Nsongurua Inyang, a second-year PhD student supervised by Katrin Prager, Shadi Hashem, and Tavis Potts, has successfully secured a grant from The William J McLean Scholarship. The scholarship aims to promote environmentally sustainable and economically viable agriculture, mixed farming, and natural land use systems.
The available funding will be used to introduce additional methods of data collection, such as participant observation and interviews with online digital platforms. This will help to triangulate findings and enhance the overall validity of the research. This project is focused on identifying both the barriers and enabling factors that influence the expansion of Alternative Food Networks (AFNs). By doing so, it aims to produce practical, evidence-based insights for landowners and tenant farmers in Northeast Scotland. These insights will support their engagement in and benefit from alternative market channels, contributing to more inclusive and sustainable food systems in the region. This project has close linkages with EU horizon/UKRI-funded project VISIONARY local food case studies, Tamar Grow Local - Cornwall, and the Ecological farmers markets in Krakow - Poland conducted by the University of Exeter and the University of Warsaw. The objective is to promote best practices in local food systems, address barriers to their adoption, and support the scaling out of these sustainable food initiatives.