Sutherland Food Convention Case Study
Three organisations working in partnership, approached the Climate Hub for funding support and the support of the local CDO, to host an event that would highlight the vulnerabilities and strengths of local food production in Sutherland. The event happened as part of the 2025 Climate Festival.
Highlights included:
· The wide cross section of invited guests and attendees.
· The broad discussion and Q&A session.
· The general feelings of positivity and desire to take action for the community.
Background
As part of the Climate Festival 2025, the Kyle of Sutherland Development Trust (KoSDT) applied to the Climate Festival Fund, for funding to support the delivery of a convention that would focus on food production and food resilience in Sutherland.
KoSDT were working in partnership with the Sutherland Community Partnership and Planet Sutherland.
· KoSDT covers the area of the Kyle of Sutherland in South/Central Sutherland. As well as managing several community assets, they deliver projects that reduce social isolation, tackle local poverty and support the building of a resilient community.
· The Sutherland Community Partnership (SCP) hosts a subgroup that focuses on food poverty and food resilience across Sutherland, a rural area with a large geography. The SCP includes members from the statutory partners, and organisations and individuals across Sutherland
· Planet Sutherland is a Climate Action based group that has an open membership across Sutherland.
Due to the remote geography of Sutherland and its dispersed population, the SCP Food Group recognised that challenges in food security were of particular concern and that this issue had the potential to become worsened with the impacts of climate change. It approached KoSDT and asked if it would be able to support an event to explore this further.
What we did
The SCP Food Group and Planet Sutherland approached KoSDT for support that would allow the delivery of a Food Convention. The Convention would bring together Community Partnership members, stakeholders, local landowners and crofters, and other individuals with an interest in food sustainability.
After securing funding from the H&I Climate Hub, several guest speakers were invited to the event to be held in the Ardgay Hall, a central venue for many in Sutherland. Food would be offered with a Q&A session in the afternoon.
Speakers included local crofters to share their experience of rural farming, a local training facility which supports young people in gaining outdoor experience and qualifications, a representative from the Highland Good Food Partnership and a representative from a local landowner. The conversation was wide reaching, and the Q&A session provided several actions.
The document ‘Can Moray Feed Moray’ was highlighted and suggestions were made that this might be replicated in Sutherland.
The Climate Hub CDO assisted the group in planning and with capacity on the day.
What we learned
There was widespread interest from a variety of organisations and much of the focus was on making local food production more sustainable and improving availability.
The Q & A sessions covered points including
· Challenges/successes with cooperatives.
· Demand for community orchards.
· The need for greater longer term food storage facilities locally.
· The short growing season and ways this may be extended.
· The possibility of future infrastructure run by the community eg. butchery/abattoir/marketplace/market garden
· Travelling vans or pop-ups offering services to rural communities.
The general feeling was that there was a desire to take action and work in partnership.
The community were all keen to support others in the area.
There was already good knowledge in the room about the significant threats to food sustainability in the area.
Reflections
During the discussion people were very open about several initiatives that had been attempted and failed, and the reasons for this was explored. Suggestions about other initiatives in Europe were also discussed and to be looked at further.
There was an appetite for further conversation and other opportunities to bring together a cross section of food producers, landowners and stakeholders in the future. It was identified that these groups had previously little crossover in other meetings and the discussions had been beneficial.
Although there was a real desire to take further action it will be reliant on having a host organisation that can apply for and hold funds, and either a good network of volunteers or a group that is able to provide Project Officer support for successful delivery.
Next steps
The Sutherland Community Partnership is going through a period of reflection, and it has been decided that a future subgroup will focus on matters associated with climate adaptation. There will be opportunities to develop some of the ideas developed during this convention through the SCP.
KoSDT has taken forward a new project that will follow Social Enterprise principles. Using unused or underutilized areas of land to grow food for the local area and develop local hardy seed varieties to encourage more local growing.
Future funding is to be sought to be able to investigate and produce a ‘Can Sutherland Feed Sutherland’ document.
Resources/Further Information
Sutherland CP - Highland Community Planning Partnership
Planet Sutherland-Climate & Environmental Group-Highlands
Convention on local food production in Sutherland to be hosted in Ardgay