Fife Diet Annual Report 2012 - 2013

Fife Diet Annual Report March 2012 – March 2013

2012 was a key year for the Fife Diet with four main initiatives: • • • •

we launched our brand new Seed Truck project to help people learn to grow our Food Manifesto (20 ways to change the way we do food) our beautiful perpetual 'Cooking & Growing' calendar for our members our new Kaleyard in Kirkcaldy ('celebrating food growing and wildlife in Beveridge Park').

We also continued to focus on and deliver our key objectives: Being the Change: to connect, nurture and inspire Carbon Reduction: immediate, sustained and impactful Growing Communities: sow grow and harvest Here is an outline of our activities over that period.

The Seed Truck In 2012 we were the lucky winners of the People's Postcode Lottery Dream Fund with the Seed Truck proposal, in collaboration with WWF Scotland. The project was awarded £93,000 to fund the project. This was a departure for us allowing us to operate across the whole of Scotland for the first time.

The Seed Truck is a joint project between the Fife Diet and WWF Scotland, with the day-to day running of the project by the Fife Diet. The project is supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery and also by Awards For All Scotland. We deliver an innovative range of worskshops to schools and community projects up and down the land.

Here’s the main workshop team: • The Gardener: Rob Davidson • The Composter: Sam Jess of Greenway • The Herbalist, Forager, Gardener: Elspeth Killin.

• The Storytelling Cook: Marie Louise Cochrane , a.k.a Mrs Mash the Storytelling Cook • The Artist: Hannah Ayre • The Permaculture Designer (and handyman): James Chapman • The Bicycle Engineer, Handyman and Seed Truck Skipper: Fergus Walker We have also been joined at various stages by the esteemed Ron Gilchrist, Marylou Anderson, Alasdair MacDougall, Owen Pilgrim, Sheila Kinninmonth, and lots of fantastic volunteers who have helped us along the way – not to The project has evolved over 2012 and 2013. At first the focus was to have a presence at large-scale events – festivals and so on. We quickly realised that this was the wrong approach and have instead developed relationships with an evolving network of

communities and garden projects, schools and centres.

We have worked closely with a number of community groups and schools, supporting them over an entire growing season and often helping them to create a new garden from scratch.

Our main partners so far have been: Dunnikier Primary School (Kirkcaldy) Ceres Primary School (Fife) Holy Cross High School (Hamilton) Maryhill Burgh Halls Community Garden (Glasgow) The Chill Out Zone (Bathgate) Dudhope Community Centre (Bharatiya Ashram) (Dundee)

KALEYARD In collaboration with colleagues from Fife Council and the Beveridge Park Development Group we Launched the Kaleyard to 'celebrate food growing and wildlife'. We were exploring different models away from allotments. The initiative proved that partnership working, in this case with the Parks Department could be a quick shortcut through dispiriting planning delays and bureaucracy.

The project was led by Elly Kinross and transformed a disused and overgrown corner of the park.

The project started back in July 2012 when we held a community consultation at Beveridge Park Community Festival and and served up a fabulous seasonal lunch. Now, after a lot of hard work the Kaleyard is open.

Fife Diet run a regular children’s gardening club called GRUB CLUB on a Monday from 4pm until 5pm. GRUB CLUB is free and OPEN TO EVERYONE. The Kaleyard Food Garden is open to the public for regular volunteer sessions, events and for the gardening clubs. Everyone is welcome to participate in the food garden, there are no plot fees associated with it and produce will be shared.

Looking back – what a fantastic thing Elly has done in Kirkcaldy (!)

Taking it together with EATS (Fife Council's Edible and Tasty Spaces) and the allotments and walled garden at Ravenscraig, it shows there's a tremendous opportunity for community growing and horticulture in Kirkcaldy. The opportunity to protect and develop these spaces and these synergies seems clear.

Let's do it.

We took part in (the last) Big Tent Festival (Sat 21- Sun 22 July) Scotland’s biggest environmental festival, which featured the sons of Auchtermuchty, the Proclaimers.

All day Saturday and Sunday we ran free workshops – and launched our wonderful new Smoothie Machine (pictured) the collaborative creation of our own Fergus Walker and Finnish bike innovator Uula Jero.

Our new smoothie bike makes seasonal smoothies but also offers shade and plays some groovy music to the discerning festival-goer as they recline to consider the wonders of the local food movement.

The smoothie bike is built from 100% recycled parts, including: bmx bike parts, an aluminum chair, a rainbow umbrella from a flea-market, second-hand electronic components, a mop handle, and a motor from an electric scooter that functions as a dynamo to generate the electricity for the sound system.

We also ran a series of Wild Food Walks with Elspeth Killen and Magic Porridge Pot story-telling with Mary-Lou Anderson.We also presented our Food Manifesto in the Oak Talk Yurt.

Ran the second successful Blasda Festival including events in Dumfries (see pictured) and Leith Worlds Kitchen (also pictured below).

In Dumfries we were delighted to work with Cream o’ Galloway innovative farmers David and Wilma Finlay as they launch their unique new dairy set up that, we think, points the way to the sort of farming we need to see.

Wilma explains: Three years ago we started to change our breed of cow to be a more dual purpose milk and beef cow, rather than a cow that is just good at producing milk. From our next calving in October this year we will leave the dairy calves with their mothers instead of removing them at 1 day old. We have been improving our grassland so that we can reduce the amount of bought in feed that the cows get, making us less susceptible to price spikes and less dependent on land that could be used for human feed. This will in turn reduce the amount of milk that each cow produces, so we will milk them just once per day. This will have the benefit of putting be less pressure on the cows, so will increase their productive lives. As a result we will need fewer calves as replacements in the dairy herd, so more of our calves will go for rose veal or beef. (I’m sure you already know that most dairy bullocks are seen as a waste product and don’t enter the beef chain.) And finally, we are installing a single stage anaerobic digestor (we think the first in the UK if not Europe) which will improve the slurry as a fertiliser, reduce the methane and ammonia GHG and produce electricity and hot water. We intend to use some of the hot water to heat poly tunnels for all year round veg.

Our annual conference of 2012 was called 'Local Food Solutions' and featured the following talks and workshops: • Land and Food: How do we get the Right to Grow? Author and campaigner Andy Wightman is Scotland’s leading Land Rights activist & Kat VandenBerg has been leading large-scale urban growing projects with the incredible Sow and Grow Everywhere project (SAGE) • Food Education and Regional Mapping: Eve Keepax (Eco Schools) designs and teaches what thousands of Scottish children learn about food and the environment in sc hool, Dougie Watson (Farmers Markets Scotland) has been thinking through how we radicalise, reshape and maximise Farmers Markets.

• Innovation and Enterprise: We have the wonderful Kate Bull specially from London from The Peoples Supermarket and the equally wonderful Laura Stewart (Soil Association) • How to Set Up a Food Co-op practical advice and ideas on how to do it. Save money and club together with collective buying power • Meet the Producer face to face discussion with the people who grow your food.

What do you love and what do you need more of from your veg box/farm shop/local producer? Come and meet Pittormie Fruit Farm, Puddledub, Chillicious, Pllars of Hercules and others.

• Being the Change food and carbon reduction – where are we making a difference?

How can we have a bigger impact? Come get geeky with us • Wild Food Walk with Mark Williams, of Galloway Wild Foods. Come explore the free food on your doorstep with Scotland’s foremost wild food expert.

Carbon This year the Fife Diet released it's Carbon Food Report which showed that if everyone in Scotland was on the equivalent of the Fife Diet (by changing household behaviour around six options1), we could collectively contribute to 60% of the Scottish Government annual saving target, only by changing the way we eat.

Statistics released by the Scottish Government this year revealed that, for the second year running, Scotland has failed to meet the legal targets it set itself to reduce carbon emissions. Emissions in 2011 were 848,000 tonnes over the target. Emissions fell by 2.9% between 2010 and 2011, but fell just short of the 2011 target for adjusted figures, which take into account the EU Emissions Trading System.

But Fife Diet estimates that our 5,000 members saved 1019 tonnes C02e in 2012-13. 2 If everyone in Scotland made similar changes to their food habits, up to a million tonnes of carbon could be saved.

Why aren't we doing this?

Two recent conferences in England give some context to this societal failure.

Policies to counter global warming effectively “will only advance if accompanied by radical social movements”, socialist writer and activist Naomi Klein told the Radical [greenhouse gas] Emissions Reduction conference in London. “Transformative policies… must be backed by transformative politics.”

“It’s not that our ideas [about cutting greenhouse gas emissions] are not popular. But they are not powerful, not dominant. They are not winning.” The movement needs to “turn the popular into the powerful” by creating a “radical, enabling environment in which these policies can flourish”, she said.

It makes sense. You can't pick apart one aspect of our culture and decarbonise it because everything's connected. Even if that makes it seems daunting it's better than kidding yourselves that small ameliorative efforts are going to crack it.

The Sustainable Food Trust held an event on 'True Cost Accounting in Food and Farming' in London in December with the aim to discuss the development of a new economic model for our food systems, one based on the principles of ‘true cost accounting’ and reached similar conclusions.

The knowledge is there but the inability to factor-in externalities precludes change.

'System change not climate change' as the saying goes.

Everywhere we turn business as usual is the casual complacent orthodoxy. What do we mean by this? The obvious example is a food policy skewed heavily towards export growth and narrative about 'yield' but Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre at the Radical Emissions Reduction conference outlined a series of other problems: 1 Eat more organic, eat less meat, waste less food, compost more, eat local and grow some of your own food 2 Our unique new analysis is backed by independent experts from Edinburgh University and the project has been independently monitored by Ecometrica and Brook Lyndhurst (June 2011).

• • • • • • • • • •

Tax breaks for shale gas development Chancellor proposes 37 gw of unabated CCGTS Highest investment ever in North Sea Oil Reopening Scottish coal mines Expanding aviation and more ports Emissions standards for cares watered down Rejected 2030 decarbonisation target Plan to remove green taxes from energy bills Supporting Arctic exploration for hydrocarbons Opened a consulate in Alberta (tar sands)

In this context eating locally seems absurd. What we need is a generalist approach that sees multiple wins and begins to connect up a rooted grounded local economy with a sustainable diet with health and wellbeing at its heart.

The irony is we have the answers right before us. The Fife Diet has showed that, even within the constraints of the current food infrastructure, with little agricultural change or challenge to the retail monopoly we can still create a better lower carbon system from within the current dysfunctional shell.

But how can we expand this? Where is the ambition of the 20:20 group? Where is the leadership to make this happen? Scotland has failed to meet its climate change targets for the second consecutive year. The disappointing thing is that we needn't have. But we need to be bolder and we need more leadership. People need to get their heads-around the fact that this will actually involve change, and then embrace that change.

Our report published shows how we could make some really significant steps just be rethinking the way we do food. Creating a sustainable low carbon food culture is something we can all be part of. If everyone in Scotland was on the equivalent of the Fife Diet, we could collectively contribute to 60% of the Scottish Government annual saving target, only by changing the way we eat. Why aren't we doing this? Where is the ambition of the 20:20 group? Where is the leadership in Scotland to make this happen?”

Kevin Anderson, deputy director of the Tyndall Centre, said that he considered, hypothetically, that a 10 per cent per year reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by rich countries is “viable”. Such drastic action is required to meet the United Nations target of limiting CO2 emissions to achieve a 66% chance of limiting the increase in surface temperature to 2 degrees.

“Radical emissions reduction between now and 2030” would have to be accompanied by “a Marshall plan-type effort” to build low-carbon infrastructure, Anderson said. The radical emissions had to be made by a small minority: he estimates that 1-5% of the population is responsible for 40-60% of emissions.

That's an extraordinary figure and suggests that the next step be, essentially: Occupy Food.

The opportunity for radical holistic change is right here, right now, we just need to grasp that opportunity.

As we consider radical options for constitutional change – let's expand that belief – let's

align it with the wider need to create environmental justice. Let's transform Scotland.

Let's create a plan to re-localise our food system and make a plan for decarbonising our food system. It's social change that will taste good.

Membership 2012 - 13 saw 1514 new members join the Fife Diet, a year on year increase of 45%. This meant we had achieved half our new membership target within the first year of our threeyear funding cycle. Membership sign up was steady throughout the year, however nearly a third of the total joined us in July 2012 at the Big Tent festival, when we debuted the Seed Truck. This was a huge event which allowed us to engage with many new people and introduce our new Seed Truck workshops to the Fife public.

We also had a second peak in membership towards the end of the Financial Year, in February and March 2013. Around this time we launched our spring programme of events for the following few months, after a quieter period over the winter following staff changes, and both Mike and Mags spoke at well attended student events in St Andrews and Edinburgh, which saw a large number of younger people sign up to the Fife Diet pledges.

Staff, Board and Volunteers Lisa Farrell joined us as our Membership Officer and did a tremendous job before moving on to towork with Greener Kirkcaldy. She has since been replaced by Mags Hall who has continued to expand the role.

Karen Small, co-founder of the Fife Diet went on maternity leave in June 2012 to give birth to Calum. In her place we appointed Teresa Martinez who has continued in post doing an excellent job in supporting our staff team, reporting to our funder the Climate Challenge Fund and John O'Neill – Cork University intern under the Erasmus Programme Lucy McAuley – on going volunteer on all things Louise Oliver – volunteer Oriane Brunet – who developed a thesis researching the Fife Diet Darragh McHugh - Cork University intern under the Erasmus Programme Fiona Wallace - Abertay University focusing on nutrition In August 2012 Appendix1 Other Events 2012/2013: Beveridge Park Community Festival Sat 28th of July Beveridge Park, Kirkcaldy 12pm-3pm PLOT TO POT community lunch that celebrates the joys of Grow-Your-Own. Dundee Food and Flower Festival (SEED TRUCK)

Fri 31 Aug – Sun 2 Sep Rethinking Food – Can we feed the world without GM? Rethinking Food – Can we feed the world without GM? Book Festival debate with Joanna Blythman, Mike Small and Dr Neil Stephens.

Wednesday 22 August, 7.00-8.15 pm at the Guardian Spiegeltent, Edinburgh Book Festival, to book go HERE. • 22/08/12 • Comments: 0 • The Ecology Centre Summer Festival The Ecology Centre Summer Festival (SEED TRUCK) Sat 18 August The bounty of summer needs to be celebrated! As the harvest starts to come in, why not head to Craigencalt Farm by Kinghorn, and try out the Mill Bike – get fit grinding your own wheat flour or oatmeal. Go to the Ecology Centre site for more info about the day. 12-4pm • 18/08/12 • Comments: 0 • West Lothian Better Off: Re-use it don’t lose it West Lothian Better Off: Re-use it don’t lose it (SEED TRUCK) Mon 13 August The Truck is coming to Bathgate to demonstrate how to make your own Take-Away Salads that you can groe on your windowsill, as well as the chance to try our Musical Smoothie Machine. Bathgate Partnership Centre, 11 am-3pm St Andrews Craigtoun Park St Andrews Craigtoun Park (SEED TRUCK) Sat 11 Aug The Truck is making an appearance at the lovely Craigtoun Park to celebrate the Lammas Festival. Come along and make your own seasonal smoothie by pedal power in style on our musical smoothie machine, and sit down to hear the story of the Magic Porridge Pot. 12-4pm.

Ayr Flower Show Ayr Flower Show (SEED TRUCK) Fri 3 – Sun 5 August The Seed Truck will be in Ayr in the beautiful setting of Rozelle Estate with workshops on soil improvement, kitchen waste to compost classes, our flour mill bike and much more Se Otesha

Our blog from that time wrote: Last night at 10.30 after much punctures and bust-spokes arrived the Otesha gang.

Otesha are a traveling band of young people on a bike tour of southern Scotland called ‘Tastetastic’: “three weeks exploring food sustainability.” (more here). Bunked down at St Serfs Hall in Burntisland they were quickly put to work by that slave-driver Elly Kinross helping out at Broomhill Gardens, while Lisa Farrell cooked up a storm including Garlic and Mint Soup and rolls from Bread in Fife. Here are some photos of the work-day which included masses and masses of weeding, tender care of the fruit trees, lots of strimming

by John O (aka The Terminator) and more, er, weeding.

A huge thanks to all the Otesha people for all their hard work, what a great boost to the garden. We welcome you and hope you have a lovely day off tomorrow around Burntisland, Kinghorn, Kirkcaldy and Aberdour.