Farm:Shop — London’s Urban Farming Hub

Farms seem to fit in everywhere these days. We already spent articles on urban rooftop farms, and stuff like this farm-on-wheels. City Breaths reports about a farm installed in a shop in Hackney, London. From the street Farm:shop looks like a regular shop but behind the façade a team of volunteers grows food here. Calling themselves “the world’s first urban farming hub”, Farm:shop is a workspace, cafe and events venue combined with a farm that produces living and breathing food — literally a farm-in-a-shop.

Since 2011 the former derelict shop has become the meeting spot for urban farmers. It’s a place where they can exchange thoughts about farming in urban environments, drink a coffee and enjoy freshly cooked and produced food. Because, obviously, all food that is served in the Farm:shop bar is produced in-house. Exhibitions at Farm:shop change with the seasons and nature takes its course. The shop people are currently growing food in the following ways: ‘Aquaponics Micro Fish Farming’, ‘High-Tech Indoor Allotment’, ‘Rooftop Chicken Coop’ and ‘Polytunnel’.

From its location in London, Farm:shop tries to build a network that aims to excite and inspire city dwellers to grow their own food, fabric and medicine and make an income doing this. Besides, the platform wants to create links between farms on the country-side and communities in cities, and create a commercial retail network out of this. For now, however, Farm:shop is a hang-out for urban farmers in London that like to enjoy their organic coffee together. From that perspective the concept brilliantly fits with our collection of articles about cross-overs between the coffee bar and other urban functions — Everything Is A Coffee Bar.