Rural Affairs and Islands Committee 03 September 2025
Dennis Overton introduced me well. NFUS has been engaging with the good food nation concept since it began, and we are now getting to the point where we have dedicated resources to it and are looking at how to engage.
That said, the task of engaging with every relevant authority, local authority or health board is a huge one, and we know that there is also a huge task for the commission in overseeing that. The national plan, as it is currently proposed, could offer more clarity to ensure that all the local plans are pulling in the right direction. We talk about local food plans, but, to us, “local” means Scotland. We must be realistic about Scotland’s topography. There is a limit to the food that can be grown in places such as Orkney, Shetland or Argyll because of the fragile resources there.
Local needs to be Scotland; we do not need to tie ourselves in knots ensuring that everything comes from a confined area. That said, we have a regional team that is keen to engage at a local level, although that is difficult when we have great pockets of work. For example, Dumfries and Galloway has motored ahead and has a great sustainable food partnership that has created a lot of work in the absence of the national plan being developed. However, now that we are at that point, how do we ensure that there is consistency across Scotland? Other areas of the country do not have such local groups up and running and functioning well.