Published on 21 May 2026

Strengthening community-led research: RSE awards over £339K to 24 initiatives in Healthy Planet, Healthy People Awards

Across Scotland, 24 community research projects will receive a share of £339,464 funding through the RSE’s Healthy Planet, Healthy People Awards, developed in partnership with and funded by the Williamson Trust.

First initiated in 2023, the Healthy Planet, Healthy People Awards are now offered under two strands:

Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Catalyst Awards are designed to enable community-led research across any discipline that promotes the health of individuals by fostering healthy communities, environments, and food.

Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Change Awards are a new expansion of the Catalyst Award, offering major funding to standout Catalyst Award-winning projects to grow and scale their work.

These awards encourage knowledge exchange and collaborative research practices amongst and between local communities. The resulting findings and outputs are often scalable, producing valuable insights that can be used by similar groups working in other areas of the country and beyond.

Professor David Salt FRSE, Chair of the Williamson Trust, said,

“The trustees at the Williamson Trust are delighted to fund 20 exciting community-led projects from across Scotland in the third round of the Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Catalyst Awards. As this community-led work continues to grow, there can be no doubt that communities across Scotland can build local solutions to the ongoing challenges to our environment, our communities, and our food. This round, we have projects spanning seed saving, community growing, fermentation and composting, coppicing, tree identification, accessing green space, transhumance, and repair cafés. An amazing array of projects.

This year, the Williamson Trust have introduced the Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Change Awards. These larger awards allow successful Catalyst awardees to take their learnings and experiences and develop solutions to deliver broader impact and sustainable outcomes. The Williamson Trust is funding four Change awards in this first round on sustainable tree guards, flax and the new textile commons, closing the island’s food loop and a community food hub. It will be so exciting to see these projects grow and develop.

The Trust hopes that with these new awards we continue to build a movement of committed people to find solutions to the challenges faced by local communities, and that these solutions can have a wider impact.”

RSE Vice President, Research, Professor Anne Anderson OBE FRSE commented,

“This marks the third successful round of Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Catalyst Awards, which were introduced to expand the type of research the RSE supports. At this time, we are also very pleased to announce the first recipients of the Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Change Awards; a new development of the Healthy Planet, Healthy People Programme, which extends the support offered to grassroots groups and demonstrates the Society’s commitment to empowering community-driven research focused on positively impacting sustainability, health, and community resilience. I congratulate all those awarded under both schemes, and I look forward to following their progress and achievements over the coming year.”

Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Catalyst Award recipients:

Community: Upper Ballaird Farm Co-op with Lauriston Farm
Project: UnBEANlievably tasty
Location: Stirlingshire and Edinburgh

Taking place at two market gardens—Upper Ballaird Farm Co-op, Stirlingshire and Lauriston Farm, Edinburgh—the UnBEANlievably Tasty project aims to investigate which bean varieties can perform well in market garden conditions whilst also providing tasty, nutritious legumes for local consumers.

Over 20 varieties suitable for producing beans with good drying properties will be grown at the two sites during the 2026 season. Flavour, yield, pest and disease resistance, and processing qualities will be assessed using the Organic Seed Alliance’s on-farm trial framework.

Alongside collecting agronomic data, local community members will be given the opportunity to participate in events to test taste, appearance, and cooking quality. This combined approach will help identify varieties that are both productive and desirable to eat.

By focusing on market gardens—where barriers faced at field scale are reduced—the project aims to accelerate learning and adoption. The results will be shared with growers, researchers, and food networks to support the expansion of locally grown, diverse, and climate-friendly protein-rich crops in Scotland.

Community: Edinburgh Agroecology Co-operative CIC, Sustainable Kirriemuir and Upper Ballaird Farm Co-op
Project: Seeds of change
Location: Edinburgh, Fife, and Stirlingshire

The Seeds of Change project will support the development of the Scottish Seed Hub; a co-operative of growers aiming to increase the production and dissemination of locally-adapted, open-pollinated seeds grown using optimal agroecological practices. By improving access to seeds suited to this country’s climate, the Hub hopes to enhance the biodiversity and resilience of Scotland’s food system.

The lead investigators, in collaboration with colleagues at Sustainable Kirriemuir, Lauriston Farm, Upper Ballaird Farm and Beth Webb in Galloway, will use a participatory action research approach by engaging growers, seed savers, and community stakeholders as co-researchers. Through surveys, focus groups, collaborative workshops, and learning from similar initiatives—such as the Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty Programme, Seeds of Scotland, and Wales Seed Hub—the Hub’s project will explore effective organisational structures, governance models, and strategies for sustainable growth.

Outputs of the research will include the development of a flexible organisational framework, insights into the systemic opportunities for Scotland-based agroecological seed producers, case studies, and resources for use among wider seed networks, and a validated pathway for scaling the Hub’s work across Scotland.

Community: Rhyze Mushrooms Co-op
Project: Protecting crops and soils using waste
Location: Edinburgh

Vermicompost—a nutrient-rich product of the decomposition process that uses worms to aid and accelerate composting to create a mixture of decomposed food waste and worm castings—has been shown to outperform traditional compost and reverse soil damage from synthetic fertilisers.

Working with local food businesses, the Rhyze Mushrooms Co-op will explore how vermicomposting can prevent business waste from ending up in landfill by transforming it into high-quality soil improvers that enhance the health, yield, and nutrition of crops.

The Co-op’s research will also assess whether different waste types—brewers’ grains, coffee chaff, agricultural waste, and food scraps—produce a variety of vermicomposts with varying benefits for crops.

The waste products will be processed in separate worm bins, then analysed through lab testing and field trials with local growers under real-world conditions. By combining both types of analysis, this research hopes to develop optimised vermicompost “recipes” suited to different crops. The findings will support sustainable waste management, improve soil health, and help communities produce more nutritious food, while sharing practical knowledge with growers and volunteers.

 

Community: Northmavine Community Development Company
Project: Northmavine community composting project
Location: Shetland

The Northmavine Community Development Company (NCDC) will use their Catalyst Award to launch a new community composting scheme to boost food resilience, reduce waste, and support sustainable living in rural Shetland.

The challenges of remote location result in many residents importing soil to the Islands at a high financial and carbon cost, while organic waste is often underutilised or sent to landfill. Using an industrial composter generously gifted by COPE Ltd., local food and garden waste will be converted into nutrient-rich compost for households, schools, and businesses. This circular system will improve soil health, reduce reliance on landfills and transport-related emissions, and foster outdoor community participation.

The project will start at a social housing estate and expand to schools and local businesses. The group will test the balance of carbon-rich materials such as cardboard and tree prunings for optimal composting. The resulting compost quality will be compared with commercial alternatives using test plots. NCDC will also run workshops and develop a household composting toolkit to encourage participation and education around soil health and sustainable practices.

Through measuring compost production, waste diverted from landfills, and community engagement, the project aims to create a replicable model for other rural areas to inform future circular-economy initiatives.

 

Community: Lady Lane Community Garden
Project: Demonstrator micro-greenspace for nature, wellbeing, and environmental engagement
Location: Paisley

The Lady Lane Community Garden group in Paisley has been awarded to develop a temporary, modular micro-greenspace, designed to assess and refine ideas that will inform the future permanent regeneration of the Argyle Street/Lady Lane site.

The demonstrator garden will include raised beds, pollinator planting, and solar lighting. The community will also deliver youth engagement activities, group design sessions, food-growing workshops, and events on biodiversity monitoring. The community also hopes to create a hydrochromic environmental sculpture—a rain-activated artwork—to provide a unique educational component on climate awareness that could become a signature element in the eventual permanent design. All structures will be designed to be fully dismantled and relocated to ensure that the site can be cleared for permanent landscaping works without loss of investment.

The project aims to improve access to nature, enhance well-being, and generate data on the environmental and social impacts to help inform the long-term design of the garden. It is also hoped that the outcomes will support wider use by Renfrewshire Council, the University of the West of Scotland, and local partners, and contribute to evidence-led community placemaking across Paisley.

 

Community: Green Aspirations Scotland CIC
Project: Aberfoyle Coppice Creatures
Location: Stirling

Coppicing is a traditional woodland management technique that was popular before the First World War but has been underused in Scotland since. Coppiced trees are cut at their base to encourage stronger, straighter regrowth, allowing more light to reach the forest floor and potentially increasing biodiversity by supporting a wider range of plant and animal life.

The Green Aspirations Scotland group will use their Healthy Planet, Healthy People award to investigate whether restoring traditional hazel coppicing can enhance biodiversity in a woodland that has been unmanaged in certain areas for over 25 years.

In collaboration with local primary school pupils, the community will survey areas of the woodland at different stages of the coppice cycle to identify any variances in biodiversity. Engagement with schoolchildren will include input from Dr Angela Newton, an experienced research scientist, and Kirsten Milliken, a Scottish folklore storyteller. Through classroom visits and field surveys, the pupils will support the research and follow-up analysis and assist in presenting the findings.

This project aims to engage local young people in ecology, cultural heritage, and storytelling traditions. The group also hopes its findings will help inform future woodland restoration projects and give coppicing a prominent role in climate policy.

 

Community: Ieva Chaleckyte and the Mandala Garden Project
Project: Fermenting community
Location: Nairn

Through the Fermenting community project, Ieva Chaleckyte, a fermentation revivalist, will work with the Mandala Garden Project in Nairn to utilise overabundant seasonal fruit and vegetables, increase fermented food consumption, and build a strong community network through group production of fermented food.

The health benefits of fermented food products are widely documented. This project responds to the growing interest in fermented foods for improved well-being and aims to better understand the barriers that prevent wider production and consumption—perhaps a lack of time, knowledge, confidence, or access to organic foods—and how they can be minimised.

Participating community members will be surveyed during the workshops, and economic viability data will be collected by looking at the time and effort required to process the surplus food.

A key outcome of the project is to foster a strong local community around the Mandala Garden that encourages active participation, enhanced community connection, and future collaborative working.

 

Community: Community Champignons in partnership with Govanhill Baths Community Trust
Project: Community Champignons: Embedding sustainability in peer-led community projects
Location: Glasgow

Community Champignons is a wellbeing initiative centred on supporting participants—many from disadvantaged or isolated backgrounds—to develop skills and confidence through oyster mushroom cultivation. Founded in 2024 as a response to local interest in growing sustainable food and community enterprise, the project investigates whether urban mushroom cultivation can be scaled and diversified to benefit the wider community.

The Healthy Planet, Healthy People award will be used to continue the project’s twice-weekly training sessions in mushroom cultivation, harvesting, and food hygiene. It will also enable the development of research into whether the production of multiple mushroom varieties is feasible in an urban community context, and to what extent project sustainability can be achieved via selling mushroom grow kits via local shops and farmers’ markets.

Community Champignons aims to turn local participation into community impact. The project has already produced over 100kg of mushrooms for The People’s Pantry, directly benefiting the local community. Over the funded period, the group hope to maintain the established growing environment and community workshops, to scale production and develop the volunteer-led enterprise, creating a sustainable model that continues beyond the award.

 

Community: Fixing for a Future
Project: How green is too green?
Location: East Lothian

Promoting climate action using a narrow ‘green’ or environmental frame can limit public support and engagement. Fixing for a Future, a circular economy project initiated in 2020, runs a tool library, repair cafes and volunteer-led sewing skills workshops at schools and libraries across East Lothian.

This research will explore the motivations of volunteers, tutors and participants at Fixing for a Future to reveal the extent to which their ongoing involvement has been influenced by framing climate action as being about social and economic rather than explicitly environmental benefits: empowering people by teaching skills to repair belongings so they can save money; improving health and well-being by providing opportunities for people to work together towards shared goals: and delivering social events where people can expand support networks.

Through in-depth interviews and focus groups, this research will gain valuable insight into what motivates people towards and what puts people off climate action to determine ‘How Green is Too Green?’. Findings will inform the basis of a toolkit to be used by groups and organisations seeking to engage new audiences in climate action and contribute to amplified engagement and impact.

 

Community: Lizzie MacKenzie, in collaboration with researchers at UHI Inverness
Project: Becoming wild: Transhumance to support the well-being of people, animals, and nature
Location: Oban/Highlands

This awarded pilot project will explore the concept that the well-being of people, animals and the land is interconnected. The researchers will employ small-scale community transhumance—a traditional practice of moving with animals through seasonal grazing areas—to determine whether the custom can support wellbeing across all three. By walking alongside native animals, it is hoped that participants will build connections and deepen their relationships with the land and animals. The group will also monitor whether the animals benefit from natural movement and herd life, and whether the land gains from their grazing patterns, which can open scrub, enrich soil, and support biodiversity.

Using participatory methods, this project will document early signs of interlinked benefits, imagining a future in which people, animals, and land thrive together. Short interviews and informal conversations will explore feelings of connection, benefits of outdoor activity, and the sharing of intergenerational knowledge. Observations of horses and cattle will provide an opportunity to note social interaction, movement levels, stress behaviours and grazing patterns. To assess any benefits to the land, ecological observations such as visual soil assessments, vegetation notes, and photographic monitoring will be used to identify visible changes in ground cover, scrub, and biodiversity after grazing cycles.

 

Community: Unicorn Markets CIC
Project: The Bathgate Repair Cafe: A community sustainability study
Location: West Lothian

The Bathgate Repair Cafe is a 6-month, community-led pilot project designed to research and deliver a practical solution to household waste and the cost-of-living crisis. The awarded group will establish a monthly repair hub at their community market, where a skilled fixer and volunteers will repair broken items for free, diverting them from landfill.

The research will collect data on the weight of items saved, types of repairs, and financial savings for families. The researchers will also gather qualitative data on how learning repair skills improves community resilience, wellbeing, and feelings of social isolation. The findings will be used to create a “Community Repair Hub Toolkit”, a practical, scalable guide for other communities to replicate our model.

 

Community: North Glasgow Community Food Initiative
Project: Community-led insights into gardening, cooking, and pantry participation at the Royston Food Hub and their effects on well-being
Location: Glasgow

Royston, North Glasgow, is considered a food desert, where residents face economic disadvantage, limited access to fresh produce, and social isolation. The North Glasgow Community Food Initiative will explore how the Royston Food Hub’s connected activities—community gardening, local food growing, cookery classes, and the community pantry—together influence health, wellbeing, and food security.

This RSE award will support a series of Food Hub Groups, where residents can share their experiences, priorities, and ideas for how local food spaces can better meet community needs. The research will combine feedback from participant discussions, health and wellbeing surveys, and creative participatory methods to understand what works, what barriers remain, and what changes people want to see. By placing community voices at the centre, this project will generate new knowledge about how integrated, community-led food hubs can support healthier diets, stronger social connections, and a more sustainable local food environment—informing future development across North Glasgow.

 

Community: Orkney International Science Festival
Project: Can rock dust improve soil and crops?
Location: Moray

UK food self-sufficiency has declined to 62%, with a heavy reliance on imported food from regions that can be vulnerable to drought, fire and flood. Scottish Islands, once able to survive for weeks without a boat, are today at the end of the distribution line and need to rebuild food security.

This funded project, inspired by the story of an 1845 Icelandic eruption, which coated Orkney with volcanic dust, resulting in the improved flavour of that year’s potato crop, aims to explore whether locally sourced rock dust—currently a large, unused quarry by‑product—can enhance crop flavour and support greater community food resilience.

Building on small-scale trials with potatoes in 2023, tomatoes in 2024, and carrots in 2025, the next phase, supported by this award, will see potatoes grown by local community groups, including the Westray Development Trust, the North Ronaldsay Trust, Stromness Community Garden, the Eday Partnership, NHS Orkney, and St Colm’s Day Centre. The crops grown with the Orkney quarry dust will be compared against control soils. Soil microbiome analysis by Durham University will investigate how rock dust supports soil health, and taste testing will be conducted at the Orkney International Science Festival.

 

Community: Blairgowrie & Rattray Development Trust
Project: Finding and overcoming the barriers to choosing to eat locally grown vegetables in Blairgowrie & Rattray
Location: Perth and Kinross

The Blairgowrie & Rattray Development Trust’s project aims to understand what prevents local residents from choosing to eat locally grown vegetables, despite several community initiatives—such as the BaRI Store, a volunteer-run shop stocking surplus food from supermarkets to help reduce food waste and to increase the use of refill—promoting local, healthy food.

Through a community‑wide survey, the group’s research hopes to explore which vegetables people currently buy and eat and to identify barriers such as limited availability, uncertainty about preparation, or lack of awareness of local options.

The findings will help to inform planting decisions for a new 0.5‑acre growing space, adjacent to the established Rattray Community Garden. By aligning production with community preferences and needs, the project will also support two of the Blairgowrie & Rattray Development Trust’s current initiatives—the BaRI Food Project and Biodiversity Blair, a volunteer group which aims to improve the environment for all species by growing food around Blairgowrie and Rattray— in their shared goal of increasing local food access, reducing waste, and encouraging healthier choices.

 

Community: Sustainable Kirriemuir
Project: Kirrie Community Farm – Meadowland
Location: Angus

For decades, the intensification of farming has contributed to severe biodiversity loss in Scotland. This, coupled with increasing climate instability, is making it more difficult to grow food in this country.

Recognising the importance of enabling biodiversity to support food security, Kirriemuir Community Farm has recently taken on a 17-acre plot where, with the support of the Catalyst Award, they plan to explore how regenerative land management can support both local food production and nature recovery.

As part of the planned 12‑month participatory action research project, the volunteer group will sow meadow and wildflower areas to support a rapid transition to regenerative local food growing. Working with native wildflower grower Scotia Seeds, the group will examine different meadow management practices and assess how a mosaic of habitats can improve biodiversity, ecosystem services and resilience.

 

Community: Lochaber Environmental Group
Project: Seed Circle Lochaber
Location: Highlands

Seed Circle Lochaber is a community-led research project that explores how a locally organised seed-saving network can strengthen food resilience, food cultures, biodiversity, and community wellbeing in Lochaber. It will involve food growers of every scale, from people who grow herbs and vegetables on a windowsill to crofters, small producers, and community food-growing projects.

The project will map the use of open-pollinated seed within the local food system, gather stories and traditional knowledge related to food growing in the region, and run a pilot Seed Circle that supports people in growing, saving, and sharing locally adapted food seeds. Using participatory research methods, the project will record the practical, cultural and environmental benefits of food seed saving, identify the barriers faced by new community food growers and assess how food seed diversity can be strengthened in Lochaber.

By working with Scottish seed initiatives and Seed Sovereignty Scotland, the project will generate new knowledge, practical resources and a tested model that can be expanded locally or adapted by other communities seeking to build resilient food systems.

 

Community: Loch Ken Trust
Project: Citizen-led research on potential impacts at Loch Ken, with implications for the wider catchment
Location: Dumfries and Galloway

Residents of New Galloway have longstanding concerns about pollution in the town’s main freshwaters, particularly from sewage effluent and other inputs. This was identified as the top issue in a recent Community Council survey, which will inform the forthcoming Local Place Plan.

The awarded research project will establish a community baseline on pollution sources and water quality by:

• Mapping inputs: Collating information on public and private wastewater infrastructure in and around New Galloway to provide essential sub-catchment context.
• Citizen-science monitoring: Tracking aquatic invertebrates and analysing water chemistry upstream and downstream of effluent discharges into the Water of Ken, while piloting a novel lakefly monitoring system.
• Supporting constructive dialogue: Convening positive, iterative conversations to share stories about the freshwater ecosystem, highlight best practices, and discuss emerging findings. The project will also identify and prioritise potential measures to improve water quality, where appropriate, and establish a steering group, with key stakeholders, to guide ongoing work.

 

Community: Jennie Martin, in collaboration with Scottish Forestry and the International Conifer Conservation Programme at Royal Botanical Gardens, Edinburgh
Project: Conifers aren’t just for Christmas!
Location: Scotland-wide

Conifers make up 30-35% of our world’s forests; however, despite originating in the late Palaeozoic period and surviving major mass extinctions, they often dominate recovery ecosystems, yet 34% of the species are under threat today.

Recognising that there is no accessible, simple field guide in Scotland (or indeed the UK) to help readers recognise and appreciate conifers’ diversity, origins, and cultural significance. The Conifers are not just for Christmas project aims to change this.

Jennie Martin will collaborate with Scottish Forestry and the International Conifer Conservation Programme at Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh to develop the guide. Afterwards, additional research will be collected through workshops, during which participants can use the guide and provide feedback.

With an accessible field guide full of colour photographs and accompanying workshops, the researchers hope this project will kick-start a more conifer-literate society amongst forest school leaders, ecological surveyors, wilderness guides, and nature lovers alike.

 

Community: Unity for Integration Project
Project: Our Food, Our Health, Our Future
Location: Glasgow

Access to healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food is vital for good physical and mental well-being. Despite this, many minority families in Scotland face structural barriers and find their voices are missing from health and food policy discussions.

Over the next year, the Unity for Integration Project will engage with local families through focus groups and surveys to understand the barriers they face in making healthy food choices, such as cost, availability, and cultural fit.

The researchers hope the findings will propose solutions shaped directly by those most affected, as the participants will co-design actions to improve access, such as community cooking sessions and local food-growing opportunities.

By centring lived experience, this project aims to improve health, strengthen community integration, and provide evidence for more inclusive food policies that reflect the realities of diverse communities in Scotland.

 

Community: Scottish Youth Parliament
Project: Green spaces for everyone: Youth-led research into intersectional access to green spaces
Location: Edinburgh

Through the awarded Green Spaces for Everyone project, the Scottish Youth Parliament will coordinate youth-led research into young people of colour’s safe access to and meaningful participation in the design and development of green spaces locally and nationally.

The research will take an intersectional approach, exploring additional challenges, including gender and rurality. Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament will act as co-researchers to design and lead the investigation.

Through this project, the Scottish Youth Parliament aims to challenge the structural barriers faced by young people of colour when accessing natural spaces and provide evidence and tangible actions to decision-makers on what needs to change. Young people involved in the project will gain skills and knowledge, as well as building a supportive network of peers.

 

Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Change Award recipients:

Community: Bat’s Wood, Growing Space & Bike Track
Project: Willow Worlds 2: Cut and plant
Location: Kirkcaldy, Fife

In Spring 2024, funded by a Catalyst Award, the Willow Worlds project was established in a public park in Fife, growing willow branches to protect young trees from deer. The project aimed to assess whether living structures could offer a natural, attractive alternative to plastic tree guards.

Today, the original Willow World structures are thriving and providing the foundation for the next phase of work. With the Change Award, Willow Worlds 2: Cut and Plant will explore how willow’s ability to grow from cuttings can drive expansion. Environmental workers will harvest local willow and create new Willow Worlds across Fife and the Forth Valley, building skills while reducing costs, capturing carbon and supporting wildlife, all without the use of plastic.

Through gathering findings from across multiple sites, the group hope to demonstrate how this approach can be repeated further afield. All their findings will be documented openly and supported by short films that share their progress and reflections in an accessible way.

 

Community: Hyperborea Research Station, Bragar
Project: Annlan: Flax heritage and sustaining the new textile commons
Location: Isle of Lewis

 

Community: Cupar Development Trust
Project: Cupar Foodstation: Community masterplan
Location: Cupar

Over the last decade, the Cupar Development Trust has grown from a volunteer‑led group into a registered charity delivering major community‑driven planning initiatives.

The charity’s ambition is to become a self-sustaining Trust that delivers meaningful and long-lasting community benefit without relying on annual funding rounds.

Last year, with the support of the Catalyst Award, the Trust developed an outline business case for Cupar Foodstation, a food-themed enterprise and welfare hub in Cupar, offering a community-led solution and a people-centred approach delivered through local organisations and food producers.

The Trust now hopes to build on the momentum and use the Change Award to build a case for a community asset transfer with the Cupar Foodstation as its core, enabling public, third sector and private entities to work together as part of a unique community hub. The study aims to demonstrate community support, organisational viability, and best value. Its findings will help shape a strategy to deliver long‑term social, economic, and environmental benefits for Cupar and its surrounding communities.

 

Community: Eday Partnership and Stronsay Development Trust
Project: Scraps to suppers: Closing the island’s food loop
Location: Orkney Isles

Supported by a Change Award, the Scraps to Suppers project aims to explore how small island communities can create an affordable and sustainable food growing system by reducing waste and reliance on imported goods, and by closing the local resource loop.

Building on the previous Catalyst Award research into community composting, the new project aims to expand the compost initiative island-wide to support further waste reduction. Further to this, the groups will also investigate cardboard waste recycling between Eday and Stronsay to produce low-carbon fuel.

Through collaboration between the two island communities, the project will assess what food waste management processes are practical, affordable, and regulation‑compliant. By supporting residents and local businesses to grow more food locally, the project aims to reduce food miles, strengthen resilience during supply disruptions, and lower costs. Ultimately, the project seeks to create a replicable model for establishing and sustaining a circular food production and waste system in island and rural communities.