Eleven activities, and what each of them would require.
This pillar describes a great many things a farm could plausibly do. Most of them are regulated, some of them are criminal offences if done without permission, and exactly none of them is happening on this site. Here is the list, with the licence each one would need.
The regulated list.
Green means it is either held by the relevant business or genuinely not required. Amber means it would be needed before the thing could happen. Red means the activity is not going to happen at all.
This is a demonstration build. Nothing in the amber or red rows is being done, attempted or offered anywhere on this site.
The pattern in that table.
Three of the eleven are marked red, and all three are red for the same reason: they are the versions of an idea that pay somebody money.
A profit share on a harvest pays money, and becomes a collective investment scheme. A prediction market with a prize pays money, and becomes gambling. A bond pays money, and becomes a regulated security promoted to people who cannot assess it.
The green rows are the versions that pay in goods, in access, or in nothing at all. That is not a coincidence and it is not a coincidence in a small way. It is the single design rule that runs through this entire platform: the moment a feature pays cash to a consumer, it stops being a farm shop and starts being a financial services firm.
The same idea, three times over.
| The version that works | The version that needs a licence | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| A patch of a field | Fixed price, produce in kind | A share of what the crop sells for | |
| A guess at the yield | Points, free entry, no prize | A stake, and a payout | |
| Money for the pub | Buy a pint, or a gift card | A bond paying eight per cent | |
| Cover against drought | A substitution policy in the sale contract | An insurance policy | |
| A cask of spirit | A cask, bottled and delivered to you | A cask marketed on its resale value | |
| Farm data | Aggregated, anonymised, consented | A single farm’s records, identifiable |
Why publish a list of things you are not doing.
Because the ideas are good ones and somebody will build them. A farm prediction market, a parametric weather product for smallholders, a farmer-owned data co-operative — all worth doing, all doable, none of them doable from a farm shop website without a partner and a permission.
And because the alternative — a features list that quietly omits the fact that half of it is illegal as described — is how this sort of platform gets built by people who find out afterwards.
And the standing caveat
Nothing on this page is an offer, an invitation to invest, or a financial promotion. Community shares, bonds and insurance are regulated products: capital would be at risk, they are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, and none of them is available anywhere in this build. Any real version would require an authorised firm, approved promotions under section 21 of FSMA 2000, and documentation nobody generates from a website.
The questions this pillar gets.
Collected, and answered without a support ticket.
What people actually ask.
The two questions this page gets most, answered without a support ticket.
The words are ours. The brands are not, and nothing here is licensed.
The cast page names every person and what they are actually responsible for, which is not always what the programme implies.
