If you’re in Edinburgh, drop in to the free exhibition ‘Earth Matters’, at the Botanic Gardens. Among the other exhibits, you’ll find a sheaf of wheat and a handmade quern (a heritage milling tool) made from clay taken from Lauriston Farm soil. This is Quern – Eleanor White’s piece about food sovereignty.

Seeing the wheat and quern on the gallery wall is a real moment for us at the farm. It’s a celebration of more than 20 years of work to bring back nutritious, local grains for bread. Scotland is near to losing its ability to grow wheat for bread. The wheat that grows in Scotland is for the whisky industry, and animal fodder. It’s not suitable for bread making. At Lauriston Farm, we’re part of a nation-wide, grass-roots effort to bring back local loaves. The wheat on the gallery wall, and in our fields, represents the work of many folk over many years. It took the dedicated efforts of Andy Forbes of Brockwell Bake Association to find the long-lost Rouge D’Ecosse seeds, Mike Ambrose at the John Innes Centre to germinate them, and Andrew Whitley of Scotland The Bread to bring them back to Scotland. Scotland the Bread shared out the tiny supply to farmers and community growers. In north Edinburgh, Granton Community Gardeners took it on, sowing their wee share on local street corners, saving and re-planting the seeds every year. Over multiple years, the wheat truly made itself at home, and became a unique variety: Granton Rouge D’Ecosse. When Edinburgh Agroecology Co-op got the lease of Lauriston Farm, the Granton Gardeners were able to share the seeds with us, to scale it up further. After our own efforts sowing, saving and re-planting, we now have three acres growing well, and real hopes of being able to supply flour to Granton Garden Bakery.

There is also a longer, lost story of the farmers who grew Rouge D’Ecosse before us. We know for sure it was grown in East Lothian in the 1800s. This wheat is their legacy too.

In the exhibition, the wheat accompanies Eleanor White’s beautiful quern, made with clay from the farm soil. The quern is a timeless tool for dehusking and grinding grains, shared by many cultures across the world. The whole piece represents heritage, circularity, community stewardship, love and gratitude for the land, and the “sustained care” needed for our grains.

It’s also in great company alongside a Joan Eardley painting and Natalie Taylor’s piece Force of Nature.

The exhibition Earth Matters is free and running until November – pop in to the Botanics to see it.