Meanwood Valley Urban Farm is a City farm

City farm

City farms are usually community-run projects in urban areas, which involve people interacting and working with animals and plants. They aim to improve community relationships and offer an awareness of agriculture and farming to people who live in built-up areas.They vary in size from small plots...

 in Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

 established in 1980. The farm is sited on Meanwood Beck

Meanwood Beck

The Meanwood Beck is a stream in West Yorkshire, England, which flows through Adel, Meanwood and Sheepscar into the River Aire in central Leeds. In older texts it was sometimes referred to as the Sheepscar Beck, however that term has fallen out of use....

 and occupies 16.5 acres (66,773.2 m²). The entrance is on Sugarwell Road, LS7 2QG. It demonstrates organic farming

Organic farming

Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...

 and sustainability

Sustainability

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...

 to members of the public, and introduces schoolchildren to various aspects of farming and the environment. The animals farmed are Dexter cows, sheep (Whitefaced Woodland

Whitefaced Woodland

The Whitefaced Woodland is a sheep breed from the South Pennines in England, also known as the Penistone sheep after the Yorkshire town where sheep sales have been held since 1699. It is thought to be closely related to the Swaledale and the Lonk...

 and Southdown

Southdown (sheep)

The Southdown is a small, dual purpose British sheep but is raised primarily for meat. The Southdown breed was originally bred by John Ellman of Glynde, near Lewes, East Sussex about 200 years ago. His work was continued by Jonas Webb of Babraham in Cambridgeshire who developed the larger animal...

), rabbits and hens. They also have two donkeys and some pigs.

In 1999 a timber frame building called the Epicentre was opened as a resource for the farm and the local community, with offices, exhibition and meeting rooms. It is an example of Walter Segal

Walter Segal

Walter Segal was an architect who developed a system of self-build housing.The Segal method is based on traditional timber frame methods modified to use standard materials available today. It eliminates the need for wet trades such as bricklaying and plastering resulting in a light-weight methods...

 system of self-build

Self-build

"Self-build" is the practice of creating an individual home for yourself through a variety of different methods. The term 'self build' is specifically used in the UK and Ireland when an individual obtains a building plot and then builds their own home on that plot...

 construction which is environmentally friendly in its use of materials and energy. It is a low-energy building using the principle of solar gain

Solar gain

Solar gain refers to the increase in temperature in a space, object or structure that results from solar radiation...

. It has a turf roof and uses a reed bed

Reed bed

Reed beds are natural habitats found in floodplains, waterlogged depressions andestuaries. Reed beds are part of a succession from young reed colonising open water or wet ground through a gradation of increasingly dry ground...

drainage treatment system.