🇮🇪 ESC Volunteering in Ireland 🥕 Community Supported Agriculture at an Ecovillage Farm 🌱

Description

Based at an Ecovillage community farm, you'll experience a full eight-month cycle of organic vegetable production and distribution, and acquire a set of skills to grow food for a community or small business in an environmentally beneficial way. Regular tasks include sowing seeds, transplanting, watering, weeding, and harvesting for a wide range of crops. While the primary commitment is hands-on agricultural work, some of the volunteers time is also dedicated to communal cooking, and volunteers may also participate in occasional other tasks such as preservation of surplus crops, assisting with building projects, promoting the farm on social media, or other farm-related activities according to their interests. Volunteers will also be immersed in Ecovillage life and experience community living, collaborative governance and decision making. All this combines to provide a lived example of practical activism as a direct response to climate change, loss of biodiversity, and over-consumption.

Accommodation, food and transport arrangements

Accommodation is in shared housing with other volunteers. Membership of our Community Farm allows you to take as many organic, local vegetables as you need, and you also have credit for monthly bulk wholefoods orders, and our digital farmers market for local produce. Volunteers share cooking tasks. Everything in the village is within a 5 min walk, including a pharmacist, bookshop, cafe, and small supermarket. Bicycles are provided to get around locally. Sporadic train and bus services connect Cloughjordan to major cities and nearby towns, and local residents are also willing to provide lifts.

Training during the activity

All volunteers are provided with induction and orientation on first arrival. Our farm production team train volunteers in all aspects of practical growing skills, and are on hand to answer questions on a day to day basis. Occasionally volunteers also attend specialised workshops on relevant topics such as cooking with seasonal produce, composting, seed saving, and permaculture, and also attend group sessions with a focus on Nonviolent Communication, group dynamics and personal development. Other classes are available locally, such as yoga, martial arts, and Irish music.

Participant profile

If you want to spend 8 months growing vegetables and you like to put your hands in the soil this project is for you! If you're passionate about regenerative farming and want to learn more skills, even better. You may also be interested in healthy food and local food systems, and you might be keen to learn practical skills to address the climate and biodiversity crisis while experiencing community life in an Ecovillage. We welcome self-motivated individuals who enjoy working as part of a team, and would like more experience of working cooperatively. Please only apply if you really want to spend your time growing vegetables on a community farm. If your main motivation is improving your English then this might not be a great fit for you.

Activity details

Activity type

Individual volunteering

Activity dates

From 16/02/2027 to 15/08/2027

Location

Cloughjordan, Ireland

Deadline

15/10/2026

Project code

2026-1-IE01-ESC51-VTJ-000402023

Topics

Looking for participants from

26 countries can apply. The activity takes place in 🇮🇪 Ireland.