Peri-urban land in Glasgow: the potential for food growing and farming

As part of the UK-wide Fringe Farming project, Sustain has worked with Glasgow Community Food Network (GCFN) and Shared Assets in 2021 to explore and understand the barriers and opportunities for agroecological peri-urban farming in the Glasgow area through desk research and action planning with stakeholders. This briefing summarises key findings and recommendations including a collaborative action plan to take these forward. The recommendations build on elements of the Glasgow City Food Plan related to peri-urban farming.

The briefing sets out a strong business case for enabling ‘fringe farming’ to expand in the area, to become a mainstay of a sustainable, just, localised food economy, providing good jobs, education and training, better access to nature, and high quality, affordable food for all, contributing to greater resilience of the city region.

The document also provides information on the current picture of agroecology in the Glasgow region, existing regional governance commitments, and case studies from Glasgow and elsewhere as sources of inspiration for future mobilisations.

Findings from this briefing focused on the Glasgow region will feed into a collaborative process, that includes action research in Bristol, London and Sheffield, to generate best practice and policy recommendations for agroecological peri-urban farming across the UK.

Key recommendations for Glasgow City Council-led actions include:

• Creation of an open access map of land spaces in Glasgow with relevant ownership and associated suitability for food growing (this to include public and private land, and re-establishing food growing areas in local parks).
• Land available being prioritised for food growing rather than lawns or feed crops.
• Clarification, simplification and transparency of decision-making processes within the council, especially with regards to procurement processes, and decisions on making land available.
• More support for food growing, both financial and human resource within the council, and this to have a long-term approach to support new growing spaces until they are able to become independent.
• Support grower and procurer events to build relationships towards service contracts integrating locally-grown food into the public sector– with a view to support a pilot procurement project with a school and GCFN.