffic).
Our barge would contain beehives as well as planters hosting specific local wildflowers and plants that would be attractive to pollinators. It would also be the base for a number of experimental food focussed activities, including the development of a samphire (a salt-marsh vegetable) growing plot, and a place to seed British native mussels (a highly sustainable low-impact food source that is renowned for carbon capture).
This blue carbon approach has a small footprint, and in regenerative agriculture terms would act as a carbon and nitrogen sink to reduce greenhouse gases, have next to zero input as would require no freshwater, fertilisers or feed, and would assist in rebuilding the local marine ecosystem.
Because the River Hull is tidal, this would also be an excellent opportunity to monitor local water quality and understand how aqua-ecology could provide low-cost food to communities in a predominantly deprived city that sits below sea-level and is at significant risk of flooding due to climate change.
Rooted in Hull works with many local VCSE organisations that want to learn from our work and this would provide further training and learning opportunities to interested groups as well as expand our ability to work with more community organisations.
We would seek advice from the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust who regularly visit the site to exchange knowledge and are interested in the development of this project. We also work with Beverley Beekeepers Association and will use the beehives to monitor bee health. Hull Food Partnership will promote our project to a network of 300+ contacts.
The Rooted in Hull site is entirely off-grid, using a suite of solar panels for electricity (excess energy is fed back to the manufacturing plant based next door, to help power heavy industrial use).
An extensive rainwater harvesting system and an on-site waste-water treatment unit uses a reed-bed system. There are four converted shipping containers and over 30 raised beds in place, along with poly-tunnels and a small aquaponics system. The farm is designed to be structurally mobile and self-sufficient.
As it is modular, this allows for phased development as ideas develop and funding is secured. Mobility is an essential part of the project, allowing it to make the most of vacant development sites in the area and be reactive to the changing needs of the city to create productive empty spaces.
We use the infrastructure of the site to teach visitors how sustainable farming is possible in cities.
We'd be grateful for any funding to support our project and are always happy to show people around the site and demonstrate the practice and principles that going into maintaining our sustainable urban farm.
This project successfully funded on 13th May 2022