Flax Project
2024 – 2025
Since 2022, Wessex Community Assets has worked with a group of West Dorset farmers to explore the logistics of Flax and Hemp as break crops by undertaking field trials in growing, harvesting and processing both crops. The project has been made possible through a grant from the Dorset National Landscapes Farming in Protected Landscapes Programme (FiPL), together with match funding from participating farms.
The field trial programme has sought to demonstrate the value of integrating carbon-capturing crops, like Hemp and Flax, into agricultural rotations. Through experimentation the field trials have explored the many benefits bast fibre crops bring to both sound land use and local economic development.
WCA considers vertically integrated and distributive models of processing and product development as key to the transition toward a bio based local economy. In the third year of the field trials, textile varieties of Hemp and Flax were grown on three farms and farm scale processing equipment was prototyped with support from Edinburgh based Fantasy Fibre Mill.
For Flax the field trial has shown that there is a growing community level interest in natural materials for textile products. Farm scale processing, whilst not able to deal with large quantities of product can add value to make small scale growing a viable option as part of regenerative crop rotations.
This project has progressed to the next stage – in 2026 Wessex Community Assets was awarded a grant by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Trellis Foundation to launch Flax Forward, a community-led project that aims to celebrate Bridport’s flax-growing heritage, whilst exploring the potential of locally grown, natural materials for a sustainable future.
