A Matter of Scale is a survey of the productivity of small farms and market gardens in the UK, which is being carried out during 2015. The aim is to understand more about the range of small holdings, what and how much they are producing, and to create a data set which can be compared with the productivity of larger farms. Little is currently known about how much small farms produce per unit area, and the lack of data makes it harder to put a strong case for their role in contributing to future food security.

We present a case study of how food can be grown in a polar type of climate. In the far away reaches of the Arctic Circle, where northern lights dance, volcanoes stop airplanes, and people believe in elves, there is an ecocommunity that thrives in the middle of Iceland, Sólheimar (“the house of the sun”).

New grassroots landscape management practices are aiming to recreate alternatives for the mitigation and regeneration of environmental conditions while providing the resources needed for human wellbeing. One of those approaches is being provided by permaculture movements, through an holistic system of ecological landscape design for the transition to multifunctional and sustainable human settlements.