Outdoors: Road tip - the new Seed Truck

By Louisa Pearson
Published on 27/05/2012 12:33

When is a truck not a truck? When it’s a Seed Truck. This one-off invention is soon to become one of the most celebrated vehicles on the road.

Funded by the People’s Postcode Lottery Dream Fund, the truck is the brainchild of the Fife Diet and WWF Scotland and it could soon be driving down your street. Powered by recycled chip fat oil, the Seed Truck is about to set off around Scotland to spend the next year offering practical workshops focused on food and climate change.

Mike Small, director of the Fife Diet says the Seed Truck evolved out of a desire to take the Fife Diet message of food sovereignty (where people take charge of their own food system) beyond Fife. “We were inspired by the food trucks of New York and thought about the idea of the ice-cream van coming down your street,” he says. “So we want to bring some of this excitement to growing your own food. With cutbacks and austerity, community groups and schools often don’t have the resources to travel to attend workshops, so it’s a great opportunity to take the workshops to them.”

The low-carbon truck will answer the call of schools, community groups and event organisers to deliver a wide mix of activities. As well as visiting communities, the truck will be appearing at Gardening Scotland in Ingliston (1-3 June), the Big Tent Festival in Fife (21-22 July) and the BBC Good Food Show in Glasgow (19-21 September), so there are plenty of opportunities to find out more.

As far as the Seed Truck activities go, at one end of the scale you can learn about permaculture and forest gardening, while at the other end you can ride a bike which powers a mill which grinds grain to give you a bag of flour to take home with you. Fergus Walker, coordinator of the project says that there is something for everyone. “For the young ones there is the Magic Porridge Pot, which is a weaving together of storytelling and porridge-making,” he says. “There is the opportunity to learn all about growing, from sowing and planting right down to the soil that makes it all possible.”

Walker says that regardless of whether you’ve got a garden or not, growing your own food is achievable. “If you don’t have a garden, you can grow salads and herbs in pots on your windowsill, or even just sprout seeds without soil,” he says. “And it’s not just grow your own – if you don’t have the time, patience or experience to garden, you can forage for a wonderful variety of wild plants around the year. Even in the middle of the city you can find an abundance of brambles, apples, and raspberries in autumn – for free. And once you’ve harvested your fruit, you can have a lot of fun making your own jam.”

Duncan Williamson of WWF hopes that the Seed Truck will enable communities across Scotland to discover an enthusiasm for reconnecting with the food they eat. “The project aims to visit every major postcode area on mainland Scotland to deliver practical workshops,” he says. “Schools and scout groups could be foraging for wild foods; pre-school groups could be preparing and eating porridge on a regular basis; eco congregations could be growing their own salads and vegetables. The project will come full circle, with seeds brought on this year being distributed to community groups across Scotland at the start of the next growing season.” So if you want to experience food in a new way, why not flag down the Seed Truck?

To find out more, tel: [phone] or visit www.fifediet.co.uk For more information about WWF Scotland, visit scotland.wwf.org.uk