Back in June around 50 members of the Scottish seed network met at the beautiful Newton Dee Camphill site, just outside Aberdeen, for a day of connection, celebration and exploration of all things seed in Scotland. We had a range of workshops and discussion groups, covering machinery rings, seed-sharing economies, landrace gardening and many others. […]
Read Article
Seed Week guest Charlotte Bickler from the Organic Research Centre sets out what you need to know in order to share grain seed in the UK. Towards a Decentralised Grain Economy “There is a growing movement across the UK towards decentralised grain economies, where grain is traded directly from field to fork without getting embroiled in […]
Read Article
Watch Gaia’s latest film – Llafur Ni (Our Grains)– about a farmer’s 20-year quest to find and revive the Welsh black oats his grandfather once grew. Welsh organic farmer Gerald Miles has been on an epic quest to rediscover the rare black oats his grandfather once grew in Pembrokeshire fields overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. For […]
Read Article
Reviving Rare Oats, Spreading Bere Barley and (Re)Developing the Machinery to Process Them At the start of February, as the snow fell and the sky brooded, the grain growers of our Welsh and Scottish networks grabbed a coffee, signed on to Zoom, and settled in for a long day of talking oats, bere barley […]
Read Article
In late April of this year Mike Hyatt, who farms Baleveolan Croft on The Isle of Lismore, contacted me asking if I knew of anyone malting grain on a small-scale in Scotland. Mike, like many crofters, is patiently waiting for our small-scale de-huller to be developed; once it has been built, the crofters can bring […]
Read Article