NEWS

Agro-ecological jigsaw puzzle

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:44:30 GMT

Agro-ecological Jigsaw Puzzle at the London Science Museum

I was travelling to London to visit an old friend for their birthday. Which gave me a good opportunity to visit my jigsaw in The London Science Museum. The jigsaw, commissioned by Propagate in 2022 shows a scene of a brightly coloured agroecological countryside, full of plants, trees, fields, livestock, wild animals, sheds, compost, water sources, renewable energy resources, and productive people working and belonging to the land.

I was invited to join the first of the Farm to Fork dialogues, which evolved into the very constructive Regenerative Farmers Network where farmers visit each others’ sites offering advice and support for one another as they move from industrial farming practises into more regenerative, nature-led ways of working. My role was to catalogue the discussions, insights and exchanges to then create a vision which would capture their learning and produce an image of what our landscapes could like ‘in 2045, all going well…’

I was working and living on site at East Coast Organics at the time, an organic farm and veg box delivery service in East Lothian. Which meant I had lots of inspiration for regenerative healthy food systems around me. Lots of the people in the jigsaw puzzle are from photos I took of my friends there.

There are 6 jigsaw puzzles in total which now go on tour with fellow Propagators to food fairs, school visits and community open days. Quite large, about 60cm by 90cm, the jigsaw puzzle is 35 pieces. It is used as a conversational tool, as people jigsaw the pieces together we ask them ‘what they see’ and ‘what do you think we need to create a health food system’. The Science Museum were very set on having the first jigsaw puzzle which had been used at COP26. Now slightly mud splashed, it’s been well used and has found a good home in the museum archives.

The Future of Food exhibition is on till September this year 2026. With lots of interesting contributions and insights into our food systems, it’s worth a visit.

https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/future-of-food

I have always been an environmental artist, but after this commission and my introduction to Propagate, I learnt how important fixing the food system is for us surviving in our current, beautiful, extraordinary eco-system. I now dedicate my life to this; working as a food and land orientated community artist, illustrator and fully-fledged Propagate member.

Emily @ we agree on eggs @ Propagate

A Farm Facilitators Forum for Scotland

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 18:49:44 GMT

Sharing the knowledge – growing a farm facilitators forum in Scotland

Abi Mordin - Cluster Connections Coordinator

The Farm Cluster Connections programme is building a coordinated, facilitator-led network of farmer clusters across Scotland, linking regional hubs to accelerate the exchange of knowledge, skills, and innovation in sustainable and regenerative agriculture.

The project aims to support strong local farmer groups by providing practical, skilled facilitation and farmer-led learning that responds to local needs, alongside connecting facilitators across Scotland.

At an event in Stirling on 17 March, facilitators, advisors and others working in this field came together to connect, learn from each other and collectively identify shared issues and concerns. These were discussed in small groups, with actions identified that could be taken forward.

A report of the day is now available and can be downloaded here .

We also had a deep dive session with Lorna Pate, Research Associate from SRUC, exploring how data can be used to support farmers, crofters and growers and influence practice. The session also looked at what data is missing, and how to work better with researchers.

Key challenges identified in the deep dive data workshop were:

Misinformation, credibility gaps, and publication bias undermine trust in formal research
Information overload and complexity — farmers face too much, too fast, and often in inaccessible language
Long lead times in publishing mean findings reach farmers well after they are useful
Difficulty identifying what constitutes genuine consensus across multiple papers
Research is often not relevant to individual farm context or not shown to work in practice

The event genuinely served its purpose and attendees left feeling inspired and enthused to stay connected. A set of 15 actions have been drawn from the discussions, which includes:

Establish a platform for facilitators to connect and learn from each other, developing facilitation peer learning opportunities: shadowing, informal skill sharing, and community of practice across the network.
Create a brokering function between researchers and facilitators – a two-way exchange so farmers can also inform the research agenda.
Advocate for multi-year core funding that supports relational, long-term cluster facilitation.
Develop a lightweight, flexible metrics framework that captures stories, behaviour change, and social impact alongside numbers.

The report and recommendations will be shared with wider stakeholders, including relevant leads within the Scottish Government, other partner organisations, and of course the broader community of facilitators and advisors.

Collectively we can drive forward actions that help create real, lasting change for the benefit of farmers, crofters and growers in Scotland.

Farm Cluster Connections is funded by the Scottish Government's Knowledge Transfer Innovation Fund. Additional funding for the Facilitators Gathering was provided the Halleria Trust.

Launch of Scottish Food Commission – 'Making Food Work For All'

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 14:44:30 GMT

Propagate's Dawn heads to Edinburgh for the launch of a landmark moment in Scotland's food policy journey — and reflects on why it matters.

Launch of Scottish Food Commission – 'Making Food Work For All'

On 19th March, Dawn travelled to Edinburgh to represent Propagate at the launch of the Scottish Food Commission: Making Food Work for All — a milestone moment for food system change in Scotland.

The event brought together guest speakers from the Commission's committee, led by new Chair Denis Overton, and included a mini workshop exploring how the Commission can support Local Authorities and Public Health Bodies in developing their Good Food Plans. Under the Good Food Nation Act (2022, commenced 2025), these bodies are required to produce individual plans by April 2028, with the Scottish Food Commission providing stewardship and oversight throughout the process.

The Scottish Food Commission itself is an independent advisory body established to champion a fairer, healthier and more sustainable food system across Scotland. It has a broad remit — scrutinising progress against the national Good Food Nation Plan, advising Scottish Ministers, and ensuring that the voices of communities, producers and public bodies are heard in shaping food policy. The launch marks the beginning of its active role in holding government and public bodies accountable to the ambitions of the Act.

For Propagate, being in the room felt significant. We have been campaigning for the Good Food Nation Act for over eight years, working alongside partners and colleagues in the Scottish Food Coalition, and the Commission's launch represents the kind of systemic change we've long been working towards.

Our roots in local food action run deep. In Dumfries and Galloway, we coordinate the Sustainable Food Partnership, which will lead the development of a Regional Good Food Plan in the years ahead. We were early co-founders of the Glasgow Food Policy Partnership and played a key role in supporting the creation of the trailblazing Glasgow City Food Plan. We also hold seats on food partnerships across the country, keeping us connected to local priorities and challenges.

On the ground, our work has taken many forms — from facilitating Kitchen Table Talks that gave communities a voice in shaping the final Act, to running Local Food Resilience workshops that help people engage with the issues that matter most to them. We founded the Galloway Food Hub and are now supporting new groups to establish local food hubs across the South of Scotland.

Seeing that grassroots work now taking shape in policy and institutional infrastructure is exactly what drives everything we do at Propagate.

Learn Permaculture in 2026 with Propagate!

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 21:17:42 GMT

Learn Permaculture in 2026 with Propagate!

Are you curious about growing food, working with nature, and designing systems that truly work? Our Permaculture Design Course in 2026 could be just what you're looking for.

Permaculture is rooted in three core ethics - Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share - and its applications are far broader than most people realise. When someone recently asked me who the course is for, I honestly replied 'anyone who will have to make a decision in the future!' because the design tools are incredible thinking tools. Whether you're thinking about how you raise your children, arrange your living space, write a business plan, or create a garden, permaculture offers a powerful framework for designing anything with intention and care.

People from all walks of life have enjoyed the permaculture course, whether they are completely new to regenerative systems or have been embedded in it for decades. For example, one participant who has spent the last 40 years growing fruit and veg for the intentional community in which they live said that they got a huge amount from studying the permaculture course and found it very inspiring; a storyteller who did the course said that she integrated what she learnt into all her future storytelling. People from all walks of life and integrate their prior knowledge, skills and experience with the new ones they learn on a permaculture course to make a better world for all.

Learning through doing and experiencing

The course blends online learning with six in-person Saturdays. You can choose to take the course in Galloway or Glasgow (and if you cannot make one Saturday you can switch to the other location). In either location you will visit some of the most inspiring permaculture growing spaces around.

In Galloway we start on 18th April with Lorraine Ishak at the incredibly inspiring smallholding, the Hidden Mill, near St John's Town of Dalry. We will also visit Suie Fields regenerative farm, Auchencairn Link Park Food Forest, Incredible Edible Whithorn, the South Machars Community Centre living room and Community Compost, the MAC-CAN Croft, the Edible Gardeners in the Rhins (who have recently written a book showing how they were able to grow all their own fruit and veg for the last seven years), and Stranraer's Unexpected Garden. Each site is hosted by a local practitioner who has spent years putting permaculture into practice and has deep, hands-on experience of the place and its story.

Learn From Teachers Around the World

Online, you'll explore soil, water systems, plants, trees, food growing, permaculture principles and design with teachers from across the globe. All videos are yours to keep forever, so whenever you're ready to design something new, you can watch them again to guide you through the process step-by-step.

Putting Learning into Practice

The course wraps up with two final Saturdays where you'll apply everything you've learned to a real design project, on a real site, with a real brief, and then share your design process with your group and client(s).

Accessible Pricing

The full course fee is £732, but we believe permaculture should be accessible to everyone. We operate a sliding scale, so if you're on a low income, we welcome you to get in touch and suggest what you can afford - for example, an initial deposit followed by £80 per month for the duration of the course.

Find out more Glasgow or Galloway

Request a reduced fee

Farm Carbon Audits (and why they are flawed)

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 21:23:19 GMT

Why current farm carbon audits risk getting the wrong answers

Farm carbon audits are increasingly shaping advice, funding decisions and policy direction in Scotland. The intention is positive: agriculture must play its part in tackling climate change. But there’s a growing problem — many of the carbon audits currently in use are incomplete, unbalanced, and risk driving the wrong decisions on farms .

The RegenFarm Network Policy Group's latest position paper sets out why.

Farming isn’t just about emissions — it’s about cycles

Unlike most industries, agriculture both emits carbon and removes it from the atmosphere as part of everyday production. Plants capture CO₂ through photosynthesis. In pasture-based livestock systems, that carbon flows through grass, animals, soils and soil biology in tightly linked cycles.

Well-managed grazing systems can support soil health, biodiversity, water regulation and long-term resilience — all while producing food. Yet most farm carbon audits focus heavily on emissions (especially methane from livestock) while largely ignoring carbon drawdown, cycling and soil processes .

That creates a skewed balance sheet.

Partial information leads to poor decisions

Methane matters, and it must be addressed. But decisions based only on emissions figures — without accounting for pasture growth, soil function and whole-farm context — risk doing more harm than good.

Across Scotland, RegenFarm Network members are already seeing perverse outcomes from carbon audit–led advice, including:

Regenerative grazing practices being penalised the longer they are in place
Species-rich hay meadows being recommended for ploughing and reseeding
Farms already using adaptive grazing being advised to “adopt” it, revealing a lack of system understanding

These examples highlight a fundamental mismatch between audit assumptions and how regenerative, pasture-based farms actually function.

Efficiency metrics can miss the bigger picture

Policy emphasis on emissions per kilogram of output can also push farms towards short-term intensification: higher stocking rates, tighter production cycles, increased inputs, and the loss of marginal habitats.

But the climate doesn’t respond to efficiency metrics — it responds to the total balance of emissions and removals across landscapes . Focusing narrowly on output risks undermining soil health, biodiversity, animal welfare and long-term resilience.

A better way forward

The RegenFarm Network is not calling for carbon audits to be abandoned. Instead, we argue they must improve — quickly — and be guided by clear principles:
Account for the whole carbon cycle , not just emissions
Recognise different farming systems, especially pasture-based and regenerative ones
Focus on total farm and landscape impacts , not narrow efficiency metrics
Embed carbon within wider ecological context
Support farmer learning, not prescriptive or punitive decision-making

Until carbon audits can reflect the real complexity of biological systems, they should not be used as the primary basis for policy conditionality or farm-level prescriptions.

If Scotland is serious about climate, biodiversity and resilient food systems, we need better tools — not just more numbers.

Third annual Farming for the Future Conference held in Maybole

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 17:18:22 GMT

Another successful knowledge sharing event

Propagate, Galloway and Southern Ayrshire Biosphere, and NFU Scotland have hosted another successful knowledge exchange day bringing together farmers, land managers, and organisations connected with production of food, fibre and forestry nationwide.

The annual conference aims to foster peer-to-peer knowledge-exchange and explore how farming can be good for the environment while maximising profitability. Rotating locations year by year to maximise accessibility, Farming for the Future 2025 took place at the Carrick Centre in Maybole.

With a theme of ‘Nature and Resilience’, this year’s event was chaired by Dumfriesshire farmer and former NFUS President Andrew McCornick, with a programme of speakers that included farmers from across the south of Scotland who are using a variety of agricultural systems and approaches and farming on widely different scales. Themed breakout sessions covered trees on farms, resilient dairy and vegetable production, allowing for deeper dives and exchanges with farmers from Nature Friendly Farming Network , the Ethical Dairy , Girvan Early Growers , and others who travelled from across Scotland to participate.

Antoine Lemaire , the GSA Biosphere’s Nature Recovery Officer, said: “With a third farmers’ conference complete we believe this event is firmly embedded in the region’s agricultural calendar as a standout opportunity to gather and share experiences in growing, producing, and managing land. We’re immensely grateful to all our speakers and everyone who joined us in Maybole for this important event and look forward to staying connected with participants through the array of initiatives facilitated by the GSA Biosphere Partnership, Propagate and NFU Scotland.”

Abi Mordin , Co-Director of Propagate, said: “I’m delighted with how the event went. I think what we get right is bringing all types of farmers together, to find common ground and share knowledge and ideas. We’re building bridges and breaking down barriers. We couldn't get people to leave at the end - the buzz of conversation was amazing.

Our partnership with the GSA Biosphere Partnership and NFUS goes from strength to strength, we’re already planning next year’s conference”.

Judith Hutchinson , Chapel Farm, Moffat, said: “Great event. Brilliant speakers and lots to bring home and think about. My take-home messages include benefits of planting trees on farm and importance of soil function – it’s soil biology that does the soil chemistry, and its soil biology that does the soil physics.”

Farm Cluster Connections Launches!

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 17:44:51 GMT

Propagate Secures KTIF Funding to Strengthen Scotland’s Farmer-Led Learning Networks

Propagate (Scotland) CIC has been awarded funding from the Scottish Government’s Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund (KTIF) to launch Farm Cluster Connections , a national programme designed to strengthen Scotland’s farmer-led learning networks and accelerate the exchange of knowledge in sustainable and regenerative agriculture.

Building on the success of Propagate’s Regenerative Farming Network , which now connects more than 330 members across the country, the new two-year project will coordinate a network of eight regional farmer clusters , each supported by skilled local facilitators and linked nationally through shared communications, learning, and collaboration.

“This funding recognises the power of farmer-led learning and collaboration,” said Abi Mordin , Farming Director of Propagate. “Farm Cluster Connections will help facilitators and farmers work together across regions — building trust, sharing knowledge, and supporting practical solutions to the challenges facing Scottish agriculture.”

The initiative will bring together partners including the Southern Uplands Partnership , Carse of Stirling Partnership , Balanced Horizon, Highland Good Food Partnership and the Clydesdale Soil Health Network . Each regional cluster will deliver farm walks, on-farm demonstrations, online discussions, and webinars tailored to local priorities such as regenerative grazing, soil health, biodiversity, and profitability.

A key focus of the project is building a national facilitator network — creating a coordinated, collaborative framework that ensures knowledge transfer is effective, efficient, and enduring. Facilitators will meet regularly as a national learning community, supported by Propagate’s communications infrastructure and digital platforms.

“We’re delighted to be co-recipients of Propagate’s KTIF funding,” said Debby Richardson Webb of the Clydesdale Soil Health Network. “As a new group, this support will strengthen our farmer-led learning community at a critical moment for agricultural change. We look forward to what we can achieve together.”

The project’s communication and dissemination strategy includes the expansion of Propagate’s Voices of Farmers podcast series, national webinars, newsletters, and open-access online materials. A national knowledge sharing event will bring together facilitators and farmers to celebrate and reflect on learning outcomes.

By embedding facilitation capacity within trusted local organisations, Farm Cluster Connections aims to leave a lasting legacy — building a resilient, connected ecosystem for farmer-led innovation across Scotland.

To find out more, visit the project webpage

A Land Moot 2025: A gathering for Land Justice

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 14:25:33 GMT

A LAND MOOT 2025: A GATHERING FOR LAND JUSTICE

Two Propagate members, Catriona Ferguson and Beth Coleman, report back from a weekend in October

WHAT IS A LAND MOOT?

This October 10th -12th, around 120 of us gathered in Ibrox, Glasgow for a weekend of discussions, food, skill sharing and movement building to explore the intersections of land justice and social justice. This was the second ‘Land Moot’ *.

The Land Moot was conceived of as a festival of land resistance, celebrating ways people have fought to protect their land, housing and ways of life, in Scotland and further afield. People from across Scotland organising on issues of - and intersecting with - land justice came together to discuss issues they are currently facing, offering an opportunity to learn from each other and build a movement.

The event was organised by working groups divided across nine key themes; practical commoning, ecological health justice, housing, collective economies, food, media, resisting green capitalism, internationalism and political education . All the groups fed into a steering group who brought the whole event together. The aim is the working groups will keep meeting, to make sure the momentum from the event keeps up!

A NEED FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION ON LAND

As both attendees and organisers, two Propagators - Beth and Catriona - wanted to give a summary of our experiences of the Land Moot. To reflect on the intimate connection to land that’s highlighted when working with an organisation engaged in food work and why we left the moot feeling inspired to act, and why it’s necessary.

As community gardeners and food organisers, regenerative farmer's network facilitators and growers - while in an environment of an increasing turn towards fascism and colonial violence - we see that we cannot remove food sovereignty from other struggles for justice ** .

There are so many existential threats to our food system, from biodiversity loss and extreme climatic pressures to multinationals’ control over supply chains and crises within agricultural labour markets. Heavy-handed state attempts to tackle some of these issues has resulted in massive surges to the right. For example, the BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB), a right-wing party in the Netherlands made huge inroads in rural communities after a controversial proposal from the government to tax nitrogen pollution which would have disproportionately affected farmers. What we see in the news is yet another farmer protest and tractors in Brussels, but the damaging lasting effects are disillusionment with environmentalism, division in communities and a fertile ground for right-wing populism. We need strong movements to counter this division, none of these issues facing the food system can be tackled by the individual, which is why division and alienation is so dangerous.

Land is integral to food. We couldn’t write about land in Scotland without acknowledging the deeply inequitable concentration of land ownership in Scotland. Half of all privately owned rural land in Scotland , or 3.2m hectares (7.9m acres), is held by just 433 people. That said, these figures describing land ownership in Scotland can feel quite abstract and can lead us to overlook some of the intricacies arising in different contexts. It’s important to dig a bit deeper and relate abstract injustices to concrete examples and struggles, both past and present.

Before the Land Moot got underway on Friday, we were both in the kitchen preparing dinner and cooking for the weekend, with veg from Tyningham Community Farm , Phantassie Farm and Garvald Home Farm , all amazing market gardens in the east of Scotland. After the meticulously peeled butternut squash curry and the baking of flapjacks for 150 people it was time for the ceilidh hoose in the Clyde Hall - a moment to share songs, stories and poems.

The Moot opened on Saturday morning with a Mistica - a ceremony often used in Landworkers Alliance gatherings to build on commonalities and a commitment to collective action. We were asked to bring an object from land that means something to us; everything offered was in the center of the room throughout the weekend, as a focal point and constant reminder of this commitment.

WHAT DID WE GET UP TO?

Next up were the first workshops - there were many, and we’ll just talk about the ones we attended, here. Catriona attended a busy session on Ecological Health Justice, looking at how land and health injustices overlap - think healthy soil, healthy bacteria, healthy gut, healthy mind! We also painted some pictures with different soils from across the UK in the Ibrox Commons and discussed how exactly we were going to clean up Clyde - imagining cooling dips in the (increasingly) warm summers and creative citizen science projects.

As a member of the Internationalism working group, Beth helped to run a workshop on the importance of an internationalist perspective within a Scotland-based movement for Land Justice. We began by looking at some histories of internationalist organising - from Scots joining the international brigade in the fight against Franco in the Spanish Civil War, to the thriving Scottish anti-apartheid movement for South Africa from the 1960s to the 1990s, and the East Kilbride Rolls Royce factory workers refusing to work on parts for the Chilean airforce during Pinochet’s fascist dictatorship in the 1970s. We do not intend to gloss over Scotland’s role in the slave trade, colonisation, and displacement of peoples from their lands abroad when highlighting these histories - but to show that there is a precedent for action rooted in a sense of solidarity with those across the globe, and to consider the tactics used in these movements.

We discussed current state-sanctioned use of land in Scotland - particularly the creation of carbon credits to facilitate carbon offsetting via the Woodland or Peatland code. Two of the top 20 buyers of carbon credits in Scotland are international arms companies , Babcock and Thales. Does Thales ring a bell? That might be because the Thales’ Govan factory has been the target of several actions by Palestine solidarity activists in recent years - Thales produces the Watchkeeper drone for the UK’s Ministry of Defence through a joint venture with Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms company.

Two speakers, Oluwa Atanda and Karina Emslie then gave two different perspectives from communities that have been subjected to violence from fossil fuel companies and industrial development. Karina spoke about her community work in the Torry Peoples’ Assembly and ways local people can make change in their community and beyond. She spoke about the Torry community’s battle to Save St Fitticks park from Energy Transition Zone development plans and the importance of understanding the many different ways people’s climate concerns are communicated.

Oluwa addressed the brutality subjected by Shell on the indigenous Ogoni people of Nigeria. Shell extracts huge amounts of oil from the Niger Delta, the land of the Ogoni, and the resulting pollution has horrific impacts on the soils and waters of the Delta, which has gone from being the breadbasket of Nigeria to a place where crops can no longer be grown. He also spoke of the complicity of Shell in the murder of 90 activists who mobilised the Ogoni people in the 1990s. Oluwa told us that the face of these giant oil multinationals is largely hidden to the West - the damages are obscured - and strength to fight against them lies in connecting affected communities to create a global movement for justice .

On Saturday afternoon we both went to a workshop about popular education to consider different ways we can educate each other about politics and learn about issues involving land. Davey Anderson , a playwright in Glasgow, wrote a play where everyone was both the cast and the audience. We followed the story of Harvey’s Dyke, set on the banks of the Clyde in the 1820’s where Mr ‘Lang Tam’ Harvey, a local whisky distiller and all round magnate, had taken it upon himself to wall up and privatise a one mile section of the Clyde bank. Those in Bridgeton - weavers, masons and the local poet - were not happy and tore the wall down. The story goes that the demolishers were not charged when the case went to court, and we are now blessed to walk the Cuningar Loop - unobstructed. The play felt like a really exciting shared experience to be part of (we both played parts - Beth as the poet and Catriona as an estate agent) and a great way to spark an animated discussion about land privatisation, what we can do about it, and where it’s happening in Scotland today. It also felt like a more inclusive and broader way of involving people in discussion, and something that could be replicated for many stories across Scotland.

FOOD WORKSHOPS

Food, of course, was a big part of the weekend. Kin Kitchen - a Glasgow-based organisation who use food as a catalyst for community building, knowledge sharing and building food sovereignty in urban settings - kept us all extremely well-fed from Friday evening through ‘til Sunday lunch!

Sunday morning was all about food processing and production skills. The intention of these activities was to have plenty of time for learning and sharing hands-on skills and to encourage a sense of agency over the food we eat and how we can access it. The deer butchery workshop was run by Glasgow Deer Share, a group who get together monthly to butcher and distribute venison, where the hide is tanned and bones used too. Mim, a founder of the Rhyze Mushrooms Coop , ran a session on mushroom inoculation. Propagators Lusi and Beth led the apple pressing workshop, using equipment from Glasgow Apple Pressing, who provide equipment for community apple pressing in local orchards - though as often happens at community apple pressing, some very capable and enthusiastic learners soon meant it was a collaborative effort. If that wasn’t enough, there was also seed saving with Meg and Hamshya from Glasgow Seed Library , and miso making using UK-grown carlin peas with Rebecca from Glasgow Community Food Network .

CLOSING ASSEMBLY AND WORLD CAFE

In the afternoon an assembly was held in Ibrox church, where anyone could offer up proposals or ideas - some were inspired by the weekend and some were campaigns people brought to the Moot. Many ideas were proposed - we’ll mention some, but not all of them here…

There was a proposal for a Clyde clean-up supported by an enactment of Harvey’s Dyke on the Clyde walkway. A member Castlemilk Sou’per Heroes called for involvement on a new community plan which would put children first, whilst the owner of a ruined croft-turned-bothy invited folks to come and stay and create a learning centre about the Clearances. The Housing working group’s proposal was for members to join Living Rent and to contribute to a local place plan. Lochwinnoch Collective Economies, who are collectivising the needs of life - food, shelter, care, education, heat, connection and fulfilment to name a few - made a call out for those interested in joining or setting up new groups where they are, whilst the Practical Commons working group aimed to create a commoning charter. The Internationalism working group invited people to research those (companies or individuals) who own large amounts of land in Scotland and abroad with a hope to build an international campaign against this and raising awareness, and the Media group proposed a ‘media liberation day’. Scottish Histories of Resistance called for feedback on their resources, and there was an idea to set up a monitoring and research project to map sites of common struggle, connecting the same land owners repeating abuse on different sites. There was also a proposal for a 2026 Land Moot, and an open call for those who wished to be on the steering group.

These ideas were followed by conversations clustered around each proposal, on the ‘World Cafe’ method - the person who had made a proposal sat at a table, and people could choose which table to gather round, with the freedom to move to another table as they wished. This gave people the opportunity to flesh out ideas, tactics and meet people who were interested to support specific campaigns and projects.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, we had a great time and left the Moot feeling uplifted, if exhausted from an intense weekend of organising, cooking, dancing, chatting, dreaming and scheming..! We feel resolute in the need for concerted action both to inspire and counter division, and to build a broad and united movement for justice which is rooted in land. Delving into local and internationalist histories gives movements momentum and strength, building them is not just about making connections with people and contemporary struggles, but also looking back to the past and seeing the moment we are in within a wider context and legacy.

Keep up with updates via Scottish Histories of Resistance:

https://www.instagram.com/scottishhistoriesofresistance/

Mailing list

* Moot : A moot hill was a hill or a mound - naturally occuring or purpose built - historically used as a place for assembly, to decide and settle local issues. Proclamations were read and court cases carried out. Doomster Hill in the the parish of Govan was a moot hill, but removed in the early 19th century.

** Food sovereignty “ the right of peoples to healthy and culturally-appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems"

All image credits to Graham McGrath.

A Gathering of Community Food Projects

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 20:03:08 GMT

D&G Community Food Network Hosts a Gathering

What a great bonus to have our annual DG Community Food Network event in the East of the region at the start of Climate week! The event was a gathering of community food projects and supporters of healthy, local and accessible food and we send a huge thank you to everyone who came along and got involved in an inspirational day of community food project sharing of knowledge and making connections!

Discussion topics brought out lots of shared experience and ideas, a full report will be on the DG Community Food Website in the coming weeks. The topics were chosen by community food project and included:

Eating fruit and vegetables - What are the barriers and how to remove them?
Dependence on emergency food provision - a better way forward
Setting up a community food project - tips/ideas/knowledge share
What would you like from the DGCFN network? Challenges/Barriers

Special thanks to our hosts University of Glasgow for the space and for giving a tour of The Teaching Garden there at the Dumfries campus and sharing the learning from this great project! You can find out more about the Teaching Garden by following them on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/uofgdumfriesgarden/

Also huge thanks to our speakers from Community Food projects in the network Lochmaben Community Gardens and Summerhill Community Centre .

On top of all this we had Senga from D&G Climate Hub there giving a talk and helping with the afternoon workshops …. what a day!

We supplied a delicious healthy lunch catered by Hullabaloo to You who we would really recommend!

Quote from the day:

Just wanted to say a big congrats and thank you for yesterday's event which I very much enjoyed. I found it so inspiring to hear what people are doing and to meet inspirational people making positive changes.

Think that says it nicely!

Farming for the Future Conference #2

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 17:58:13 GMT

Another successful conference for farmers!

This November, Propagate again collaborated with the Galloway and South Ayrshire Biosphere and NFU Scotland, organising the second Farming for the Future Conference, this time in Cumnock.

The conference aims to foster peer-to-peer knowledge exchange and explore how farming can be good for both the environment and the farm business.

‘Farming for the Future: Planning for Profit and Nature’ was chaired by Dumfriesshire farmer and former NFUS President Andrew McCornick and the programme of speakers included Cora Cooper (Sheep Farmer of the Year 2023), Denise Walton (Nature Friendly Farming Network), Nic Renison (Renison’s Farm), Colin Russell (Ramstane Farm), and others. On the agenda were a variety of presentations and discussion looking at the economics and practice of farming for nature, including a ‘speed round’ for people to share how they are farming and why, and break-out sessions on improving soil carbon and biodiversity.

Antoine Lemaire, the GSA Biosphere’s Nature Recovery Officer, said: “It was a privilege to be hosting the farming conference again in 2024 after a successful launch in Newton Stewart last year. Demands on Scotland’s farmers are as high as ever and there are very few opportunities to gather in one place to share experiences and ideas. Our focus is how to balance profitability with nature-friendly practice and make peer-learning more accessible to all, and we were delighted to welcome so many who recognise the benefits of being part of this conversation.”

Abi Mordin, Co-Director of Propagate, said: “It was fantastic to build on the successes of our February conference by growing the event, the audience and the discussions. The ‘fully immersive learning experience’ (quote from Denise Walton) included presentations on profitable organic cow with calf dairy systems, right through to deep dives on healthy soil biology. Feedback has been excellent so far with lots of attendees enjoying the pace and flow of the event as much as the content. We’re looking forward to growing our collaboration with the Biosphere and NFUS as we start thinking about our next event – watch this space!”

Mhairi Dawson, NFUS’ Regional Manager for D&G, said: “Our second conference was a huge success and it was great to see many new faces in the audience. Our speakers had such a broad range of size, scale, story and business types, there really was something for everyone. I think we all appreciated the acknowledgement was given to the human aspect of our agricultural businesses and how important knowing yourself and looking after your mental health was. My favourite quote of the day was from our NFUS Ayrshire members Cora Cooper who told us to never underestimate how much change one small step can make. So for me, the take away message is “Start small, but do start.” I’m excited to see where our third conference in 2025 takes us!”

A Systems Approach to Food Justice Pt 2

Sat, 02 Nov 2024 17:10:25 GMT

How can we fix the food system?

What does a systems approach to food justice look like? What does fair and just mean for food producers and consumers, for people and for the planet? And how do we make it work for all of us?

There is no magic wand or miracle cure. We need a fundamental shift across multiple areas of the food system – in production, processing and distribution, and across the spectrums of politics, economics, society, environment and health.

The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 is a good start. It took a long time and a lot of deliberation to get there, but the framework legislation could provide an important lever to bring greater focus and consistency across all policy areas that have a part of play in improving the food system. However, good policy is not enough. Delivery needs to be effective, resourced, monitored and reviewed over a long enough period of time. There are no quick fixes here, but there are some system change levers that I believe would be particularly helpful in supporting effective delivery. I have outlined these below:

Improving access through local retail

We need a thriving local food economy that offers people of all incomes access to healthy , nature positive food. To that end, I’d like local retailers to be seen as a community hubs, a place of meaningful work and a system that circulates wealth locally. This could be built on existing pantry models – through, for example collaborations with local farms and producers. Another example is Propagate’s Blether in Neilston , a community shop which operates a community fridge, zero waste wholefoods, organic and local produce and workshops all under one roof. They also have a community growing project and community composting site.

Integrating vouchers for fruit and vegetables into service delivery

Conditional cash transfer schemes for sustainably produced (where possible) fruit and vegetables from local suppliers can offer dual climate and health benefits, particularly for low income or vulnerable communities. They also help increase support and economic viability of local food suppliers. One example is the Alexandra Rose Voucher scheme which is already operational in some parts of Glasgow.

Increased and better supported vegetable production in Scotland

We need proper support for both existing horticulture farmers and new entrants, along with opportunities for skills development and training. Under the current farm subsidy rules, a farmer on less than 3 hectares – 3 rugby pitches – is not eligible for support. ⁱ Most ‘market gardening’ is on much less than a hectare. We need much of this increased vegetable production to be in peri-urban and urban areas, closer to denser population centres so that fresh produce doesn’t have to travel far.

A shift towards agroecological production

Producing food in harmony with nature and for the benefit of local communities helps support our climate, nature and local economy. Knowledge sharing and farmer-to-farmer cluster groups can help with supporting farmers to adopt more nature friendly practices.

Championing a fair wage in farming and beyond

We need the food and farming movement to join those calling for a real living wage. This will not only make it easier for consumers to make the right choice but will also support farmers to do the right thing for the climate and nature. ⁱⁱ

Enhance public sector catering and procurement

We need public institutions to invest public money in food for public good. And we need politicians to recognise and engage with this sector. The potential for better health and environmental outcomes is considerable, given that public institutions spend £2.4 billion purchasing food and catering services every year. There have been some positive moves around public sector food in recent years ⁱⁱⁱ , for example through the Food For Life Served Here programme , but budgets, procurement rules, infrastructure and limited supply make this challenging.

More community-based meals

Community meals, or Public Diners , providing affordable eateries, which serve healthy meals in welcoming local spaces using produce sourced locally, ideally from agroecological producers, have considerable potential to, not just improve access to nutritious food, but also to provide important opportunities for people to connect with others in their communities.

Better links between urban communities and food producers.

One example is Landed Community Kitchens which are social justice-based Kitchen-Farmer coalitions linking urban communities to their productive hinterland to end food poverty and build community. The Landed Community Kitchen provides food sourced from (ideally) agroecological growers, enables community empowerment and reskilling, and seeks to transform the broader food system to ensure access to healthy food and dignified livelihoods.

Build a REAL Good Food Nation

As I said earlier, policy levers provide a very important impetus and can make a real difference to all these ideas becoming realities. As well as the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act, the Scottish Food Coalition is calling for the right to food and the right to a healthy environment being enshrined in Scots law, for meaningful engagement with civil society by the new Scottish Food Commission, and for adequate support and resourcing of the development and long term delivery of Local Good Food Nation Plans (soon to be required by Health Boards and Local Authorities). These Local Good Food Nation Plans must be developed and delivered as part of fully collaborative partnerships. The Glasgow City Food Plan is a good example of what can be achieved when partners from the public, private and third sectors work together to make a difference to the local food system.

Our food system is complex. It is under pressure and isn’t working for most of us. Rethinking it will mean a mindset and cultural shift, but it’s not impossible. I’ve spent 30 years working in and around the food system and I remain positive. I’m certain that with collaboration and cooperation we can have a fair and just food system for all.

i Reversing the trend of excluding small farms from subsidy: An update across Four Nations - Farmers Guide

ii Paying The Real Living Wage Means Sustainability For All | Living Wage Foundation

iii Local food for everyone – a discussion: consultation - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

A Systems Approach to Food Justice Pt 1

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 17:01:40 GMT

How is our Food System Broken?

Our food system is broken. Or is it? It seems to be working perfectly well for those who control it – hint, that’s not most of us…

96% of all food sold to consumers in the UK is purchased through 9 major retailers. 65% of the world’s agricultural land is controlled by 1% of farms. 4 companies account for 70% of global trade in agricultural commodities. ⁱ ^; ⁱⁱ

Who does this food system serve? Mainly shareholders, most of whom are large investment companies. For example, Tesco’s biggest shareholders are investment management companies based in London and the US, for example. The supermarket giant is worth around £21bn, ⁱⁱⁱ reporting a pre-tax profit of just under £2.3bn in the year ending February 2024. ^iv PepsiCo, one of the world’s largest food manufacturers owning 23 brands, reported an annual gross profit in 2023 of $49.59bn, up 8.24% on 2022. ^v The vast majority of PepsiCo’s shareholders are institutional investors.

Our food system is complex: it’s more than production, retail and export. Our food system has multiple dimensions – political, social, environmental, economic and health. The profits of global food companies described previously hide the externalities and negative impacts (on the environment and on public health, for example) behind the GDP (g ross domestic product ) and growth mantra. Our food system is broken.

It’s broken for farmers: low farm gate prices are propped up by subsidies – a system created after the second world war to make sure no one went hungry again. An admirable aim, but it’s resulted in a farming system that prioritises production and high yield over nature and nutrition, and a food system that undervalues the work of farmers and food producers. To illustrate this, Unpicking Food Prices by Sustain ^vi reported that, for a 480g pack of cheddar purchased in a supermarket the dairy farmer has high production costs of £1.48 yet receives 0.02% in profit (much less than a penny) of the selling price of £2.50.

This system has also created compartmentalised and segregated production. Scotland produces lots of beef, lamb, dairy, salmon and whisky, but is worryingly short on other core products. Arable farming (crop production) accounts for only 10% of Scottish agriculture ^vii of which most is barley, grown for alcohol production, and wheat and maize grown largely for animal feed ^viii . Fruit and vegetable production accounts for a tiny proportion.

The food system is broken for consumers: food prices have increased dramatically in recent years, largely due to climate change, Brexit and the impact of international conflicts. For example, the price of a dozen eggs increased by 53 per cent from £2.15 in October 2021 to £3.31 in August 2023, and the cost of a block of cheddar cheese grew by 40 per cent over 2 years, to £8.86 in October 2023. ^ix Cooking oil production, whether Spanish olive oil or British vegetable oil, is being affected by climate extremes causing huge price increases for consumer. It has been estimated that climate change has added £361 to food bills in the past couple of years ^x .

We have a public health crisis: despite huge efforts Scotland still has high levels of diet-related ill health. The proportion of children at risk of overweight and obesity in Scotland in 2022 was 33%, the highest figure recorded in the Scottish Health Survey since 2011. The figure is higher in areas of deprivation. Achieving Scottish Government’s ambition to halve childhood obesity by 2030 will be difficult. ^xi

We all know that too many people in Scotland face food inequalities, by which I mean issues around accessibility, affordability and availability of good food and healthier options compared to foods with high levels of fat, salt and sugar. M ost people know what they should be eating, ^xii but the food environments we live in and the food that is available and within our budgets, not to mention the countless other pressures on household incomes, all have a massive impact on what ends up on our plates.

The food system is broken for workers: a report last year from Landworkers Alliance shines a light on the exploitation in the UK immigration system with regard to seasonal fruit and veg pickers. ^xiii ‘Zero hours’ contracts are still common across the food sector resulting in unstable and unsustainable employment, fluctuating incomes and pressure on people to work even when sick, or cancelling shifts at no notice.

The food system is broken for smaller independent food enterprises: they face the same issues as consumers around availability and price of produce and key ingredients, plus increased energy costs, staffing costs and other overheads. We’ve all seen cafes and small shops come and go over the last few years.

The food system is broken for nature: high yield-focused production has resulted in widespread biodiversity loss and pollution caused by the use of chemical herbicides to kill unwanted plants, pesticides to kill unwanted bugs (both of which also kill useful plants and bugs), and fertilisers to replace natural fertility lost from the soils through ploughing and use of chemicals. ^xiv ^; ^xv

Surplus food is a symptom of a broken food system: feeding people who are food insecure with surplus food is a sticking plaster, not a long-term solution. ^xvi Surplus food results from supply-side dynamics including incentives for food producers and supermarkets to divert food from waste management systems. As many charities in receipt of surplus food will know, you don’t get much choice with food redistributed from supermarkets and supply chains. Produce is often at its use by date and frequently higher in fat, sugar and salt.

Despite attempts to redistribute food, much of it still goes to waste. It is estimated that food waste in the UK was 10.7 million tonnes in 2021 (a quarter of all food purchased). Around 70% of all wasted food is edible (rather than inedible scraps). The top 5 wasted foods in the UK are bread, potatoes, milk, bananas and fruit and vegetables.

Reflecting on the profits of global food businesses in the context of all of these issues makes you wonder, again – who is this system working for?

i Shining a Spotlight: A critical assessment of food and beverage companies' delivery of sustainability commitments - Oxfam Policy & Practice

ii agrifoodatlas2017_facts-and-figures-about-the-corporations-that-control-what-we-eat.pdf

iii Tesco PLC (LON: TSCO) Statistics & Valuation Metrics - Stock Analysis

iv Tesco Annual Report 2024 (tescoplc.com)

v Pepsico Stock Ownership - Who Owns Pepsico in 2024? | WallStreetZen

vi Unpicking food prices: Where does your food pound go, and why do farmers get so little? | Sustain (sustainweb.org)

vii A New Blueprint For Scotlands Arable Sector (www.gov.scot)

viii A New Blueprint For Scotlands Arable Sector (www.gov.scot)

ix Why food prices are still rising despite UK inflation falling – and what it means for key items (inews.co.uk)

x food-prices-nov-2023-ECIU.pdf (edcdn.com)

xi obesity-prevalence-factsheet-2022-23-data.pdf (obesityactionscotland.org)

xii Healthy and Sustainable Diets: Consumer Poll | Food Standards Agency

xiii NEW LWA REPORT DIGS INTO EXPLOITATION OF MIGRANT WORKERS IN UK HORTICULTURE - Landworkers Alliance

xiv Agrochemicals, Environment, and Human Health | Annual Reviews

xv Evidence review on the influence of agriculture and land use change on lowland biodiversity in Northern Ireland (theoep.org.uk)

xvi Surplus Food and the Rise of Charitable Food Provision | Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Food Studies

BioBlitz and Agroecology at Lochhill Farm

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 13:21:11 GMT

BioBlitz and Agroecology at Lochhill Farm

In early July a highly successful Bioblitz was held at Lochhill Farm near Crossmichael. A Bioblitz is a way for citizen scientists to get out in nature, find and identify species, learn about flora and fauna and add to those important data records.

Over 40 people visited Lochhill on the day. The event was coordinated by Propagate in partnership with the Loch Ken Trust – and some help from Cath Seeds, a Crossmichael resident and Wildlife and Conservation Lead at SRUC's Barony campus. Small groups trekked off across the land with a trained group leader, armed with sweep nets and sample jars. On return, the books came out and the microscope was deployed to identify the plants and creatures. Over 80 species of all types of living organism were recorded – all of which have been added to the national data records.

Feedback from the event has been universally positive, with several people asking when the next one is! Big thanks to Cath and to Barney and Lindsay from the Loch Ken Trust for their help on the day, and to Mitchells, Irvings Bakery and Marchbanks Bakery who all donated refreshments.

The Bioblitz was was just one element in a longer-term eco-agricultural plan for Lochhill.

The farm sits above Crossmichael, on the road leading to Clarebrand. Home to Richard and Jane Middleton who have lived there for 13 years, managing the land organically and planting thousands of trees, the farm extends to about 75 acres and like much of the area includes a mix of different habitat types.

As early members of Propagate’s Regenerative Farming Network, Richard and Jane had been inspired by the knowledge sharing between farmers and by the farm walks they went on. Accepting that they are maybe of an age when some farm tasks are more challenging, they have been looking for a way to still be involved in the farm while sharing tasks with others – and making sure the land is managed in a way that is in keeping with their ethics and principles, including contributing to a sustainable future for the local community.

In April this year, Lochhill and Propagate officially began a new adventure. The aim is to explore ways that Lochhill can:

Maximise ecological diversity
Support sustainable livelihoods
Be a place for education and learning

These elements are influenced by agroecology – which includes social and political ideas alongside environmental and economic drivers for the farm.

This year, a big push is underway to generate a full ecological baseline for Lochhill.

Earlier this year, a group of farmers met at Lochhill for a Biodiversity Recording Training session, led by Malcolm Haddow from South West Scotland Environmental Information Centre. Malcolm showed the group how to use the iNaturalist app to identify and record individual species of plants, invertebrates, fungi, mammals and more. This is important to help add to the national records held on various species – which tell us how well nature is doing in our area!

Soil Samples have also been taken – and sent to a qualified Soil Food Web Lab Technician in North Ayrshire. This produced a report not for soil carbon and organic matter, which have already been analysed, but for beneficial bacteria and nematodes, mycelium, protozoa and other micro-organisms that have important functions in the soil.

The Bioblitz was a further step in the exploration process. The next stage is to look at the viability of farm enterprises. A roundtable event was held in May where 10 other farmers came tgogether to brainstorm different ways that Lochhill could meet its aims. Possibilities include a cow-with-calf micro dairy, pastured poultry for layers and broilers, a rare breed beef enterprise with adaptive grazing, a market garden and orchard, and maybe a venue for workshops and events. The project team are currently working through cost/benefit analysis and identifying the inputs and outputs – financial, social and ecological - for each enterprise. There are a number of experts in these fields lined up to share their knowledge and experience.

Glenkens Food Hub Grows into The Galloway Food Hub

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 20:38:15 GMT

We are excited to announce our new name! The Galloway Food Hub.

As we expand we wanted to update our name to better reflect the area we serve.

Here’s a little bit about our journey...

The Glenkens Food Hub was born from the Glenkens Community Action Plan and Propagate’s further work to investigate what the community wanted in terms of local food. One of the things the community said they would like was better access to good, local food, especially vegetables. So, a hyper-local, online food hub was trialled in Dalry, and funding to run a larger pilot project was received from Blackcraig Wind Farm, via Foundation Scotland, on behalf of the Glenkens and District Trust.

Initially, our intention was to stay hyper-local, as we wanted to reduce food miles, sell lower carbon emitting produce, and increase market access for local food producers. However, we wanted others across Dumfries and Galloway to benefit from similar Food Hubs, and we soon realised that multiple hubs were unlikely to be a viable answer in very large and vast region. Food hubs take a lot of administration behind the scenes, and replicating this many times over would require regular funding, with the unlikelihood that they would ever be financially viable. It soon emerged that a hub and spoke model, with one central packing point and multiple collection points run by wonderful volunteers, was the most feasible option. The locations of these points were driven by volunteers appearing from these locations wanting to take produce back for themselves and their friends. This turned out to be a workable scenario, enabling us to serve more people in the wider community.

At the start, we had collections available in Dalry only, and delivery within the Glenkens. Our next two first collection points of Gatehouse of Fleet and Low Auldgirth were trialled successfully. Recently, we have reached ten locations outside the Glenkens. Whilst we do have 4 - 5 very local producers in the Glenkens, most are based within the wider community of D&G, within a 30-mile radius of Dalry.

To keep our customers interested, and through asking them what they would like to see for sale on the hub, we continue to expand our range a little outside this 30-mile area and supplement with other ethical and sustainable produce which fits our ‘Good Food’ criteria, such as coffee, chocolate, and staple vegetables. We continue to speak with, and listen to, our customers and explore ways to expand our product range in alignment with their needs.

Now seems like the right time to change our name from The Glenkens Food Hub to The Galloway Food Hub. Whilst our heart, our packing place at the Glenkens Community Centre and half of our customers are still within the Glenkens, we have a valued and growing customer base and producer network across Dumfries and Galloway. The Glenkens is situated at the heart of Galloway, and we find this location to suit us right now with the links we have established.

We hope that becoming the Galloway Food Hub allows more people and producers to access and benefit from Galloway’s local, climate and nature friendly, online good food marketplace. We are extremely grateful to our fabulous customers, who offer kind words of encouragement that they love what we do, and value the produce that we offer. Our local producers are fantastic, often growing, farming, and making unique food under difficult circumstances, to make a difference to the health of our community and our planet and are the foundation on which the Food Hub is built. A very big thank you goes to all who have volunteered with us since we began. We couldn’t do this without you.

Please spread the word if you value this access to local resources in our beautiful part of the world. If you’d like to be a volunteer or supply produce to the Hub, please get in touch.

Thanks from all of us at

Team Galloway Food Hub

7 Reasons to Eat Seasonally

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 13:15:57 GMT

Eating Seasonally

Have you ever eaten with the seasons? We don’t really have to anymore as the supermarkets source food from around the world and ship, truck or fly it to our island.

So perhaps, like me, you’d got a bit out of touch with what’s in season when. However, since I started growing my own veg and now working with the Food Hub, I feel totally in tune with the seasons again. Having forgone fresh tomatoes and cucumbers etc last winter, when I came to taste the first tomato of the year, it was a mind-blowing taste sensation. I was so appreciative of this new intense flavour I hadn’t tasted for over six months; it was wonderful.

You may have noticed that the produce on the food hub changes regularly. Sometimes we have asparagus and broad beans but mostly we don’t. We have had plenty of cucumbers and tomatoes but it’s almost the end of that season. It’s time for root vegetables, kale and leeks to take centre stage.

Here are 7 reasons to eat with the UK seasons.

1. The greatest joy of eating seasonally is the opportunity to reconnect with nature's cycles, the passing of time and the tremendously diverse and delicious foods that our seasonal climate provides.

2. Food in season is cheaper because you are buying it when it is in abundance, and it has not travelled a long way. Some vegetables cost more at the start and end of the seasons as they have been forced to grow unnaturally at that time and there is less supply to fulfil the demand.

3. Eating seasonally reduces the energy (and associated CO2 emissions) needed to grow and transport the food we eat. For example, there is a very short asparagus season in the UK from end April – mid-June, the rest of the year asparagus is flown in from Peru with a much larger carbon footprint.

4. Eating seasonal foods supports the local economy: for example, it is a bit silly to buy courgettes from Morrocco at the height of the courgette glut in SW Scotland.

5. Seasonal food is fresher and so tends to be tastier and more nutritious: fresh tomatoes, for example, taste more special than tomatoes forced to grow all year round under artificial lights in the Netherlands greenhouses.

6. Eating British fruits and vegetables in season is good for you. Foods in season contain the nutrients, minerals and trace elements that our bodies need at particular times of the year. Eating a wider variety of fruit and vegetables across the year is much better for our health and is what we have evolved to do over thousands of years.

7. Whenever a particular ingredient goes out of season, another delicious food has come back into season to tempt us, delight our taste buds, and feed our microbiome with different nutrients.

We hope you enjoy the range and diversity the food hub offers of local and seasonal foods and that you can look forward with anticipation to the next season of your favourite fruit of vegetable coming back to your kitchen.

You can check out what’s in season here: https://hubbub.org.uk/how-to-eat-seasonally-in-the-uk-a-month-by-month-guide

What organic food means to me...

Sat, 23 Sep 2023 09:15:01 GMT

What organic food means to me...

Hi, I'm Lesley the Glenkens Food Hub Coordinator, a project of Propagate.

A long time ago I studied Food Science at the University of Leeds. My first job in the food industry was in quality control on one of the least food-like substances that is still in the supermarkets today. Sunny Delight. Wow, that made me realise I wasn’t in the right place. This was not a place for a food lover. I had to taste this rubbish every day! It made me feel awful. This was so far removed from the real, delicious food that I knew. I moved away from big food industry and ‘chemical flavourings’ into the, as I thought at the time, more ‘natural’ wine industry. I realised it was still not as natural a process in the commercial wine world. So, I became drawn to the organic and biodynamic production methods of growing grapes and minimal intervention wine making techniques. They made total sense to me that this was the better way to do things.

So, for me organic means, striving to grow and make food the way things used to be, in harmony with nature. Using natural inputs from waste plants and animal manure and providing a balanced natural habitat for wildlife. Also making food using only ingredients you’d find in your granny’s kitchen, no emulsifiers, stabilisers, preservatives, or modified thickeners. Eating organically grown food gives me peace of mind that I’m doing the best thing for my health and the planet’s health.

That's why I'm so happy to be coordinating the food hub and championing all the amazing local producers making a difference to our food system and growing, farming and making food using organic principles. If you'd like to know more about the hub and the producers check these links out :

https://www.propagate.org.uk/glenkens-local-food

https://openfoodnetwork.org.uk/glenkens-food-hub/shop

Why does organic food cost more?

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 13:06:24 GMT

Why does organic food cost more?

Price, followed by availability, is the biggest barrier to accessing organic food. There are very good reasons for this and there are things which the government and the food system could do to overcome this. To put pressure on the powers that be to make changes to the price and availability of organic food grown in the UK, we need to vote with our £££’s, and support groups lobbying government such as the Soil Association, Pesticide Action UK, Propagate Scotland amongst others.

· The true price of food isn’t reflected in the price we see in the supermarket. Farming subsides skew these costs. Farming with nature in mind, i.e., reducing chemical inputs and leaving areas for biodiversity and wildlife are not paid for by the government. Farmers see more rewards for productive land.

· Producing organically is often more labour intensive. Employing more people e.g., for weeding, especially in the UK with our minimum wages, can lead to higher costs than a tractor spraying chemicals on large hectares of land. Spending more time in closer contact with your animals to assess their health takes time, which equals money, when you’re paying staff wages. Rather than regular inoculating of animals with anti-biotics on a ‘just in case’ system.

· Lower yields, especially in produce growing, which are more natural and mean the soil isn’t stripped of everything in return. Land is often left to rest and covered with green manure crops, such as clover, to fix nitrogen. Leaving some land not in production therefore not bringing money in. Lower yields are not always the case in dairy as David and Wilma Finlay of The Ethical Dairy often talk about.

· Organic feeds for animals, as most are not 100% fed from the land, cost more than the conventional farming equivalent.

· Organic producers cultivate many crops, so by not mono-cropping and economies of scall, perhaps using different heritage species, they are doing more for the environment and people’s health but sacrificing their own yields compared to intensive farming.

· Demand outstripping supply. Organic production is very small, especially in Scotland where only 1% of land is farmed organically. Demand has been increasing, though this will fall again through the cost-of-living crisis.

What can we do about this? Well, we can grow our own if we have space or get involved in a community growing project so you can get access to organically grown vegetables. As per the previous blog check the dirty dozen from Pan UK so you know which produce is best avoided or bought as organic, and support others who are campaigning for change on organic produce. Like signing up to the D&G Good Food Newsletter here: https://www.dgsustainablefoodpartnership.org/get-involved

To find out more and support others making changes take a look at these websites:

https://www.soilassociation.org/

https://www.sustainweb.org/

https://www.pan-uk.org/

https://www.propagate.org.uk/

https://www.nourishscotland.org/

Why is organic food better?

Sun, 17 Sep 2023 08:54:16 GMT

Why is organic food better?

Following on from our previous blog, the first in a series of four about organic food. In our second post we’re going to talk about some of the reasons why we need to champion organic food and why it’s better for people and the planet. Here are seven reasons in no particular order.

1. Improving our health outcomes by limiting human exposure to artificial chemicals. Reducing the likelihood of cancer and other diseases, as well as neurological issues in children. Especially benefitting people who work on the land.

2. Eating organic food helps to mitigate against the climate crisis. Using less artificial inputs helps to build soil fertility to capture carbon and improve biodiversity amongst many other positive things.

3. It means we will have fertile land to grow on for future generations. Some parts of the world may only have 50-60 harvests left due to desertification from intensive farming and overuse of synthetic inputs. Scary, but well documented and becoming understood by big food business. There is a way to reverse this by using organic and regenerative farming methods and diversifying crops.

4. Food is likely to be fresher especially if from your local food hub or CSA farm. Organic food is mostly available seasonally and is not as often stored using artificial methods to keep supply available, unnaturally, all year round.

5. Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) free. No organic food will every contain GMO ingredients.

6. Food is likely to be more nutritious (it depends and isn’t well researched but that doesn’t mean it’s not true!). It has been found that organic foods contain more polyphenols. These are natural compounds found in plants which are their own natural pesticides. When we eat polyphenols, they activate our immune system to fight off infection and disease. Polyphenols also promote good bacteria growth in the gut and limit harmful bacteria.

7. Some organic foods may taste better, a happy by-product from all of the above and from growers who choose delicious varieties over and above the few we see in supermarkets which yield maximum output for minimum effort.

Some conventionally grown fruit and vegetables have much higher quantities of pesticide residue than others. If you’d like to eat organic fruit and vegetables but either can’t afford to or can’t access them, then Pesticide Action UK produce a list of the fruit and vegetables you might want to avoid or buy organically. Or focus on eating those that contain less pesticides when grown conventionally. Ironically those which are in the dirty dozen which are grown in the UK can be hard difficult to source from organic farms. It seems like a good idea to grow your own strawberries, pears, apples and parsnips if you can. Citrus fruit is a different matter and we are looking at buying direct from growers to supply the food hub over the winter when citrus is in season!

Download your dirty dozen information here: https://www.pan-uk.org/dirty-dozen/

What is Organic Food?

PH628875 — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 09:25:23 GMT

What is organic food?

As September heralds the call to organic food month, we are running a series of blog posts to share our thoughts and information around all things organic food.

In this blog series we'll explore:

· What organic food is.

· Why organic food is better.

· Why organic food costs more.

· What organic food means to us.

Simply put: Organic food comes from organic farming which seeks to work with natural processes using methods that are designed to achieve a sustainable production system with limited use of external inputs.

As 'organic' is a protected term, subject to legal regulation, anything that states ‘organic’ on the label is likely to be made in a commercial way. Anyone using an organic mark must pay for this process and go through rigorous testing to comply with the legislation. Most producers go for ‘organic certification’ when they intend to sell to a regulated outlet such as a supermarket or restaurant chain. Converting a farm to organic can be a lengthy process, over 2-3 years minimum. Many people who grow fruit and vegetables themselves at home may grow in an organic way if you buy organic seeds, use natural peat free composts from plant and organic animal made manure, and avoid using synthetic chemicals.

However, many smaller producers follow organic principles but choose not to get certified for cost and time reasons. However, they may be even stricter with their inputs for both ethical and commercial reasons. Buying chemical inputs and medical supplies for animal isn’t cheap and if a natural, more time consuming, but more cost-effective method is available then that is often the way smaller farmers and growers will work and those conscious larger certified producers too.

For a manufactured food or drink product to be labelled as organic, at least 95% of the ingredients must come from organically produced plants or animals. Retail shops can also apply for organic certification. There are many organic certification bodies around the world. The Soil Association is the largest in the UK and the charity which started this is a great place to learn more about organic principles https://www.soilassociation.org/

The Glenkens food hub have several certified organic producers and all our other producers work along organic principles and are aligned with our Good Food Criteria. Whenever we buy in food that is not local we source organic certified produce to give us confidence that the food is produced in a climate and nature friendly way.

Picture credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/ZKNsVqbRSPEtm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

NEWS

Agro-ecological jigsaw puzzle

Agro-ecological Jigsaw Puzzle at the London Science Museum

A Farm Facilitators Forum for Scotland

Sharing the knowledge – growing a farm facilitators forum in Scotland

Abi Mordin - Cluster Connections Coordinator

Launch of Scottish Food Commission – 'Making Food Work For All'

Propagate's Dawn heads to Edinburgh for the launch of a landmark moment in Scotland's food policy journey — and reflects on why it matters.

Learn Permaculture in 2026 with Propagate!

Learn Permaculture in 2026 with Propagate!

Farm Carbon Audits (and why they are flawed)

Why current farm carbon audits risk getting the wrong answers

Farming isn’t just about emissions — it’s about cycles

Third annual Farming for the Future Conference held in Maybole

Another successful knowledge sharing event

Farm Cluster Connections Launches!

Propagate Secures KTIF Funding to Strengthen Scotland’s Farmer-Led Learning Networks

A Land Moot 2025: A gathering for Land Justice

A LAND MOOT 2025: A GATHERING FOR LAND JUSTICE ﻿

Two Propagate members, Catriona Ferguson and Beth Coleman, report back from a weekend in October ﻿

WHAT IS A LAND MOOT?

WHAT DID WE GET UP TO?

FOOD WORKSHOPS

CLOSING ASSEMBLY AND WORLD CAFE

CONCLUSION

A Gathering of Community Food Projects

D&G Community Food Network Hosts a Gathering

Farming for the Future Conference #2

Another successful conference for farmers!

A Systems Approach to Food Justice Pt 2

How can we fix the food system?

A Systems Approach to Food Justice Pt 1

How is our Food System Broken?

BioBlitz and Agroecology at Lochhill Farm

BioBlitz and Agroecology at Lochhill Farm

Glenkens Food Hub Grows into The Galloway Food Hub

We are excited to announce our new name! The Galloway Food Hub.

As we expand we wanted to update our name to better reflect the area we serve.

Here’s a little bit about our journey...

7 Reasons to Eat Seasonally

Eating Seasonally

What organic food means to me...

What organic food means to me...

Why does organic food cost more?

Why does organic food cost more?

Why is organic food better?

Why is organic food better?

What is Organic Food?

What is organic food?

A LAND MOOT 2025: A GATHERING FOR LAND JUSTICE

Two Propagate members, Catriona Ferguson and Beth Coleman, report back from a weekend in October