Rebuild a storm wrecked organic veg growing farm

I support my family by running a vegetable growing enterprise providing organic food for 4 local box schemes, local restaurants and a wholesaler. Feeding hundreds of people.

Storm Ciara has completely destroyed our polytunnels, its the latest in a series of storms that have reduced our production to zero. See video and scroll down for more info and photos. Thanks.



This is a pretty serious blow and its thrown the future of the growing operation into chaos. We have 6 polytunnels 4 of which have now been taken out of production.

We are asking for urgent assistance to get the polytunnels up and growing again now so we can start this season with a fighting chance.

We have started the reconstruction process from the storm damage we suffered before Christmas.  The recent storm Ciara has now destroyed a further two more polytunnels and collapsed one of the frames..

We have quite a clear picture of the costs and so the value we are asking for is a firm estimate for the rebuilding of two of our 62m polytunnels.

Our intention is to try to get the funds within one month and get the tunnels rebuilt by the end of March.

Please Share if you can. Scroll down for more information.



More about me, my family, the business and the farm:


My name is Frank Gundry-White, I'm a trained vegetable grower, i did an apprenticeship in organic horticulture with the soil association over ten years ago. I've been working at this farm for three seasons now and I've got a new family to support, my daughter is 18 months old.  We live in Carmarthenshire in South West Wales in the UK, our farm is in a town called Golden grove.

I am a tenant farmer, I have a lease on the polytunnels, tractor sheds, tractor, equipment and fields. My land lord is also a farmer and decided to step back from his farm to focus on his activism on climate change. So the farms infrastructure is now my responsibility I need to do the upkeep and fix it when it breaks. 

The vegetable growing is my main source of income, we have a wholesale customer who takes large volumes of leaf crops which our polytunnels usually produce. I've had to suspend harvests as there is no productivity now due to  the cold and wet weather, with the crops unprotected, the plants have stopped growing. We have 4 box scheme customers we sell food into and the crops they rely on us for are now in jeopardy. I also have a few restaurant customers locally who are being very supportive. Our income has taken a massive drop while the tunnels are out of action.

Our business is very productive and we create allot of food, although the margins are quite tight. The winter is a slow time for growing as we need to buy seeds, compost and so on in this least abundant time. We have 6 polytunnels 3 of which were damaged before Christmass, numbers 1, 2 and 4. Now during the storms of this month another polytunnel was damaged (tunnel5) and the frame was broken. All of the previous damage was intensified by the recent storms, the covers more completely destroyed and the frames of tunnel 4 and 5 visibly twisted and smashed.

I have already started the work to fix the polytunnels, we've completed work on tunnel 1 our propagation tunnel. So I've got a good idea of how much the costs are to fix a polytunnel.

The land, the tunnel frames and infrastructure is owned by the farmer/Land lord, as part of the lease agreement I'm liable to maintain and fix the pollytunnels. The level of investment I'm putting into the infrastructure is calculated against my rent so that the economic relationship is more fair. I've budgeted to pay for two polytunnels to be reskinned and mended, tunnel 1 and 2, the first has now so far cost £2100, i estimate the second to be more coming in at about 3000 due to extra materials needed such as bigger bits of wood and some mesh netting on the sides.

I started the crowd fund after the second set of destructive storms destroyed tunnel 5 and pulled the rest of the covers off tunnel 4 and 2. The fact that the frames are badly damaged means the productivity of the business is greatly reduced and the costs are greatly increased.

The crowd fund is for tunnels 4 and 5, the ones im standing in in the video. 

I can estimate the costs of those tunnels to be
Plastic covers £800x2 = 1600
Timber £350 x2 = £700
Labour £1200 x 2 = £2400
Repairing and replacing the frames £1000 x2 = £2000
Fixings, hinges and parts = £150

The recipient of the funds is the farm business Franks Veg, the infrastructure will be repaired and it will still be owned by the land lord. The plastic covers are purchased through a company called Five Star Tunnels, the timber is from a local saw mill Talley saw mill. The labor cost will be spread between the members of my farm team and the local experts in polytunnel erection. The fixings and parts are from the local builders merchants in Cross Hands, Llanelli.

The plan for the destroyed tunnels so far is to tidy up the plastic, take down the broken frames, measure and assess the damage, get replacement parts for the metal frames then reconstruct and recement the footings.

Once the frames are sound then we wait for a clear day to put the plastic on, the timber is used along the sides to secure the plastic and create a ventilation system there. Also allot of timer and fixings are needed to make sturdy doors and ventilation windows in the top and bottom of the tunnels. 

I hope this gives more of a picture of whats going on and how we will be using your donations.

I've tried to explain more about who we are and where we're from, how the funds will flow through the farm, how we will spend the donations and how we plan to action the process of reconstruction.


Thank you for reading, please donate if you can or share the fund page in your networks.