Martin Gerrish is a listener; when we met him in Dunoon, he asked about the Novara project, then dived into questions about who we were and what we are doing. But when it comes to the topic of growing food as a strategy to deal with the impact humans are having on the planet, Martin opens up.

He has started a project called Grow Food, Grow Dunoon in Dunoon, Scotland – growing vegetables while engaging the local community, including children. Martin was interested in how we can create a resilient food production system to adapt to the impacts of climate change and, at the same time, produce food for the local community, engage the community and educate children about food at the same time.

A few years ago, he discovered a polytunnel and land at a local school that wasn’t being used to best advantage. This was the starting point for Grow Food, Grow Dunoon where he and other locals, started growing vegetables and at the same time teaching students how to garden. At the beginning, some kids didn’t even want to go inside the polytunnels, says Martin.

‘They’d say, “I don’t want to come in there. It’s dirty. I don’t want to touch the earth. There are spiders”. There was a real reluctance to engage; that has absolutely changed. They run across the playground and are right in there, doing whatever it is, whether it’s weeding, bringing in woodchips, horse manure or seaweed. To me, that’s the greatest change, and it’s almost happened by osmosis’.

Martin considers this connection to the earth and hands-on knowledge to be one of the greatest benefits of the Grow Food, Grow Dunoon project.

‘Whether they get into gardening further in their life, I don’t know, but a seed has been sown. Like all seeds, it might germinate, it might not, but that seed has been sown’.

It is not just the children who’re gardening – at the heart of this project is members of the community working together; each volunteer brings different skills, adding to a rich and diverse team growing food collectively.

Martin sees the grow food project as part of ‘doing his bit’ towards climate change adaptation and has accepted that he can’t do some of the things that he would love to see happen, like change the political, economic and capitalist system. Instead he looked at what is vital for our existence – food – and the fragile system that supplies that.

‘Climate change is impacting our food supply, but we don’t see that. When we go to the supermarket, fruit and vegetables are beautifully clean and laid out. And it looks like it’s just going to be there forever. But the reality is we already have gaps, a shortage of tomatoes, and now there’s going to now be a shortage of olive oil, because of the droughts in Spain. And there’s going to be one thing after another and I don’t think it’s going to stop’.

Martin says the way we treat the soil is disrespectful of nature and undermines the infrastructure we need to sustain ourselves as food producers.

‘The way we tilled the soil, turning it over and exposing bacteria, which are the source of nourishment, and then applying huge quantities of fertiliser onto that soil in order to bring it to a point that it can then produce, creating runoff from herbicides and insecticides is now reducing the insect population globally’.

To counter-act this depletion of the soil and bio-diversity, Martin implemented a tried and tested, no-dig ten bed rotation system to ensure soil health is maintained. Rotating crops is well-known to reduce pathogens and diseases in the soil.

‘Instead of being over four rotations, it’s over 10; rotating from heavy feeders, things that take a lot from the soil, to the things that are less heavy. One heavy bed, one light bed, and so it goes around to 10. We shift those beds every year, making the system sustainable’.

And it has worked. Last year Grow Food, Grow Dunoon sold vegetables at the local farmers’ market at rates cheaper than the supermarket – earning them enough money to buy next year’s seeds and compost. A sustainable system that does it’s bit to assist climate change adaptation, while educating a future generation.