Scotland: Gardening good for the soul – until the pressure grows
We found that volunteers were motivated by the desire to introduce others to the benefits of sustainable food growing for themselves and the environment, and to create and build social contact and community cohesion, but soon found the long-term workload larger than they had anticipated.”
University of Aberdeen
19 February 2024
Excerpt:
A study led by Professor Donald Gray from the University of Aberdeen and published in Local Environment has highlighted the challenges faced by volunteers, in particular, the wide range of skills that is required to establish and maintain a project ,and suggests that authorities could do more to support them.
Researchers from the School of Education, the School of Biological Sciences and the Rowett Institute came together to explore the positives and negatives of being involved in urban food growing activities in Aberdeen.
Dr Jennifer Wardle from the School of Biological Sciences explained: “We set out to look at the positive and negative impacts of getting involved in urban food growing in general and found that the experience was affected by the COVID lockdown period of 2020/21. An interesting theme which emerged was the challenges to health and wellbeing associated with the volunteer coordinators of local groups in the city.
