At the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown, supermarket shelves were emptying out faster than we wanted them to, and many of us turned our attention to our smaller producers and retailers. The demand on these smaller sources suddenly rocketed. Amongst them is a diverse network of small
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Pete Ritchie, Executive Director of Nourish Scotland, is also the co-owner of Whitmuir Organic Farm, shop and café. Today he writes from his perspective as a local food business owner during the initial weeks of the Covid-19 crisis. Even though he’s already retired twice, Robert was at Shotts
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Thousands of people have died, and thousands more are bereaved. Jobs are lost, businesses destroyed, hopes and plans in tatters. But it could have been even worse. What if the shops had actually run out of food, not just delivery slots? They didn’t. The massive stocking up,
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No one who can walk and chew gum at the same time would deny that we are facing a climate emergency – and more worrying still, the prospect of irreversible loss of biodiversity at a global scale. There’s no doubt that co-ordinated actions by governments, businesses and
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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness”… But in this new rendition of Dickens, the cities are exchanged for Brussels and Belfast, with major action on the way in the
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It’s been a fascinating few days in Colombo with the South Asia Nitrogen Hub. We’ve been learning about the perverse impact of farm subsidies on the environment, about the multiple influences on farmer decision-making, about farmers having to work off the farm to make ends meet and about
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‘Everything we do around food production is having the worst impact on the planet. If we designed the worst food system possible, we would come up with the way we do it at the moment.’ said Dieter Helm in a panel discussion Future Proofing Food, Feeding the
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25 of us came together for a gathering for small Scottish food producers in The Yurt, at Whitmuir Community Farm on Thursday 11 July 2019. Many travelled far, from all over Scotland including from Sutherland, and Dumfries. We came together to discuss ‘Food as a Relationship’ by
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What an outstanding achievement! From 80 people meeting up ten years ago to say ‘there is another way to do farming’ to a 1000 strong conference with 100 workshops and 250 speakers, including not just Michael Gove but this year the legendary Eliot Coleman. Colin Tudge and
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Last weekend, the yearly climate change talks came to an end in Poland. Amid Brexit headlines, you may have missed the news: the world’s leaders agreed a new ‘rulebook’ for how countries will deliver on the promises made in the Paris Agreement in 2015. While this is
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