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May 16, 2018
Land for smallholders
Alongside the growth of industrial scale farming, has been the rise in the number of food producers who are just as interested in the ecological aspects of small scale farming and in connecting with the communities that live nearby. In France a remarkable organisation – Terre de Liens – has been acquiring large amounts of land to enable young entrants to farm as smallholders in an ecologically sensitive way. Scottish Farm Land Trust has similar aspirations and their research indicates the demand is massive. Anyone interested in this approach should try to get along to their AGM next week.
Farming is becoming increasingly disconnected from communities in Scotland, with farm sizes growing dramatically and short-term contracted labour becoming the norm. We still don’t have a clear picture of where Brexit is likely to lead our agriculture sector, but reformulation/removal of farm subsidies is inevitable.
At this critical time, the Scottish Farm Land Trust has been established to increase access to land for small-scale, ecological agriculture by purchasing land through Community Shares and other finance options, to be held in trust and rented fairly to new entrants and young people. SFLT have evidenced that there is a massive demand from people wanting to start farming in this way. Join them for their AGM on the 22nd of May where they will be launching as a Bencom and signing up members.