The Campaign will certainly be taking it seriously – and to kick things off we have invited Patrick Krause, Iain MacKinnon, and Donald Murdie of the Scottish Crofting Federation to discuss the present state of crofting and outline some of its problems.

The articles can be found in the Land and People section, under “The College”. Or just click here.

There are 18,000 crofts in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland – mostly in the Western and Northern isles and in the coastal fringes of the western and northern Scottish mainland. Between them they occupy a quarter of all the agricultural land – one eighth of all of Scotland’s farmland. Some crofters have more than one holding but still there are 13,000 of them; so the total crofting population, including families, is 33,000: one tenth of the Highland and Island population.

The system is unique to the Highlands and Islands. It is both a social system and a form of tenure in which small-scale food production plays an important and unifying role. It evolved from a turbulent period in the areas’ history — the Highland Clearances — largely as a means of sustaining populations. Much of the landscape is renowned for it High Nature Value and the crofters manage it in empathy with nature using time-tested methods that are kind to the environment, to the produce, and to the consumer. For the most part the crofters eke out a living in remote areas, in harmony with the environment – yet they are marginalized both politically and practically. As it is said, crofters live on “The Edge”.

An Act of Parliament of 1886 created the crofting legislation and provided for security of tenure (most crofters are tenants still to this day).  Tenants were thus empowered to improve their conditions both materially and socially because they knew that the area of ground under their control could be transferred within families and on to future generations. But also — unique to crofting – the  land is regulated, whether under tenancy or owner-occupancy. Crofters are obliged to occupy and use the land — or risk having it occupied by someone else.

The crofting system is based around “townships” – communities of two or more crofts. These are typically units of 2 to 5 ha of better quality “in-bye” used for keeping animals and growing forage, arable crops and vegetables. “Out-run”, lower quality land, may also be used individually for grazing whilst the hill ground is managed as common grazing for cattle and sheep.

Crofting was characterized by its common working and thereby strong communities, but this is breaking down in many areas as livestock declines – mainly because the Single Farm Payment and low market prices have removed much of the incentive.

Crofters could be described as the first environmentalists – managing natural resources in harmony with the environment. Their small-scale and extensive agriculture has delivered some of the most stunning High Nature Value habitats within the U.K. They have increased bio-diversity and have preserved the habitats of many rare species now extinct elsewhere in the UK.

It is usually not possible to make a living from crofting agriculture alone and crofting communities do several jobs, contributing to their livelihood and further supporting the rural economy. So crofting is significant in all aspects of rural development, embodying the principles of diversification, co-operation, entrepreneurial vision and community spirit. It is this resourcefulness and attachment to the land which maintains crofting populations in some of the most fragile, remote and challenging areas of Western Europe. Crofters are justifiably proud of their way of life.

Some basic facts

• There are just over 18,000 registered crofts, and roughly 13,000 crofters (some crofters have the tenancy of more than one croft). That represents some 33,000 family members, or around 10% of the population of the Highlands and Islands.
• Crofting households represent around 30% of households in the rural areas of the mainland Highlands.
• Crofting households represent up to 65% of households in Shetland, the Western Isles and Skye.
• There are 770,000 hectares under crofting tenure, being 25% of the agricultural area in the Highlands and Islands and 12.5% of Scotland’s agricultural land. Of this 0.58 million hectares is common grazing.
• Livestock production accounts for 47 per cent of Scottish agricultural output – a figure much higher than in England. Crofters have around 20% of all beef cattle and 45% of breeding ewes in the Highlands and Islands area, though numbers are declining.
• Land use in the crofting counties is constrained by climate, soils and topography. Virtually all of the land in the crofting counties is classified as Severely Disadvantaged in terms of the European Less Favoured Area Directive, yet these areas receive the lowest LFA payments.

Further information can be found at www.crofting.org

Let’s not be shy about the matter; the dominant picture of agriculture in this country is pretty grim. Set upon the foundations of unequal land distribution, the expansion of neo-liberal policies into agriculture since the 1950′s have accounted for a halving of agricultural employment, the systematic industrialisation of farming techniques, the consolidation of larger farms and the tightening of corporate control on food markets. We have been left with an economy in which new entrants to farming can expect to pay up to £10,000 an acre for land but receive less than 10% of the money spent on food by consumers

As a result of these historical processes, Britain holds the smallest percentage of agricultural workers in the world. Less than one percent of the population, some 557,000 people, work the land. Of these, the average agricultural worker is pushing 62 year, earns a wage of around £4.50 an hour and farms a plot of 56.6 hectares. It is clear that we need more farmers, more food growers, and more land based workers if we are to reverse the food crises we face to create more just and sustainable food economies. From the conservative disaster-management estimate of 60 000 to the more visionary 1 million the evidence is irrefutable. The question is how will we find the new farmers we need?

My interest in this question has been growing since I was a boy. I grew up on a small holding in North Devon, amid an agricultural sector that was suffering the inevitable fall out of neo-liberalism and the large farm focused subsidies of the common agricultural policy. However, it was not until I settled in London that I really became conscious of the politics and history that surround the current state of agriculture. Neither was I aware until then of the many grassroots projects seeking to reverse the tide and put a spade in the current food system.

For the last four years I have been living in London, working to create growing spaces in the city, and to build networks that bring together food producers who are working towards a vision of food sovereignty. Through this I became active in Reclaim the Fields, a European wide movement of young people wishing to return to agriculture in a sustainable, politically conscious fashion.

It is from this background, as a young and budding grower with a range of experiences in urban and rural contexts, that I want to offer my analysis of the key structural and cultural changes that must be made if we as civil society are to support new entrants to agriculture. To do this I have chosen to highlight a series of structural and cultural changes that are inhibiting the processes as well as introducing the work that reclaim the fields is doing on these issues in other parts of Europe.

Structural obstacles facing new entrants

It is not hard to see that there is a growing interest in sustainable food production. A glance into any of the blossoming community gardens, a look at the allotment waiting lists or a walk round the new farmers markets will testify to this. The critical question is what must happen for this developing counter culture to become a substantive change? And what can we as civil society do to support and encourage new entrants to agriculture?

Without doubt, access to land remains the single greatest structural obstacle facing the new generations of farmers and growers. A combination of concentrated land ownership, property speculation and unequal wealth distribution has seen land prices inflated by an average of £2,000 per acre over the past 10 years, and up to as much as £10,000 in places. Volatility in the agriculture sector has also left many farmers reluctant to lease even the smallest area of productive ground and encouraged short term tenancies for others. This process is even more marked in urban areas where property speculation and caution on behalf of city councils makes securing land with good tenure extremely difficult.

However, it is not just land that must be made cheaper and more affordable. People looking to set up in agriculture also need access to affordable dwellings. This is an often overlooked element that is central to the issue of access to land. Young people, especially those expecting to live from agricultural wages need to have to option of building themselves affordable housing on or around the land they work.

Alongside gaining access to land and affordable rural dwellings we must also regain access to markets for locally grown food by making structural changes to economics of the free market. This means limiting the powers of corporate players in our food systems and introducing tariffs that will protect and incentivise small-scale sustainable production. The small number of corporations wielding power in food retail and distribution are relying on the mechanisms of the free market to force down the price paid for agricultural produce. Regulations on competition, the reintroduction of tariffs and the prevention of further concentration through limits on mergers and acquisitions may be first vital steps toward reducing corporate abuses and ensuring that farmers can earn a sustainable living.

These three elements, access to land, dwelling and markets, are the main structural issues facing new entrants to agriculture. However, alongside these there are a number of cultural challenges that it is extremely important to address and overcome. It is these cultural obstacles that inhibit our capacity as members of civil society to work for the manifestation of a common vision. The political system will only yield to structural changes when its hands are forced by a popular movement powerful enough to demand a hearing. Discussing these cultural challenges and finding ways to apply them to our own lives are a first step in broadening that movement.

Cultural obstacles facing new entrants

Much of the experimentation, training and innovation that propels new entrants to agriculture is coming from urban areas and it is inevitable that the majority of new farmers will be from cities. I see the biggest cultural challenges surrounding new entrants to agriculture in the issues created by differences around ways of working, living and thinking between these groups.

In this sense, supporting new entrants to agriculture means learning to understand that many new farmers and growers want to explore collective and co-operative ways of working; that they feel excluded by discrimination of any kind be it based on race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or class; and that many of them come to agriculture from idealistic positions.

Finding a sense of place for these new growers and farmers is going to be a challenging process. The potential for misunderstanding and distrust between traditional farming groups and new entrants with new ideas and ways of working must not be underestimated. The task that faces us is to ensure that we can create an atmosphere of support and respect for these new entrants.

However, this process is a positive one and all these groups, along with all that exist between them have a lot to learn from each other. New farmers in rural areas will help overcome the cultural isolation that drives so many young people to the cities, and the voice of experienced farmers can teach new entrants so much about the beautiful land and traditions of rural Britain. The critical issues is remaining open to changes in what the farmers of the future will look like, sound like, and farm like.

The world’s largest peasant movement, La Via Campesina, argues that the most important relationship in the struggle for food sovereignty lies between the small farmers and the landless workers. In Britain this message holds true. Although talking about landless workers has fallen out of favour, we still exist. From the horticulturalists looking for land to establish community supported agricultural projects, to the urban market gardeners working on short term tenancies, the million new farmers will begin as landless farmers, and their success depends on the support of the farming community. It is essential that we take their contribution to the future of farming seriously and find ways to support their work.

Popular movements supporting new entrants to agriculture in Europe.

Reclaim The Fields is one grassroots movement established to support new entrants to agriculture. It is a network spread across Europe that is composed of farmers, land based workers and urban food growers. It exists to link people from different cultural and legal contexts who are involved in struggles and issues surrounding food sovereignty. The movement is democratic and has no membership or internal hierarchies.

The movement was established in 2007 when a mixed group of young people involved in food growing got together with activists from La Via Campesina at the anti G8 protests in Germany. Many of the people involved in that meeting recognized the need for a grassroots democratic movement that could provide a meeting and mobilizing space for people wishing to return to a politically conscious and sustainable agriculture.

From this meeting Reclaim the Fields was born. It is an open network operating by consensus decision making. This means there are no leaders and no formal membership to the group. We have no funders and no political obligations. Instead people and projects participate by agreeing with the vision expressed in the ‘who we are’ text and contributing an active presence in meetings.

Reclaim the Fields operates through gatherings which take place every 6 months, and camps which happen every 2 years. In these forums people from different places come together to share their projects, lend energy to others, work on common issues and inspire one another. Through these meetings relationships are built that continue beyond them. Because there is no formal membership structure it is impossible to tell how many people are involved in the movement at any time. However, this form of organizing is an appropriate one for people who are engaged in agriculture, where it is often difficult to ignore the demands of the land, and allows a participation that equals available energy.

The stance of the group is anti-capitalist and its members are actively involved in creating alternatives to the environmental and social degradations of industrial agriculture. Besides sharing experiences and ideas, the group acts as a forum for the researching and campaigning and organizing direct action on issues of seed saving and distribution, GM crops, access to land, security of tenure, resistance to neo-liberalism, spreading appropriate technology and establishing collective farms.

It is through movements like Reclaim the Fields that people wanting to return to agriculture can come together, build relationships, see other ways of making agriculture work, and form more political understandings of the issues that they face. Of course not all new entrants to agriculture identify with the form or outlook of Reclaim the Fields. However many of its elements as an interpersonal, diverse and mutual aid orientated network can be used to create and inspire popular movements by other groups.

We recognise that demanding socially and ecologically equitable food systems means demanding massive structural and cultural changes.  To create sustainable land based livelihoods means challenging the logic of competition, accumulation and profit maximisation, and creating a society that values agricultural work. It means finding alternatives to notions of freehold property ownership and exploring forms of collective stewardship so that land can be used by those who want to work it, rather than those who profit simply from owning it. It means finding ways of organising that do not suffer the constraints of hierarchies and that value co-operation in work.

We can create a living, working agriculture where social and environmental integrity are valued as priorities, and where profit at the expense of nature and people is disregarded as a symptom of a discredited system. Our freedom is not measured by our power to uproot ourselves, but by our capacity to work against the obstacles we face and grow new worlds from the ground beneath our feet. It is in this creation that we come into contact with our own power.

Adam Payne is an urban food grower and a member of Reclaim the Fields

In life-changing circumstances in 2003 and 2007, following the death of both my parents, I faced huge challenges and questions about what to do with the farm and the business that my parents ran.  I continued farming and now I manage 550 acres near Bristol and Bath in North Somerset – running the whole farm as an organic enterprise and trying to sell our own produce direct to our customers. Right now among other things we have 60 South Devon cows and a small herd of North Devon cattle to satisfy the National Trust agreement and conservation grazing project which state North Devons as their preference.

In 2005, Jim Twine, a life-long friend and now business partner approached me to join forces both to help manage his own, 100-acre Court Farm at Winford — and to set up a business to be called “The Story Group”.  We chose the name because we are passionate about creating great tasting local and organic food that respects the animals and the environment – and we want people to know the story behind the meat they eat and to tell you all about it. In short, The Story Group it is a local company with a real story to tell.

Recently we have managed to include two new Directors by involving another local farming family, Bill & Emma Yeates. Bill and Emma specialize in poultry and produce organic chickens, and they also rent 60 acres of woodland and have large black pigs and a small number of sheep.   They have installed a processing plant at Court Farm, and have helped us to establish The Story Butchery unit and processing area at our new shop in Wrington, a village of nearly 3000 people about nine miles east of Weston-Super-Mare. The shop and the processing unit enable us to take complete control of our supply chain.  We have also forged good links with Bristol University. This includes the Veterinary College at Langford which is only two miles away and has an abattoir with great facilities where we can hang and cure our meat.

More broadly, though, we believe that the future lies in collaboration. So:

* We are developing a link with a local crèche for pre-school children at the site of the butchery and farm shop.

* A local couple have set up a small vineyard and have storage facilities at our shop.

* Another company sub-lets three acres of land for producing flowers.

* Recently we have also joined forces with a local pub who have helped us stage some pop-up restaurants on the farm where we cook some wonderful Sunday Roasts with all of the farms’ produce. On two Sundays in 2011 we cooked over 1000 roast dinners.

But also –as a separate exercize to the Story Group — I have co-founded a 50-acre Community Farm: Woodbarn Farm, at Chew Magna. The Community Farm is part of the 550 acres that has belonged to my family for many generations, and I chose the particular site partly because the surrounding landscape is so beautiful but also because I wanted to enable the next generation to make a connection with the land, for it to be somewhere people could visit and enjoy and for the memory of my parents to live on in a place where they so loved spending time. We want the Community Farm to be a place where people of all ages can learn about the environment, organic farming and animal care whilst taking an active role in the community.  The core aims are:

• Food – Providing local food for local people
• Education and Participation – The Farm aims to provide opportunities for people to develop skills as they in turn contribute meaningfully to the development of the Farm.
• Community Integration – The Farm aims to create and maintain a welcoming and supportive social network to create an accessible community resource.
• The Environment – The Farm will promote sustainable development in an environmentally friendly way that supports and respects wildlife and provides its animals with the highest welfare standards.

Education is key and we aim to have regular visits from local schools and businesses to raise the awareness of what can be achieved.   We will develop educational programmes that strive to raise the awareness of the social and economic importance of agriculture in our daily lives.

We have run several workshop days over the last two years, which have been very successful and allow people to get really involved in the production and cultivation of the crops themselves and what it could mean to be a member or a farmer.

So how does all this work logistically? The Community Farm is set up as a Community Benefit Society – a not for profit enterprise. From our first year’s experience over a three-acre trail, it was evident that on a large-scale vegetable operation you needed a full time grower and a number of staff.  The following year Phil Haughton approached us to see if he could grow 10 acres of vegetables and to continue to develop a community supported agriculture project (a CSA). Now the Community Farm has a committee of 11 people, all volunteers, 16 Staff, and over 450 investors, and we supply over 400 vegetable boxes per week to families in and around Bristol and Bath. The Community Farm is registered as a Community Interest Company with the Financial Services Authority, so that the members involved can assist in running the project and in helping to build a community.  Knowing the farm gives people an insight into the seasons, the land, and their food – and it gives them access to a place where their children and grandchildren can learn about nature and farming.

In 2011 we launched a Community investment share offer: people can invest anything from £50 up to £20,000 to become involved and to shape the future of the farm – and  we’ve already raised a staggering £180,000 from just over 460 investors.  The capital enabled us to transfer some of the assets of the existing business and to pay for additional infrastructure works including staff to develop it further.  While the financial return on investment may be limited, the social return and community benefits will more than compensate.  In the long term we are hoping to be able to provide a return on any investment over £500 but the initial commitment is for three years and it will be up to the board to decide how the shareholder ultimately take their dividends.

What of the future? Local Government and councils need to adapt to the future of food and farming and wake up to the crisis that is looming.  There needs to be a reallocation of land and partnerships created with councils, businesses and individuals to enable good honest community led organisations to feel empowered and to make a difference to the place that they live.   We need to centralise the network of food businesses and to get the end consumer to realise that good healthy food is just around the corner.  Shaking the hand that feeds you is exactly how communities need to live and respect each other.  CSAs are a tool in creating the future systems of our food network — and allow anyone to get involved.  In fact they do not even have to evolve around a farm or land. We need to develop CSAs that complete the story and have community led food hubs / supermarkets / shops, and restaurants. The end consumer can change the future. By supporting local farmers today, they will be helping to ensure there will be farms in the community tomorrow.

Over the short time I have been farming I have become increasingly concerned about the future of food and agriculture.  For me the biggest issue facing us today is how to engage with young people and get the next generation involved.   The Community Farm allows this to happen – for you do not need to own land to farm land; and our farming systems do not have to be large-scale operations as the supermarkets and others lead us to believe.

With the growing recognition of the need for environmentally sustainable production systems that are less reliant on fossil fuels, I am confident that The Community Farm has a lot to offer and believe that a fully integrated system can work for any local town or village.  The Community Farm aims to become a unique model of food and farming and one that can be transferred to other places around the UK.