The Ecological Land Cooperative

Who we are

The Ecological Land Cooperative (ELC) is a social enterprise with an office in Bristol. We exist to create affordable access to land for new entrants to ecological agriculture and mixed farming. Following the successful delivery of our first two sites, clusters of three ecological small farms in Mid Devon and East Sussex, we have also purchased and are in the process of developing three further sites across the South of England and Wales. We have an ambitious plan to add five more smallholding sites to our portfolio over the next four years.

We currently employ eight part-time staff, and strategic direction is led by ELC’s Board which currently has five members who are elected from the membership at the Cooperative’s AGM. There are currently 508 members of the Cooperative.

We believe that ecological land-based livelihoods can help solve some of the most pressing environmental and social problems of our time, and we seek to marry ecological principles with sound business practice to help more people live and work on the land. This type of small-scale ecological production delivers a number of benefits including protecting the environment, building vibrant rural communities, providing employment and training, and supporting healthy diets through affordable, local produce.

Beyond this, our vision is one where land is valued and used as a means to enhance our collective good. At present, land in the UK is the target of financial speculation; in contrast, our model champions a collective, ecological and cooperative vision of land ownership and land use.