Training future crofters

Lochview Rural Training, just 4 miles outside Lairg, provides opportunities for young people and adults to learn about rural life, while spending time outdoors and around animals. Throughout the year, they offer workshops such as practical lambing, agricultural machinery maintenance, crofting, poultry keeping or animal health, to name a few.

by Cara Cameron,
Lochview Rural Training Manager

Lochview Rural Training in Sutherland is a social enterprise and Scottish Charity with the key aim to promote, organise and deliver rural learning, training, and career opportunities, providing a viable and sustainable future for Scotland’s land-based industries. 


We started the enterprise in July 2021 to address the shortage of skills in the rural sector through improving young people’s and adults’ awareness, knowledge, and access to our rural areas, and to promote an informed understanding of the value of rural life to lifelong health, quality of life and social wellbeing for all. Since then, they have run over 30 courses reaching to 250 people around our communities and working with the local Primary Schools and in partnership with Scottish Crofting Federation and Lairg & District Learning Centre. 


Preservation of skills


Based in the heart of a crofting township, Lochview Rural training is trying to balance the skills shortage and help address the problem with youth retention in small rural communities. Lochview is offering a range of education packages including a young crofters’ group which is aimed at 11-17 year olds. The group is being supported and provides informal learning of day-to-day crofting activities, from grass land management to animal husbandry. The young crofters are then involved in community crofting activities including scanning at February time, lambing, shearing, and dipping. The youths are then supported by the older members of the crofting townships, and it is hoped that the older generation will help the youths to gain knowledge and understanding of the crofting activities and the youths are in turn keen to share their knowledge of technology and practical skills.


Lochview Rural training is trying to balance the skills shortage and help address the problem with youth retention in small rural communities

Cara Cameron, founder of Lochview, is a local croft assessor the for the Crofting Commission. Part of the role is community engagement and promotion of active crofting in our communities to enable plenty of opportunities for those seeking to start crofting. Living and working in a rural area, Lochview Rural Training has the opportunity to provide a facility where youths and adults alike can thrive from being in a informal education setting, they can learn without the pressures of being judged by others. This area of Sutherland has limited opportunities due to geographical barriers and lack of transport links, so they aim to overcome these barriers.


We work with youths daily and in our communities we see that they are keen for alternative ways to get outdoors, learn about caring for our environment and be alongside animals to help reduce the pressures of mental health. In five years we would like to see the project creating career opportunities for the communities; having a team of volunteers; providing youths, adults and communities with the skills to empower them to seek alternative opportunities and promote active crofting/agriculture in our area, enabling retention of young people in the communities and helping with social isolation.
For more information please contact us on 07867 590454 or email