Our Purpose

• Reducing social isolation, improving health and wellbeing.
• The advancement of education, the advancement of environmental protection or improvement.

Loneliness is a killer: it increases obesity, diabetes, and depression. It atomises inclusion and removes empathic relationships, So how do we come together as a community and how do we share our time together in constructive ways? Particularly in a rural area, where the nearest town is 15 minutes’ drive away. Many teenagers and our elders are stuck, as they cannot drive. How can we create a sense of belonging? How do we make friends and meet our neighbours?

There are 17,000 lonely old people in Suffolk. There is a commensurate amount of lonely young people.

To reduce this and to bring people together, iFarm provides access for all, in a welcoming environment, to enjoy: educational classes, restorative and regenerative nature based activities, including: community supported agriculture, workshops, arts, crafts and social activities. iFarm

• Offers spaces to: make and create, learning about renewable energy and alternative sustainable technology infrastructure, like green building materials.

• Grows (organic) food, offering the local community access to fresh, affordable locally grown produce.
• Promotes social inclusion and reduces loneliness by providing warm (& cool) spaces at The White Horse, #MeetUpMondays, arts, crafts and entertainment.
• Provides education, training and employment opportunities.
• Delivers participatory conservation activities, education and Community Climate Action planning to work together to address the Climate & Ecological Emergency.

”An epidemic of loneliness is sweeping the world. Once considered an affliction of older people, it is now tormenting people of other generations. The consequences are devastating. That loneliness (by which I mean the pain inflicted by involuntary isolation) causes unhappiness goes without saying. It is strongly associated with depression, paranoia, anxiety, insomnia, fear and the perception of threat. It also has major impacts on our physical health, partly because it enhances production of the stress hormone cortisol, which suppresses the immune system. Chronic loneliness has been linked to dementia, high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes, lowered resistance to viruses – even a higher rate of accidents. Some research suggests it has a comparable impact on physical health to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, and raises the risk of early death by 26 per cent.*

Monbiot, George.Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis. * Claire Niedzwiedz, ‘Loneliness Is an Issue of Inequality’, Centre for Research on Environment, Society and Health, 28 July 2016, at cresh.org.uk.

”For young Britons, loneliness is an epidemic – and they are even more likely to fall victim to its insidious dangers than the elderly. Last month, the Office for National Statistics found Britain to be the loneliness capital of Europe. We’re less likely to have strong friendships or know our neighbours than residents anywhere else in the EU, and a relatively high proportion of us have no one to rely on in a crisis.

Natalie Gil‘Loneliness: A Silent Plague that Is Hurting Young People’, Guardian, 20 July 2014.