Providing alternatives for current mainstream agricultural practices in the UK is a key piece of the puzzle to address the climate and biodiversity emergencies, as well as health and food production challenges. But to scale agroecology uptake, we need to make sure knowledge around it is available as widely as possible.
Agroecology is increasingly recognised across public and private spheres as an agriculture-based solution which has ‘significant potential to help Scotland tackle the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity decline whilst building resilience into our food production systems’.* However, shifting to agroecological practices requires expertise and commitment from farmers and crofters; this, in turn, means providing them with opportunities to access know-how and practical tools to embrace and implement agroecological practices in their operations.
Agroecology: enabling the transitionwas a project running between August 2022 and March 2023 aiming to address this need by facilitating practical knowledge exchange on agroecology across Scotland. Building on our previous project –Agroecology: facilitating mindset change– this new project’s goal was to ‘widen and deepen understanding of agroecology specifically through a farmer to farmer/crofter to crofter cooperative learning programme’.
The project was funded by The Scottish Government through the Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund. The Scottish Government set out its vision for Scotland becoming a leader in sustainable and regenerative agriculture. “The Cabinet Secretary said clearly: we are on a journey of significant transformation. It’s important it’s a just transition – one that supports farmers and crofters along the way” said group facilitator Nikki Yoxall.
The project had two stages: first, a series of regional groups; followed by a set of 12 online knowledge transfer events on a variety of themes related to agroecological practices.
As part of this, Soil Association Scotland facilitated a regional group in Central Scotland focusing on organic market gardening, with additional focus on training/apprenticeships/internships and three on-farm events over the autumn and winter (with topics decided by the group). There were also five other groups set up:
