Holyrood urged to back 'Dig For Victory' campaign for backgreen veg

Published on Monday 15 June 2009 10:01

AN INITIATIVE that resurrects the spirit of the wartime 'Dig For Victory' campaign to combat climate change was set to be praised at Holyrood today.

Last week, the Evening News told how the Edinburgh Community Backgreen Association has transformed over a dozen overgrown, neglected and weedy tenement backgreens into vegetable patches and mini-village greens.

It is now set to launch its own 'Dig For Victory' campaign – harking back to the initiative that turned parks and sports grounds into allotments during the war – to transform a further ten backgreens before the year is out.

Shadow environment and climate change minister Sarah Boyack was today set to urge her fellow MSPs to throw their weight behind the scheme.

The Edinburgh Central MSP, a close supporter of the ECBA's activities, asked that the Parliament welcome the campaign, congratulate the association on its work, see its activities as a positive step towards encouraging people to source food locally, and support its "backgreen blitz" efforts to recruit 100 people in each community to revive backgreens.

Ms Boyack said: "The ECBA does wonderful work in turning land that people in the city hardly think twice about into attractive gardens that produce food."