Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Jackie Bridgen's avatar

A fabulous article, which needs a second and third reading to get to grips with all the issues fully.

Sharp, alert, and quick to identify the words and numbers that turn to smoke and mirrors before our eyes.

Expand full comment
Felicity Martin's avatar

I live in Scotland at the head of a strath that lies at the western limit of cultivation (in these agrochemical days). The cultivated fields are all barley (apart from occasional ones rented for a year to produce seed potatoes or neeps). The barley goes to malting for the whisky industry or cattle feed. None the output of these fields directly feeds our local community (except for the odd neep salvaged from the mud bath of fields harvested by heavy machinery).

It could be different.

Just outside our village a young couple set up a market garden a few years ago. They produce an astonishing amount of vegetables and fruit from a relatively small area. This provides veg boxes for many families during half the year with surplus sold in local shops.

Another young couple have been looking for land for a micro dairy, which could supply the local community. But no land has been forthcoming.

Our village also has allotments and a community orchard, planted and maintained by volunteers.

Volunteer run communal gardens and orchards seem to be springing up around Scotland. Maybe this is a way that many can participate in food-growing without the full responsibility of land ownership?

Expand full comment
5 more comments...

No posts