Help@
Help to grow food
Help@ is a free advisory service for anyone looking to start or grow more food with others in their community. We support hundreds of one-to-one enquiries, annually delivering advice and support to groups, landowners and partners that can save time, resources and frustration. Offering specialist and technical advice, our service understands, enables, and can accelerate vital work that is taking root in communities across Scotland. We can help you develop and grow your vision, tackle problems, and identify solutions to transform your ideas into reality.
We cover a wide range of topics, including developing and growing a vision, sourcing and securing land, working together safely, governance, and navigating local planning. We have many years of experience working directly with communities across Scotland in a range of settings.
Support and advice tailored for your community
It can sometimes feel overwhelming to get and keep growing, so our service is open-ended, enabling us to support you with what you need to know when you need to know it. So, if you want to start to grow or develop your food, whether it be on an unloved street corner or a large open field, we’d love to hear from you.
Help@ is delivered by GrowGreen Scotland and the Land Advisory Service with inspiration, insight and learning from partners and folk working on the ground across Scotland.
All queries from groups, new or established, and or partners and enablers are
welcome.
Recently asked questions
I’ve recently moved back to the city, who can I connect with to access land?
We need support with developing our idea to transform an open field into a community food growing space for the town.
We’d like to take our village growing to the next level but we need a land agreement and advice and guidance on risk and liability.
We need help to identify groups with similar experience that we can visit and learn from?
I’m a landowner looking to partner with people in my local communtiy. what’s possible?
Our small voluntary garden group feels like it’s running out of steam, can you please help us work through our options?
We’ve been told we need planning permission for our growing project, can you help us with this?
Get in touch
“I don’t want another organisation to signpost me to yet another resource I need to read. I want to talk with someone who understands the issues and can connect me with others with direct experience to share.”
In 2023-2024, we supported over 70 unique enquiries from communities and local and national partners looking to support food-growing activity in their area. This unique service is confidential and responsive, providing support on a wide range of topics, with specialist and grassroots knowledge, when you need it. Many groups access the service on multiple occasions, getting support to progress their project and keep it going.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Community Learning Exchange
This funded exchange programme offers an excellent opportunity for community-growing groups to visit, see and hear directly from growing groups Scotland wide. Over the years, countless groups growing in community gardens, orchards and allotments have met to share and reflect on best practice development in their settings. Our network is undoubtedly stronger, wiser and better connected as a result. Practical examples include groups seeking support to design and build a community growing space on a budget and allotment growers seeking support with establishing communal composting facilities. Groups have also sought support on ‘practice development’ such as sustainable approaches to finance and running youth volunteer programmes. With over 15 years of grassroots development, there is now a wealth of experience amongst growers of all kinds, and this fund recognises that.
So, if you are starting out, in stages of a new development or seeking ideas to sustain your group, you may find inspiration or sage advice from others within the network.
If you’d like to develop your idea with us, find a group/s to learn from and submit an application, we are happy to help.
