Harnessing Community Food in Highland
Information on Community Food initiatives in the Highlands. Useful resources for getting involved and for those involved already.
Community Food is one of our main areas of work at the Highland Good Food Partnership. Community Food covers projects arising in community contexts; supporting projects with a social focus, including allotments, food banks, community growing, community markets, etc. When setting up a land based food initiative, access to land, access to funding, support with governance are all important things and this is some of the work that our Community Food group does at Highland Good Food. If you feel like you want to get more actively involved with the Community Food group, or any of the topics below, please email hello@highlandgoodfood.scot and we’ll get in touch!
What are we working on?
Community food growing
At Highland Good Food we have a group that are currently creating a Highland wide map of all the community growing initiatives. This will allow us to be more supportive, facilitate knowledge exchanges and support groups in some of their challenges. Our aim is to create a strong network and to encourage more groups to get started! In the meantime, while this map is being finalised, you can check out the Highland Food Activity map, and click the ‘Community Growing Initiative’ layer to check out what’s out there.
Here are some resources below:
- Greener Scotland has some great suggestions on seasonal fruit and veg.
- Growing our Future, a draft document from the Highland Council.
- Plan to grow food, from the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society
- Social Farms and Gardens Community Growing resource pack
Food waste and the circular economy
At Highland Good Food we are a member of Circular Communities Scotland. In a circular economy we keep products in economic use for as long as possible. If a product cannot be reused, then the component materials which are also valuable resources are recycled. One of the important aspects when it comes to food is seeing food waste as resource that can be reused as compost.
We have partnered up with 8 organisations in Highland to form the Highland Community Waste Partnership where, starting spring 2022, we will be delivering on food waste reduction in a move towards more sustainable consumption, consistent with a Net Zero future. This project is being coordinated by Keep Scotland Beautiful and funded by the National Lottery.
If you feel like you’d like get involved in circular economies and food waste in Highland, email hello@highlandgoodfood.scot and we will let you know about the project group, how often they meet and what to expect.
Emergency food provision
For communities who want to start up a community fridge, here is MOO Food’s booklet on how to do it. You can go to our Highland Food Activity map and check out the “Food Banks” and “Community Fridges and Larders” layers to see which projects are working on emergency food provision.
The Highland Good Food Partnership is a member of the Scottish Food Coalition who are campaigning for a Good Food Nation Bill and advocating for people’s Right to Food. The belief is that if food plans, strategies and legislation at governmental and local authority level were framed around people’s right to access good, healthy, affordable food, then this would facilitate the structural changes required to effectively address food poverty and food justice. Currently food banks are necessary to ensure everyone has enough to eat, however this is not a just approach.
Community Food Organisations
Some of the organisations in Highland that are working on projects with food and people at heart. Click on the logo to find out more about each of them.
