Christine Mackintosh
I was surprised but delighted when I was awarded a place on the Under 35s Scholarship Programme in November. Being part of an already established agritourism business, Marshall’s Farm Shop, I wasn’t sure if I would qualify for a place.
I’m one of three sisters all working at home in our agritourism business alongside our parents. We employ 70 members of staff and have recently expanded to a 120-seat indoor restaurant, with a further 40 seats outside within our fireside bothy. With our own butchers on site, our meat is very much from farm gate to dinner plate with low food miles. In addition, we also have a drive-thru take-away leg to the business and a gift shop, with future expansion plans for 2024.
The programme consisted of two trips in November. We had a couple of development days in Edinburgh, one at RHASS where our group of 27 individuals came together to discuss common findings, new ideas, as well as the various challenges faced by many within agriculture and tourism throughout Scotland, quite often due to government initiatives. It became apparent from this session that a large number within the group was facing barriers from planning.
We spent the evening at Craigie’s Farm Shop. Although I had been there previously with my family when in the early stages of planning our own Farm Shop, there had been significant expansion and refurbishment to their restaurant area since, including a new state-of-the-art kids play area and a big events portfolio. It was interesting to hear from them about all that they are doing, and the common and very familiar challenges faced.
Our 2nd day in Edinburgh was spent within the Parliament Headquarters at St Andrews House and the Parliament building down at Holyrood. We met several MSPs and civil servants, including Mairi Gougeon and Douglas Ross. We had planned questions for them from our previous discussions so we took this opportunity to raise our concerns in the hope for some resolutions.
The second trip of the programme was the 2 days at the annual Scottish Agritourism Conference in Perth. This well organised, varied programme was fantastic and took the form of talks, panel discussions, networking and a dinner / ceilidh. We heard from some parliamentary members again, including the current deputy first minister, Shona Robison. I had the opportunity to ask her a question that’s affecting my own family business with regards to net zero / sustainability which was very much a positively talked about topic over the two days, but we are getting very little to no progress.
I particularly enjoyed hearing from Orkney Dairy and the Bus Stop. It was also inspiring to hear from the visitors that flew across specially from Italy and Tazmania to share their business journeys. The food provided over the two days was incredible. Not often you receive high quality food like that when catering for such large numbers. A lovely touch to support those agritourism businesses too!
It was a really great group to be a part of, we all shared highs and lows and have kept in touch, with a couple of 1-1 messages since our programme days. It was worth ‘making’ time to get away! The course was very well organised, enjoyable yet educational.
A highlight was definitely teaching ceilidh dancing to those from NZ / Tazmania!