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Community food initiatives in Scotland: activities and issues

4. Telephone interview

4.2 Growing initiatives

Contemporary themes raised within the interviews

Background There is a strong impression that the recent surge in growing initiatives relates to increasing public awareness of food issues due to food scares, lack of confidence in the nature of food (and additives), concern over “food miles “( miles from growing area to consumption area) and wider environmental issues.

Aims Clearly a wide variety of aims and objectives are expressed through growing initiatives and these include issues of local fruit and vegetable supply (e.g. remote rural communities, provision of locally grown food, provision of organic food), use of local land which is unused (e.g. allotment schemes) work experience (e.g. mental health projects, rehabilitation schemes, community service offenders) wider community development issues (e.g. community gardens and community supported agriculture) and disillusionment with wholesaler agreements (which may lead to wastage of produce).

Getting started has involved a range of approaches including a public meeting (with the initial aim of setting up a fruit and vegetable co-op to sell rather than grow), identifying a ready market and client group, identifying target labour (community service offenders) and funding opportunities. In general the presence of a small group of committed people (often living in a rural area) with skills which include business and marketing as well as gardening and production are the vital starting point to growing initiatives.

Funding sources have included a grant from The Scottish Community Diet Project (enabling the purchase of a rotavator, two sheds, two polytunnels and other share hand tools), independent funding from shareholder members, assistance from a government grant for converting grazing to organic status, lottery funding and Rural Challenge Fund. Most projects aim to be self- funding. A number of projects described potential funding sources including Leader 2 and local authority grants.

Staffing range from volunteers with gardening experience, paid gardening administrative and bookkeeping staff Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS) , shareholder work contributions, Working Weekends On Organic Farms (WOOFer) volunteers, self-employed labour and local college students. Staff need support and training and again a wide range of approaches have been utilised from a series of guest speakers for a community growing project in Shetland, informal exchange from existing staff “on the job”, newsletter networking and employing a horticulture tutor. In a well established project in the Borders, training is provided for private individuals and for New Deal employment seekers. The training is in the form of accredited courses in Cultivation and horticultural practise, vegetable growing at a field scale, fruit growing at an Orchard Scale and sustainable perennial growing (permaculture). Providing a range of training options , gives the smaller grower an opportunity to explore what the possibilities are for expanding their enterprise.

Land Growing requires land. Acquisitions have been made by using land owned by local authorities, leasing from local farmers, leasing from a local estate and property owned by a local college. Smaller ventures (e.g. 15sq metres ) report few problems but larger (aiming for 20 acres) and more established projects have run into difficulties for expansion. For example, one Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Scheme in the North of Scotland reported that they operate from 5 sites with a 364 day leasing arrangement with a number of farmers leading to rather fragmented working structure. To move from a leasing agreement to any other approach (e.g. buying land ) will in itself require a restructured approach within existing working to establish a fund raising team and agenda. The current leasing arrangements are at odds with the notion of sustainability in that the CSA cultivates the ground and then moves on and never has the opportunity to create a sustainable system. Also it is not possible to apply for Soil Association certification for organic standards. In addition to land, other costs include equipment which ranges from hand tools to tractors and other farm machinery.

Produce The actual produce varies according to the ethos and aims of the projects. All grow vegetables, and some produce only organic varieties. Some also produce soft and orchard fruits. The growing project in the Northern Isles will offer some scope for supplying the local co-op which will open once a week and operate an ordering system.

One operation in the Borders have developed a labelling scheme - The garden of Scotland brand mark. In this enterprise organic produce are sold in boxes weekly and picked up from base. The produce can be supplemented with other organic supplies.

There are concerns that for people on a low income, organic produce may be to be too expensive, with the producer having to rely on slightly higher prices to cover their costs.

Working within local communities increases the potential to establish links between the producer and consumer by involving them either directly through shared labour or in paying a share to a scheme orientated towards local sustainable organic growing. Paying in advance either annually or monthly helps to spread the risks through the membership of seasonal fluctuations in crop quantity or quality and guarantees the farmer gardener an income. A number reported that the box scheme is ideal for the small producer , it mops up any surpluses, it allows for more flexibility , variety and experimentation for the producer and gets away from the monocrop mentality of the major wholesalers.

Delivery schemes A number of projects operate box schemes such as one in the east coast which supplies around 100 hundred boxes weekly to 10-12 drop off points.

Volunteers at these drop off points co-ordinate the orders weekly and organise the payment in advance. Seasonal vegetables are supplied in two sizes - £10 and £6. Orders are received on Wednesday, picked on Thursday and delivered on Friday. When there is a shortage of their produce they buy in goods from other sources. They make every attempt to source locally and link into other local producers. They concentrate on producing salad vegetables in their polytunnels, and also operate a farm shop.

Markets Marketing and finding customers is a particular challenge in Scotland where there are virtually no local fruit and veg retail or farm markets. There are also problems related to the absence of a good distribution network for locally grown produce which is restricted to limited ram shop and veg boxes.

Motivation There is a strong distinction between those schemes that seek to be financially viable and provide employment opportunities and those which are more home grown or provide a focus or means to an end such as therapeutic or rehabilitation initiatives. Community involvement and working together was flagged as a benefit on a number of occasions. Satisfaction in producing food, making decisions about how local food should be grown and local schools involvement have all been reported as positive outcomes. It was felt that a number of projects opened the way to wider community participation and involvement and helps to “establish relationships with the people and the land”.

It appears that the benefits of growing initiatives are much wider than purely successful production. In health terms there are reported benefits through exercise and eating more vegetables. One project aims to provide relevant community experience for workers such as young offenders where this type of work has helped to foster a new interest and introduced new skills. In this case the process would appear to be more important than the outcome and the project is not a commercial venture.

Extension One project in the borders has consulted with local retailers, hoteliers and restaurants as to the type of supplies they would like to see developed locally and to ascertain their interest in buying locally.

Publicity Last year one project ran a publicity campaign on a budget of £60. This involved putting up posters in the area and a couple of adds in the local paper. In 4 weeks there membership went up from 120 to 175. Another project reported developing a clientele by word of mouth which was entirely satisfactory and avoided conflict with other producers. In most cases community involvement and networking are seen as important parts of the projects. Another project recommended community events to publicise the aims and outcomes in a fun way.

Structure There are a variety of operating structures. One group is moving from a company limited by guarantee to a new structure which will allow then charitable status and reflect the democratic base of the membership. In another case the project is set up as a community business while another is an association, and another is a project set up by a national voluntary organisation

A major outcome of growing projects are wider community benefits which are gained from working together and gaining understanding of the skills and resources in the local community. It was also reported that there may be further benefits to be had by bringing growing projects together. To date there has been very little networking of growing initiatives - an issue raised by a number of respondents (and others including urban city farmers growers groups). Given the increased interest in this area it may be timely to create and foster a growing initiatives network.

GROWING INITIATIVES - POLICY AND PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

• Growing initiatives originate from a diverse set of aims and objectives but there areas of common ground. It is timely to draw some of these interests together. One possible way forward is to organise a conference which specifically aims to address some of the common themes such as acquiring land, marketing goods, distribution networks and linking community production and consumption initiatives.
• Current evidence suggest that community based growing initiatives are becoming more common in Scotland and may benefit by a specific database and network structure to encourage the development and maintenance of existing work. This database would also link closely with community food initiatives so that local producer and consumer organisations can identify each other.
• There is clearly a need for more focused information for people and groups interested in developing growing initiatives that address all issues from getting started, funding and technical support, marketing and distribution of local produce and business development. A basic manual or guide to Getting Growing in Scotland with contacts for further information would be timely.
• There is a need for support and recognition of Community Based Enterprises from local economic development organisations. Dialogue between these agencies may be fundamental to developing local distribution networks and diversification schemes.
• There is a need to develop consumer opportunities to increase availability of locally produced food.

4.1 Methods

The Fare Choice readership Survey was the starting point for identifying growing initiatives . However, organising a group discussion on growing initiatives proved less than straight forward. While it revealed that 7 projects were actively involved in initiatives (13 respondents were interested in developing work) two of these were based in England and in another, the relevant health professional had moved.. Only one of the 7 projects had expressed a willingness to participate in a discussion group.

Whilst there were a number of agencies and groups who expressed an interest in coming to discussion groups these were dispersed throughout the whole of Scotland from Shetland to Islay, Highland to Dumfries and Galloway and there are clearly pragmatic considerations in terms of getting a far flung group together for a short time.

Projects involved in a range of growing initiatives with quite diverse aims, structures and outcomes, these include, community gardens, rehabilitation and therapeutic schemes, food co-operatives and allotments, school gardens, community supported agriculture and box schemes. While all schemes aimed to produce food , the motivation , methods and processes involved varied Some schemes were well established while others were in the process of setting up.

For these reasons it was decided to conduct telephone interviews with a selection of 5 key people who were currently actively involved in growing projects. These projects ranged in duration from a few months to well -established projects which had been running for several years

Five telephone interviews (largely booked calls of 20-40 minutes) were conducted in the middle of March and included projects in the voluntary sector, community groups, and a small business. The interviews were informal and semi structured and aimed to explore what people felt in their experience were the factors that encouraged and supported sustainable growing initiatives and what were the obstacles. The main areas touched on were getting started, getting people involved, land, funding, staffing , training, project management, equipment, outcomes, links , research and evaluation.

As in the discussion groups it is recognised that the following report will not be an exhaustive review and account of all the issues surrounding growing initiatives but acts as an indicator and highlights some of the issues from current, hands on experience