With just 5 weeks left until May 5th when Scotland elects its fifth Parliament, this week we’re focusing on our second policy ask: Primary legislation to transform Scotland’s food system – a ‘Food, Farming and Health Act’. You can also have a look at all 6 Election Asks here, please
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The first weekend of, dreich and blustery as we might have known, saw the latest gathering of participants in last year’s Food Leadership Programme, a chance to support and galvanise one another in working towards a better food system in Scotland and to share ideas with others
Read more →Following on from the Scottish Government’s Good Food Nation consultation, the Scottish Food Commission has now released an interim report. It introduces a refreshed vision statement, outlines the use of indicators to monitor progress in key areas of food policy and announces plans for “creating a movement
Read more →What links a small-scale German dairy farmer, a radical vegan, and Syrian solidarity activists? Perhaps quite a lot actually, but rarely do they take to the same street with the same message: We are fed up with this food system. On Saturday, over 20,000 people marched through Berlin’s streets.
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As storm Desmond descended on the 5th of December, a gathering was taking place at Whitmuir Farm just south of Edinburgh. The yurt on the hill, where we sheltered, shook so much in the wind we could barely hear each other speak. Fearing loose branches from the
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The Food Standards Scotland (FSS) agreed today to advise the Scottish Government that the Scottish Dietary Goals should be updated. The FSS took over responsibilities from the UK-wide Food Standards Agency in April this year as a new public sector food body to provide independent information and advice
Read more →What does the Common of Common Agricultural Policy really mean? Very basically, it means that in the late 1950s, the then 6 members of the European Economic Community decided to create a common market for certain agricultural products, and by the same token agreed to agree on
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You don’t often see farmers or food producers on stage. You definitely never see a Peruvian Cherimoya farmer, a South African fisherman, a Sri Lankan rice grower and a Dutch pig farmer together on one stage. The ‘Farmers in the Spotlight’ session on the third day of
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By Bella Crowe Over the last few days, we’ve been hearing about why people farm: “You can live without so many things in this world, all this technology, but you cannot live without food. That’s why I farm”, Camara Mohamed from Mali. We’ve also heard about the
Read more →The Common Agricultural Policy, also known as the CAP, has since its inception in the early 1960s been the largest common policy of the European Union, in terms of budget and of impact. It initially achieved its stated objectives very successfully: raising farmers’ incomes and ending hunger
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