Scottish Grain Security Action Plan

This action plan was co-created by the Scottish Grain Network Stakeholder Group, listed below. With thanks to those who contributed additional feedback, including individuals from the James Hutton Institute, Nourish Scotland, UK Grain Lab, SASA, City University, and the University of Edinburgh.

Report for Scottish Government: A National Grain Security Acrion Plan for Scotland

By 2030, Scotland must double the amount of cereals grown to support achieving the Scottish Dietary Goals from locally produced grains.

The conflict in Ukraine, EU-exit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and climate change have exposed the fragility of Scottish food security. Simultaneously we are facing a public health crisis; Scotland’s healthy life expectancy is the lowest in the UK and has been falling in recent years. Grains are the foundation of Scottish diets, yet we have little data on the amount of grain grown for direct human consumption in Scotland. It is estimated that most grain grown is for livestock feed or distilling into alcohol, not for processing into flours and other edible grain-based ingredients. In 1996, The government established the Scottish Dietary Goals to describe a diet that will improve the health of people in Scotland. Since then, there has been little or no progress towards achieving the goals. In July 2022, Scotland passed into Scots Law the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act; a first step towards becoming a Good Food Nation, ‘where people from every walk of life take pride and pleasure in, and benefit from, the food they produce, buy, cook, serve, and eat each day.’ Now more than ever, a strategy is needed to transition the Scottish arable sector to a sustainable grain system that supports the good health of the nation. The Scottish Grain Security Action Plan seeks to set out a target and roadmap for the Scottish Government to guide this transition. It has been co-produced by stakeholders in the Scottish Grain System who are actively working to produce food that is better for both people and the planet; the names of some of the contributors are listed in the table below.