While land has provided food for millenia, changes in farming over the last century have brought a disconnect between people and food. Science and technology have enabled a huge rise in productivity, but globalisation has encouraged cheap imports that disadvantage local producers.

All civilisations rely on security of the staples – cereals, legume pulses, and vegetables. But today in Scotland crops for direct human consumption are grown on less than 5% of the agricultural land. While standards in Scotland remain high, soils are generally productive and yields good. Positive recent changes include the rise of community-growing though small farms, the reopening of supply chains for locally-grown foods and the pioneering of new food types. This SEDA Land Conversation will examine how Scotland can regenerate its farming and food production sectors so that most cereals, pulses, vegetables and livestock products are of a higher nutritional value and grown and respected locally. The panel will include people who have already started innovating with vertical farms, microalgae photobioreactors and other cutting edge developments as well as traditional bioproducts.

Chair: Gail Halvorsen, chair SEDA Land

Speakers

Dr Mads Fischer-Moller, Food Policy, Scotland’s Rural College

Nikki Yoxall, Grampian Graziers

Artists

Tom Lyne, composer and bassist