Freya Aitchison
Storms and extreme weather affect us all in Argyll, from road closures to ferry cancellations to damage to our homes – but for those who work outside all day, every day, like farmers, those effects are felt even more keenly. The climate crisis is making winter storms more frequent and more severe, as well as increasing rainfall and making our weather patterns less predictable.
At Time for Change, we recognise that farming communities are hugely impacted by bad weather – from unusually cold and stormy spring months making lambing difficult, to waterlogged fields causing health problems for stock, to the costs of having to repair damaged fences and sheds after winter storms. But knowing this isn’t the same as being able to do something about it. Although most of us don’t farm ourselves, farmers are our friends and neighbours, and we feel a strong need to do what we can to advocate for their needs. To be able to do this properly, we needed to speak to as many farmers as possible about what concerns they have about the future of farming in Argyll, whether any of these concerns were climate related and what would need to happen to be able to deal with these issues.
What we found from these initial conversations was that many farmers are very concerned about the future of farming in Argyll. A huge amount of land in Argyll is used for low intensity farming on a fairly small scale, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to make a full living out of this and lots of farmers are having to diversify, worrying that their kids won’t be able to live the same lifestyle as them. The other point that came across very strongly was that current climate policies are not made with small scale farmers in mind – they are restrictive and don’t recognise the knowledge that farmers already have about their land and everything that lives on it.
To test these ideas, we had a stall at the Mid Argyll Show in the summer where we asked lots of farmers and their families what they thought about the issues that had come up in our previous conversations. The answers were very clear – policy makers and the general public don’t understand what it’s like to farm in Argyll, and small farms are being unfairly lumped in with industrial farms when it comes to climate policy. Nearly everyone agreed that there has been changes in the weather in the last few years that have made farming in Argyll more difficult, and that they worried about their children being able to make a living from farming. On the positive side, there was broad agreement that farmers are part of the solution to climate change.
All of these conversations have been hugely useful to shape our ideas of how we can best advocate for our friends and neighbours to be represented fairly in climate policy. We are still learning, and we really appreciate our farmer friends for being so open about their worries and concerns. We are keen to continue these conversations, and one place to do that is at the Mid Argyll Climate Cafe’s upcoming screening of the film ‘Leaving It Better’, which tells the story of how farming communities and climate activists in the North of England came together to learn more about each others’ perspectives and how they could work together to tell stories about their community that felt right for everyone.
The screening will take place at the MS Snowdrop centre in Lochgilphead at 7pm on Thursday 26th February. We hope to see you there for some inspiration and interesting discussions!