Through the lockdown, people have had to reflect and review relationships, career and their place in society.
Thoughts about our future through these challenging times have focused on resilience and ensuring the health and wellbeing of families.
Cllr Gordon Murray
On the island it became apparent so early on that there was a huge dependence on the supermarkets in Stornoway. There was panic buying and questionable behaviour which was the consequence of fear of lack of food. Looking back to the Seamen Mutiny in the sixties where ferries did not run for eight weeks. In Lewis at this time, nothing much changed in terms of foodstuffs as most people had their own livestock and vegetables and if not, communities helped out.
When one thinks about that time as compared to now. It would be wrong to say it was an easy life back then, far from it, but could it be argued that we have given up our resilience for convenience. Skills that our grandparents had are diminishing now and there are fewer and fewer active crofters.
Through the SNP Group, we have explored the aspect of homeworking and feel that this is a fantastic opportunity for building communities. I think our council has a huge opportunity. Being flexible and working in task-based rather than location-locked employment.
What has this got to do with crofting? Well, a home working or flexible working population would be able to manage time and workloads to suit and to be able to facilitate childcare, elderly care, crofting as well as continue income streams.
One can refer to weavers who homework and are usually crofters too. What I would like to see is islanders embracing technology and being able to work for the public sector or hold down good part-time jobs while being able to tend the croft and family.
This would be the ideal work/life balance and could only work if communities helped each other. Fibre to every household is a goal of the government and that would really help with setting up homeworking businesses etc.
The other side is to try and make crofting pay as I believe it is not economically viable at present. Innovative and different methods of land use need to be encouraged.
My own interest is aquaponics. Fish farming and growing vegetables in the same recirculating system. I believe this type of innovation would help crofting. Trying to find a croft on Lewis sell for on average £25,000 - £30,000 for the tenancy. For an average income family this is a huge amount of money that cannot be borrowed and so a lot of would-be crofters fall at the first hurdle. One look at the crofts for sale section of the Crofters Commission website on Lewis and it is shocking the number of crofts and the prices.
Consider the situation where all these crofts were worked and producing vegetables or rearing livestock – would we still have our geese and deer problems if there were lots of activity on land? Also, the resilience in producing all the foodstuffs we need and when you see the supermarkets stocking produce that could easily be grown or reared here, there has to be a problem.
Here are a few suggestions that could contribute to a better future:
1) The price of croft tenancies should be £0 and the only costs should be to pay for improvements done so labour is not devalued or discouraged.
2) Croft house grant schemes should increase so that family homes can be built and roots can be put down for generations – due to the price of crofts, these funds are swallowed up by the price of a croft tenancy
3) CCAGs is a great scheme but crofters need capital up front before they can get the works carried out and claim the grant back. To find £10 or £20k for works done on the croft when the banks don’t do bridging loans is a tall order. Would a government loan scheme solve this?
4) The young entrants to crofting scheme is great but the criteria is an obstacle as you need to have a degree which takes three years – maybe needs to be revisited with a course which takes an apprenticeship approach
5) The reintroduction of the animal welfare scheme would be a great help as it was very successful and it improved the quality of the animals – it was a welcome funds when crofters fed their animals in the winter
6) A grant for purchasing agricultural equipment for your holding would be helpful but policed carefully
7) An introduction of a subsidy on vegetables to encourage local produce for local markets as well as for male sheep and calves. I believe there was a scheme where you got funding per head for keeping male lambs for the slaughter the following year.
I know people who have struggled starting off with a bareland croft with no fences and trying to build a house and struggling for money and taking 20 years to get on their feet. I think a five year plan on crofting to get it off its knees and get it financially viable and get us producing food in these challenging times and beyond and incorporating other income streams through homeworking.
The consequences of this would be increasing our community wealth which would be transformational.
