Bath organic farm and veg box provider Middle Ground Growers, fresh from being hailed as one of the West of England’s best bee-friendly businesses, has unveiled plans to create more wildflowers, wetlands and pollinator trails.
Middle Ground Growers won a Bee Bold Award in June in recognition of its “regenerative pollinator-friendly” farming model, including planting over four-plus acres of wildflower meadows.
The business started in 2020 by farming organically on two acres at Bathampton.
It has since expanded and today farms 16 acres at Weston, producing food for 160 families and 12 retail outlets. The site boasts 800 fruit and nut trees as well as wildflower meadows.
Now it has bigger and bolder plans to create more wildflowers, wetlands, pollinator trails for the whole community to enjoy on site, as well as help to support other farms in the area to become pollinator paradises as part of the radical Pollinate Avon project.
This vision runs parallel to it continuing to provide fresh food for the local community.
The plans were revealed to West of England Metro Mayor Dan Norris, pictured above with Middle Ground Growers co-founder Hamish Evans, when he visited Middle Ground Growers yesterday.
The mayor, who wants to make the region the bee and pollinator capital of the UK, used his visit to learn how Middle Ground Growers’ five founders have harnessed their environment and bee-friendly actions to develop a thriving-but-responsible business.
This has included taking steps to scrap all single-use plastic packaging and bee-harming chemicals on site and in their supply chains.
They have also started delivering their veg boxes to the local community on e-cargo bikes charged from solar power generated on the farm.
Mayor Norris, who leads the West of England Combined Authority, said: “Bees and pollinators are amazing – their hard work means we have fresh fruit and veg to eat year-round, plus they keep our precious countryside looked after.
“It has been fantastic seeing the impact of projects like those led by Middle Ground Growers – a really worthy winner in my Bee Bold Awards.
“This is a unique, and really quite exciting project and organisation – feeding people across Bath and the wider region, but doing that in a way which supports bees and other pollinator superheroes at the same time.”
Hamish Evans added: "We’re really excited to witness the increasing biodiversity on this land as we move towards ecological food abundance on our farm – food for nature, for humans, for everyone.
“And we’re really buzzing to be working with the West of England Combined Authority and the Pollinate Avon project to facilitate more wildlife abundance on our site whilst working with other amazing land stewards in the valley.
“Our four objectives as Middle Ground Growers are to: cultivate, regenerate, educate and – last but not least – pollinate.
“We can take inspiration from our flying friends, giving life with each of their actions, and choose to become a force for good in this bioregion, and make it the pollinator capital of the country together.”
