THERE is a remarkable energy around agriculture, food, and drink right now. Across Scotland, growers and producers are increasingly coming together to find ways to raise food in ways which don’t cost the earth. Communities are re-engaging with the soil.
“People are going there for their mental health, they’re going there for community, they’re going there for culturally appropriate food that they can afford. They’re going there for biodiversity. It may be they are returning to the land in some way or for some people it might be the first time they’re doing it.”
“If that’s not happening then we get a skewed perspective, contemporary and historical, of what agriculture is, what farming is, what the use of the land is and largely what a Scottish identity is. I mean, why should that be the way it is?” Regenerative farming is the focus of the Farming Fit for the Future exhibition, which opened in the Cateran EcoMuseum in Alyth, Perth & Kinross, last week and runs until September. It uses a mixture of audio interviews with contemporary and archive photography to explore the changing face of agriculture and food production.
“When I read that, I felt called,” Cooper said. She pauses before continuing: “The idea for the exhibition came from that bigger context but also from the idea that humans have always designed new ways of behaving.