The Scottish Government is currently on consultation overdrive, but 4 key consultations fit so closely together that it’s almost impossible to respond to one without referring to the others. In the words of Scottish Government: ‘Agricultural Transition in Scotland’ asks us to consider a successor to the
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…and we need to work together to get it where it needs to be. Blink and you’ve missed it: the long-awaited Good Food Nation Bill was published by the Government just over a week ago. The Bill has come a long way, and over the past 5
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It’s hard not to be impressed by this year’s Programme for Government. There’s a definite green tinge and a renewed focus on getting stuff done as hopefully we emerge from the pandemic. When it comes to food, it’s a jigsaw puzzle with bits and pieces scattered across
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Janet Foggie is a smallholder, the CEO of Community Energy Scotland and a Trustee of Nourish. Here at Community Energy Scotland we are trying to put together a project to look at funding the costs of a scheme like this for maybe 10-15 partner organisations to begin
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In many ways, the incorporation of human rights treaties in Scots law is the most ambitious and far-reaching part of the agenda for the new Scottish Parliament. The new law will not just incorporate economic, social and cultural rights: it will also strengthen protection against discrimination on
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Much of last week’s report from the IPCC– and the corresponding media headlines – talked about the truly apocalyptic consequences of not taking action on climate. The report spelled out just how bad things are already, but also used specially developed future scenarios (the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways,
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The debate about farming and climate change has been more than a little contentious. When an issue is this complex, it can become dominated by sound bites: cows are bad, sheep destroy the landscape, and we should put most of Scotland to trees to save the planet.
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The Independent Review of the National Food Strategy (the Review) was published today. It is recognised as the first comprehensive review of England’s food system in 75 years. We welcome the increased political and public attention and scrutiny of the challenges in England’s food system. Many of
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Since we started ploughing we’ve moved over 130 billion tonnes of soil carbon into the atmosphere as CO2. That’s a lot less than fossil fuels, but it’s still equivalent to about half the excess carbon now in the atmosphere compared to pre-industrial levels. So getting some of
Read more →Foods that are seasonal, produced on a smaller scale, with organic or agroecological methods and traded in shorter supply chains have a less negative (more likely positive) impact on the environment. The most recent report from the Soil Association tells us that the UK market for organic
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