Graham Downs Community Farm

  • Community
  • 0 followers

About the Community

  • Forming
  • Rural

What we do

At the Graham Downs Community Farm…

We are a deeply cooperative and highly integrated, land-rooted community.

Our daily lives are woven into the land we steward—growing food, raising children, and bringing the long-neglected farm and its buildings back into productive health and vitality through environmentally-conscious and holistically healthy practices that inspire broader change.

We steward this land and its projects through inclusive, collaborative decision-making that honours each voice and deepens our capacity to work well together.

With courage, care, and generosity, we are co-creating a regenerative culture of shared responsibility, abundance, and mutual support that can endure beyond industrial systems.

We live this vision through practice, reflection, and collaboration.

Governance: egalitarian and deeply participatory, ensuring power is shared and decision-making is transparent, inclusive, and effective.

Daily Life: cooperative work, shared meals, mutual care and support, and rhythms balancing productivity and play; nurturing and supporting children

Land Stewardship: regenerative farming methods, permaculture and human scale management, clearing the overgrown and producing healthy food from the land along with medicine, fuel and materials for crafting and building.

Learning & Culture: ongoing training in communication, authentic relating, and conflict transformation

Infrastructure: appropriate-tech approaches and resilient systems that we can manage ourselves or with local resources, reducing dependency on fossil fuels and materials from across the globe; prioritising natural and recycled materials

Economy: self-provisioning as much as feasible in food, materials, labour, and culture-creation; extensive sharing of time, tools, and resources beyond transactional exchange, fostering a mindset of abundance and interdependence

Our Vision

We are here to create a cooperative way of life that interweaves people with land and one another!

Our Mission

We are here to create a cooperative way of life that interweaves people with land and one another!

  • Community type
  • Ecovillage
  • Commune
  • Intentional Neighborhoods
  • Activities
  • Services Business
  • Others
  • 9 Total members
  • Open to new members
  • Open to visitors
  • Open to volunteers
Total
9

How to join

We are currently seeking Provisional Members who may go on to become Long-term or Core Founding members once compatibility and commitment to vision and values has become evident.

Our process:

  1. Expression of Interest and Request for Information
  2. Submission of Application
  3. Zoom call with resident members and Trustees
  4. Reflection period
  5. Invitation to visit farm
  6. Reflection period
  7. Invitation to become Provisional Member
  8. Regular reflection and feedback sessions during Membership period
  9. Consensus process to extend, revise, end, or elevate Membership

Provisional Membership is an invitation to step into the early, real work of forming an intentional community.
It is a way of living on the land while participating in shared rhythms, relationships, and responsibilities, and discovering — through lived experience — whether a deeper or longer-term path in community feels right over time.
Provisional Members are important culture creators and carriers. How you show up — in communication, reliability, care, and contribution — helps establish what life here actually feels like, both for the current group and for future arrivals.
Provisional Membership is grounded in a shared vision and set of values that guide how we relate to one another, the land, and the wider world. Anyone wishing to move forward in the process is asked to read our Vision and Values document before completing the next step.
Provisional Membership may be offered for up to one year, with a process that includes reflection and assessment built into that time frame. Longer-term membership and a co-founding role is certainly possible, but depends on how things unfold and is not guaranteed.

Basic expectations or agreements for members

Visitors are welcome by prior arrangement! Please just email us to sort out a good time to visit.

Primary decision-making authority

  • All Community Members Together

The whole membership decides collectively.

Governance structure

  • Sociocratic/Circle-Based

Organized in circles or domains with distributed authority.

Economic model

  • Partial Income-Sharing

Members contribute a percentage of income to community funds.

Economic scenarios for this community

  • Members need to pay fees, dues, or similar to live there on a per month or per year basis
  • There is a labor obligation

Additional economic information

Monthly fees/dues: $600
Labor required: 10 hours/week
Members with pre-existing debt: Yes (some debt)
As we are in a re-forming stage, the internal economic system is still a work in progress. Our transitional system is one of regular community contributions that go towards basic maintenance and upkeep of the farm and its infrastructure, but does not meaningfully contribute towards the massive development expenses we expect for expanded housing in particular.

We hope to develop on-site businesses in time, including revival of a campground, and potentially developing an on-site milling operation from the massive stand of mature trees. Other options include running workshops and operating a value-added horticultural operation depending on the passions and capacities of future membership. In the meantime, all income is derived from off-site and we need to balance that reality against the needs of the land.

Land-based labour contributions include farm maintenance, animal husbandry, massive weed management efforts, orcharding, food preservation, communal gardening, roading, housing maintenance and development. Meetings, communication practices, and meals are all independent on this labor expectation.

Shared resources and amenities that are accessible to everyone in the community

Common House, Garden(s), Greenhouse(s), Vehicle Share, Workshop, Outbuilding(s), Tractor & Farm Equipment, Fire pit, Waterfront access

Frequency of communal meals

  • 2-5 times per week

Substance use culture

  • Substance use appears in public spaces but no pressure

Property status

  • Privately owned

Setting

  • Rural

Countryside locations with significant distance from urban centers.

Self-produced energy

  • Up to 33%

Energy sources used

  • Photovoltaic Solar
  • Biomass (from wood or other organic materials)

Self-produced food

  • 33 - 66%
  • Land area size
    60 acres

Reviews

Location

  • Tasman, New Zealand

Graham Downs Community Farm

Promoted Needs and Offers

Need
Need
  • Communities with Openings
6 months ago

Join us in the mountains of Western North Carolina

Coweeta Heritage Center/Talking Rock Farm is located in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Coweeta is located in a beautiful and diverse temperate rain forest. It feels very remote here yet we are just 12 miles from Franklin, NC. Winters can be mild. Coweeta is blessed with springs and a stream, pristine forests, and abundant wildlife. Power is provided by a hydro-electric system which is not connected to the grid. An organic garden and trout pond provide healthy food that is also shared with the local community. Hiking, kayaking, and other outdoor activities are just out the back door. Coweeta is looking for others who would like to join together to form an Intentional Community embracing the principles of Voluntary Simplicity. Simply put (no pun intended): We wish “to live simply so that others may simply live.” It is a recognition that nature provides us with valuable services and resources that we can use to enrich our lives. Utilizing local resources, appropriate technology, and working cooperatively, we can discover creative ways to meet our needs as “directly and simply as possible.”. An example of this, in the tradition of many Indigenous People”, is to gather, and use wildcrafted foods as part of our diet. There is great joy in going to nature’s grocery for our sustenance. Voluntary Simplicity is based on the recognition that “very little is needed to live well” and that “abundance is a state of mind.” Living lower on the economic ladder allows us more time and freedom to pursue other life goals: community and social engagement, family time, artistic or intellectual projects, more fulfilling employment, political participation, sustainable living, spiritual exploration, and more. According to the Voluntary Collective, “The grounding assumption of Voluntary Simplicity is that all human beings have the potential to live meaningful, free, happy and infinitely diverse lives while consuming no more than an equitable share of (the world’s) resources.” We affirm the need for a work/life balance, the right to a healthy environment and healthy food, and healthy community relationships supporting a diverse population. It is our responsibility as engineers of a new generation to make the changes that we want to see happen and pass this on to the next generations. We can’t wait for someone else to do this important work. Voluntary Simplicity is a quiet revolution that can change the world. As one person said, “we must be poets of our own lives and of a new generation.” We hope you will join us here at Coweeta or elsewhere on our journey to a healthier and more sustainable future! Temporary housing is available in a 27 foot trailer trailer with attached deck next to a creek while we build additional housing. Your basic living expenses (shelter, basic food items, power and water) are met through our market garden or other fundraising projects that you will participate in. You are expected to contribute a given amount of your time and energy to help grow our community and meet our financial obligations. Possible future plans include establishing a retreat center for healing our earth and each other. Work includes organic gardening, construction projects and other community building activities. Come join Coweeta and learn how to live lightly on the land and enjoy the Earth’s bounty! For more information, visit www.coweetaheritagecenter.com Contact [email protected] for a visit or more info.  Paul

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