IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Silverknowes Crescent, EDINBURGH, EH4 5JB

A No 29 bus prepares to set off from its northern terminus beside the shops in Silverknowes Road.

The grounds, now owned and maintained by the City of Edinburgh Council.

Lauriston Farm now goes by the official name of Lauriston Agroecological Farm. The change happened about three years ago, and judging by their exhaustive website a lot has been going on since the start-up. It is hard to know how exactly to describe the current operation. It is undoubtedly a laudable project, according to them having three main areas of focus - growing food, increasing biodiversity and increasing community spirit and wellbeing. A lot of its 100 acres are accessible to all, and there must have been seven or eight people walking their dogs along the paths at any one time here on a weekday afternoon. The fenced-off bits include a market garden, a wood and the Skylark Field, which probably deserves an entry all of its own on here. The new farm describes itself as a co-operative and is affiliated to the Landworkers Alliance organisation. Co-operatives are usually designed to make money for their members, however, and this farm's activities are funded almost entirely from external sources. So whilst sustainability is at the core of the project, at present it is not economically viable. It could be argued that undertakings such as these are necessary in order to - through trial and error - establish the best ways to farm responsibly in the future, by which time our current political and economic structure may have changed enough to allow the investigated growing techniques to be carried out profitably. Alternatively, it could also be argued that a few less buzzwords (e.g. agroecology, holistic land management, regenerative farming) be used and a less aspirational and more practical approach be adopted in order to push things forward in the short to medium term. It would be interesting to know how energy sustainable the farming side of things is too - i.e. energy in versus calories out. In a recent podcast interview a German organic dairy and beef farmer queried the accuracy of the term 'more sustainable', arguing that all working farms are currently unsustainable and that therefore a more honest alternative would be 'less unsustainable'. In a slightly flawed but nevertheless great analogy the farmer compared farming to violence. If somebody beats you up badly they have been violent towards you. If they beat you up again the next day, but not quite as badly they have been 'less violent' as opposed to 'more peaceful'. The path under the upcycled archway leads to what could be considered as the social centre of the project. A large open gazebo, under which musicians sometimes play, is surrounded by benches and other bits and bobs. The farmhouse dates to at least the mid-19th Century according to old maps, but it also looks like the main buildings of the farm were once located at the site of the adjacent pub that has the original farm name.