English On Sunday (July 29th) Landworkers’ Alliance members in Scotland held a peaceful rally at Taymouth Castle in Kenmore to protest corporate land grabs and call for radical land reform in Scotland.
We were joined by over 100 landworkers, campaigners and local activists who wanted to highlighted the high concentration of land ownership in Scotland and the impact this is having on food security, nature and rural housing; an issue which is highly topical in light of the Land Reform Bill which is currently passing through Scottish Parliament.
Scotland has the most concentrated land ownership in Europe, with just a handful of extremely wealthy individuals and corporations owning more than half of the country. Meanwhile, new entrant farmers and growers struggle to access even small pieces of land with fewer and fewer agricultural tenancies available, rural housing is in crisis, and carbon speculation driving exponential increases in land prices.
Tara Wight, LWA’s Scotland Campaigns and Policy Coordinator, and organiser of the rally, said:
“We’re hoping that the success of yesterday’s rally will help to cultivate a broader grassroots movement for land justice in Scotland which will put land back in the hands of those who work and live on it.
The outrageous concentration of land ownership in Scotland is a huge barrier for farmers and rural communities alike, who are currently bearing the brunt of limited access to land and skyrocketing land prices. Farmers and growers – our members included – are being completely priced out of the land market and are struggling to set up the kind of localised and ecological food systems we so desperately need in Scotland.
That’s why we’re calling on the Scottish Government to implement an ambitious land reform programme which will prevent further exploitation of our landscapes and farmland by corporations such as the DLC, ensure that all land in Scotland is used in the public interest, and reduce concentration of ownership through redistribution of land to workers and communities.”
Taymouth Estate in Kenmore – which sits within the First Ministers’ own constituency – is a perfect example of this trend. In 2018 the global corporation Discovery Land Company (DLC) bought 8,000 acres surrounding Taymouth Castle which they are currently developing into a private resort for the mega-rich. You can read more about the DLC development plans in this article.
Chris Heasman, a local activist who has been campaigning against the DLC’s development at Taymouth, said:
“Discovery Land Company’s project at Taymouth Castle stands as a shocking example of what can happen when developers are allowed to buy up vast amounts of land and operate without scrutiny or impediment.
It’s hard to gauge the extent of the damage caused to the environment, local wildlife, and archaeological sites in the area — and, thanks to the company’s secrecy about their plans for the area, it’s impossible to know how much further they will go in the years to come.
The horrific destruction enacted on communities in Barbuda, Portugal, the Bahamas and beyond, as well as the inspiring resilience of the activists fighting DLC in these regions, only proves how important it is to hold them to account at every turn.”
The introduction of the Land Reform Bill into Scottish Parliament earlier this year offers some hope for bringing about land justice in Scotland, but it doesn’t enough to protect the interests of local communities in large-scale land sales such as that of Taymouth Estate. This is why we’re calling for the inclusion of measures in the Bill which will open up land for new entrant farmers and to build more affordable rural housing. You can read more in our response to the Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation Consultation.
Catherine Kwella is an LWA Member and new entrant farmer at Tomnah Market Garden in Perthshire, she said:
“For a new entrant market gardener, Scotland’s highly unequal patterns of land ownership are one of the biggest barriers to establishing a new project, or to working on existing farms.
One major in rural areas is a lack of affordable housing (or many options for renting at all), close enough to work. I am lucky to have secure housing now near the farm, but people working more seasonally struggle to find places to live.
A lack of transparency around who owns land also makes it difficult to approach landowners about renting a plot. From a market gardening perspective, securing a site close enough to markets – so near a town or city – is near impossible due to the price of land, which is driven up by speculation and big developments.”
Flora Brown, from Community Land Scotland, added:
“What has happened in Kenmore is largely the result of a lack of robust regulation in Scotland around who can own land and what they are allowed to do with it. The land grabs by the Discovery Land Company across the world and in Kenmore are a symptom of using land primarily for international profit, not for the people living there or for the public good.
We need stronger land reform legislation, such as Public Interest Tests on land purchases (not sales), Fit and Proper Person Tests and a presumed limit on ownership, so that what happened in Kenmore won’t happen elsewhere.”
