About us

This thing started with the idea of developing and sharing skills for living.  The real skills you'd need in the event of a breakdown of society - say as a result of a zombie apocalypse or the rise of dystopian politics.  

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This was a pretty broad remit, so we narrowed it down to:

• growing our own fruit and vegetables

• rearing our own livestock 

• developing survival skills

• exploring how technology can help with this

• sharing what we learn to encourage others in similar ventures

• helping new generations gain a better understanding of where their food comes from.

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A few years ago we started a 'practice' smallholding, using it as a kind of lab environment for various projects.  We got some chickens, built a cob oven, set up an aquaponics system, got into solar energy, and looked at automation. 

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The following year we added a polytunnel, learned about beekeeping, and started growing a variety of crops to see what worked.  We fought running battles with slugs, discovered the joys of growing chillies, and had our first proper harvests.

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We set up Natural Progress in response to interest from the local community for natural food and products with provenance - ethically produced from known, mostly organic sources.  We started small, selling though word of mouth and via an online shop, trying out different ideas to see what worked.

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We learn from failing often, understand ourselves a little bit more, argue a lot, but mostly through bloody minded determination, inch ever closer towards our goals.

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Pete and Ayesha

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