By Tara Wight, PhD student working on crop sciences at the University of Edinburgh This blog was first published on Nourish Scotland’s website. The climate in Scotland is generally considered unsuitable for growing bread wheat. Yet, across the country there are dedicated people and organisations, such as Scotland The Bread, who are growing, milling and […]
Flour, Uncategorised, Working for Change
Solidarity stories: bread communities working together for equal access to good food
29
Jan
Jan
Since launching our Solidarity Bag scheme in August 2020, Scotland The Bread customers’ generosity has seen 35 16kg bags of organic, heritage, wholegrain flour made available to community bakeries to support equitable access to nutritious bread and flour. We devised the Solidarity Bag concept in response to the critical shortage of flour during the first […]
15
Jan
Jan
Many thanks once again to our supporter Nuria Cabellos González for sharing this recipe with us, for a popular breadcrumbs-based dish that Nuria describes as giving homage to times of scarcity and cold. “Snowy days at the beginning of the year are supposed to bring spirit to the crops,” she says. “Let’s trust the elements.” […]
06
Jan
Jan
This essay originally took the form of a lecture given by Scotland The Bread Chairman Andrew Whitley as part of the series ‘What’s for Dinner? The future of Food & Farming in Jersey and elsewhere’ at the Royal Jersey Agricultural and Horticultural Showgrounds on Friday September 30th 2016. The series was organised by Alasdair Crosby, […]
04
Dec
Dec
The past two months have been filled with enthusiastic conversations, sourdough success stories and the sharing of many baking tips during our Flour to the People events with community food hubs and workshops for bakers. Watch Lyndsay and Miller-Manager Connie Hunter introduce the project in this short video made by UKRI. Over 100 people from six communities […]
24
Sep
Sep
The recent release of an RSPB analysis titled ‘A lost decade for nature’ showed that the UK has failed to reach 17 out of 20 UN biodiversity targets agreed on 10 years ago. The other side of the scale holds the news that sales of organic food and drink hit a record high during lockdown, […]
01
Sep
Sep
(Photo: Wee Boulangerie’s ‘Flour of Scotland’ loaf for a previous Sourdough September) The Real Bread Campaign’s 8th annual, international celebration of the oldest way of leavening a loaf is underway. Three ingredients = a world of Real Bread. This year’s focus is on the diversity of bread that can be made with just three ingredients, and […]
Community, Working for Change
Missing links in the grain chain: the benefits of participatory plant breeding from Syria to Scotland
14
Aug
Aug
Photo: A crop breeder visits a field in which a new variety of tef, a staple cereal crop, is being grown by a local farmer in Debre Zeit, Ethiopia [Tara Wight 2018] By Tara Wight Cereal production in Scotland is dominated by a small number of conventionally bred varieties of barley, wheat and oats. These […]
04
Aug
Aug
We have launched the Solidarity Bag: a 16 or 8 kg bag of flour paid for by you and delivered to the brilliant community bakeries working across Scotland to keep their communities fed. With her experience working with foodbanks, our new Flour to the People Project Coordinator Lyndsay Cochrane is well placed to introduce this new […]
31
Jul
Jul
Scotland The Bread’s Flour to the People Project Coordinator Lyndsay Cochrane introduces our Innovate UK Covid-19 rapid response funded project. Loaves disappeared first. Then flour. Empty shelves are a stark motif of the Covid-19 crisis. Overnight, lockdown caused a quadrupling of demand for local flour. Like other specialist mills and food businesses, the Scotland The […]