Championing the Local, part 1

Shortening supply chains TO transform communities

Monday, 7th September, 4-6pm
Online – free admission

Shortening Supply Chains to Transform Communities is the first in the CHAMPIONING THE LOCAL series of SEDA Land Conversations.

This Conversation is aimed at helping community groups realise their ambitions 

We will explore alternative business models, including co-operatives, social enterprises and employee-owned businesses, and how they can make LVC’s possible, as well as the best scale at which such issues can be addressed – local, regional or national. 

At present, Scotland has plenty of micro examples of Inclusive and Democratic Business Models (IDBMs). We will look at ways of scaling these up, and rolling them out across the country, in areas such as food, renewable energy and retrofit.

One aim is to highlight the interconnectedness of all these issues, and how thinking about them together brings wider benefits, with different sectors learning from each other. 

This Conversation will include inspirational models, using these as a springboard for a broader discussion of the subject, addressing obstacles along the way and how to overcome them.

Championing the Local 

An online series of SEDA Land Conversations (free to attend)

Mon 7th, 14th & 21st of September 2026

There is an emerging consensus about what needs to be done to revive rural Scotland. This series of events will look at how this might be achieved in practice.

The theme will be the role local value chains can play and how these might be facilitated. A place-based model enables rural communities to reap more of the benefits from the land around them including health and wellbeing benefits as well as environmental ones from shorter supply chains.

The passing of the Community Wealth Building Act by the Scottish Government is likely to fuel the growth of local value chains. This world-first piece of legislation commits the Scottish Government to “enable more local communities and people to own, have a stake in, access and benefit from the wealth [Scotland’s] economy generates”, making it mandatory for public bodies to prioritise the reinvestment of locally-generated wealth back into local communities. This event aims to ensure that councils, health boards and other public bodies are given the means to enact the bill.

Artists Contributions

Moteh Parrott, Alternative-indie-folk singer-songwriter

Born in Cameroon to parents working in rainforest conservation, and given the local name ‘Mnkongmoteh’, Moteh is a Scottish musician who has been likened to “a Highland wilderness with all the sweeping colour and spirit which that encompasses”. He was shortlisted for BBC Radio Scotland’s Singer-Songwriter of the Year 2019, and released his debut album The Stones are Merely Sleeping in 2024.

Lisa MacDonald, poet and short story writer

Lisa lives in Achiltibuie in the NW Highlands. She is a community activist, a primary school teacher and a lecturer at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. Her work has been widely published including her collection Mnathan na Còigich | The Women of Coigach. Lisa won the Wigtown Gaelic Poetry Prize 2014. She is fascinated by context – the way choices and circumstances ripple across communities, relationships and time in unforeseen ways .

Adam Forrest

Co-op development manager at Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS)

Adam works at the interface of agriculture, sustainable food systems, and rural development. His background spans roles in farm enterprise management, organic sector development, co-operative governance, and commercial strategy in the food sector. He is particularly interested in building collaborative, farmer-led approaches to sustainable agriculture that combine food production, nature restoration and community benefit. In 2025 he joined SAOS as Co-op Development Manager, to support the growth and resilience of Scottish agricultural cooperatives.  Adam previously served as Scotland Manager for the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), where he led advocacy, farmer engagement, and policy-influence efforts working with producers, eNGO partners, and government to embed nature-friendly farming in national agricultural policy. Prior to NFFN at Scotland Food & Drink, Adam coordinated the development of Scotland’s National Organic Action Plan alongside sectoral stakeholders and prior to that he was the enterprise manager at Cyrenians Farm, a market garden and rural skills centre for young people from backgrounds of homelessness.

Neil McInroy

Global lead for Community Wealth Building, The Democracy Collaborative

At The Democracy Collaborative Neil advances systemic economic reform and inclusive ownership strategies across the United States and internationally. With over 30 years of experience in progressive economic and public policy, Neil is widely recognized as a leading international figure in democratic economic development. Neil has been instrumental in shaping Community Wealth Building as both a practical framework and a strategic theory of change. His work is grounded in key contextual ideas — such as addressing structural inequality, democratizing wealth, and embedding resilience into local economies. He has developed the CWB Guide and Training Program, which provides a structured pathway for action, framed by his original development of the Five Pillars of CWB. Until 2021, Neil served for 20 years as CEO of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), the U.K.’s national organization for progressive local economies. He was also a Community Wealth Building Adviser to the Scottish Government until 2023, where he embedded CWB principles into national economic policy and chaired strategic reviews on Inclusive and Democratic Business Models and the Shetland Islands Energy Transition Taskforce. He is currently the chair of the economic development association of Scotland (EDSA).

Abi Mordin

Co-director, Propagate & coordinator, Dumfries and Galloway Sustainable Food Partnership

Abi is a co-director of Propagate - a Scottish collective working on local, sustainable and community food projects. She has been working across community and local food projects for over 20 years, and is passionate about food sovereignty, resilience and fair food systems. An experienced grower, facilitator, practitioner and researcher , with an MSc in Farming and Food Security, Abi's inclusive and collaborative attitude encourages everyone to be involved in thinking about and co-creating sustainable food and farming systems. Abi lives in Dumfries and Galloway where she runs a small market garden and a small herd of Shetland cattle. Find out more at www.propagate.org.uk

Zoë Holliday

CEO, Community Energy Scotland (CES)

Since joining CES in 2022 Zoë has become a leading voice for the community energy sector in Scotland and the UK and uses insights from more than 450 community energy members on the ground to unlock barriers and campaign for change. Zoë was instrumental in setting up the Scottish Community Coalition on Energy with DTAS and Community Land Scotland, and has co-authored several publications that have had significant traction. Prior to her role at CES, Zoë was Head of Strategic Development for Caritas Sofia in Bulgaria, which led to posts leading the Refugee Survival Trust and Humans in the Loop Foundation. She has also spent time working for the Energy Saving Trust, the Center for the Study of Democracy and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations.

Prof. Douglas MacMillan

Emeritus Professor of Biodiversity and Land Economics

Douglas is an Emeritus Professor of Biodiversity and Land Economics. He specialises ineconomics related to the sustainability of land use systems, heritage and livelihoods and the conservation of biodiversity. His current focus is on natural and cultural heritage management in the Scottish Highlands and the contribution heritage can make to sustainable rural development, using data and verifiable research methods from the fields of human ecology, economics and sociology to explore issues of sustainability in these fields. He has published over 150 academic papers on topics ranging from Land Reform in Scotland to the international wildlife trade. Douglas’s geographical focus has returned to Scotland, after more than a decade working in international conservation in amazing biodiverse rich countries such as India, China, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Dr Emilia Pietka-Nykaza

Senior lecturer, University of the West of Scotland

Emilia brings a rich academic background in sociology, refugee studies, and political science to her research on integration and settlement processes. Her focus extends to exploring the impact of diverse population mobility patterns on the sustainability of rural communities, particularly examining the connections of young people to rural areas and fostering community relations among residents with varied migration histories. Emilia is an academic migrant herself and is keen to support sustainable rural communities. Emilia is currently a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy and Programme Leader for Social Sciences at the University of West of Scotland. She has more than 15 years of research experiences in the broad field of migration studies from a multidisciplinary and policy-focused perspective. Prior joining UWS, Emilia was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Population Change (CPC) at the University of Southampton. Emilia holds PhD in Education, MPhil in Sociology and MSc in Refugee and Migration Studies from University of Strahclyde. She is a director at Scottish Rural Action.

Chair: TBC

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