Food for Thought

Last night, I attended a dinner held by British Pig and Poultry Fair sponsor ABN and it was an excellent advert of British food at its finest.

They hired Berkshire-based celebrity chef Mike Robinson to cook the four-course meal and between each course, he told diners how he constructed the dish. This was followed by a short video featuring the supplier giving a glimpse of how the animals are reared.

For example, the starter was smoked duck salad made with duck supplied by Cherry Valley. Main course was chicken, reared by Hook 2 Sisters with a clip of James Hook explaining his production methods.

What a brilliant advert for British farming and the enthusiasm of the chef and farmers alike gave diners confidence that the animals had been treated well and reared to very high welfare standards.

Just imagine if pubs and restaurants took on some of this by giving customers more information. I'm convinced the public wants to know more about where their food comes from, especially on the back of the recent BBC undercover investigation which revealed that some unscrupulous pubs were passing imported oxen off as British beef.

Supermarkets have done much good work in recent months promoting British chicken, but now it is the turn of the catering/hospitality sector. It's in their interest to reconnect with consumers too. 

Catch up on the latest news from the British Pig and Poultry Fair.

Reading today's newspapers with another heavy push on the rising price of food. I just want to know - are sales of food declining in the premium stores like Waitrose and M&S. And how are the sales of organic food holding up?

It's been a bit quiet on here during the past week and the blame lies with a bunch of Young Farmers.

In a positive way, of course. It is just I have been tied up at the agm in Blackpool being thoroughly entertained by over 5000 YFC members.

It was a great weekend with clubs from all over the country meeting to compare notes, compare club shirts and boast about the size of their tackle.

And it struck me that as a group of young people - you couldn't meet a nicer bunch. OK there was a fair bit of beer consumed over the weekend and at times some groups were pretty noisy. But at no point did you get the sense that things were going to boil over into the kind of aggressive, violent behaviour that seems to characterise so many towns and cities.

They knew where the boundaries were and respected them in a good-natured way. A great bunch.

Farming makes another of its appearances on TV tonight and the signs are that it won't be pretty.

Our Daily Breads screens on More 4 at 10pm and looks at modern agricultural practices across Europe.

There's already been some discussion on FWiSpace.

That's the phrase used more than once at last night's Real Food debate at the first Real Food Festival at Earls Court.

The charge was that all the "side issues" such as GM, food miles and the like are just that. The real deal is much bigger and according to food miles guru Tim Lang a suite of eight fundamentals need addressing as a whole not in part.

But what alarms me at debates such as these is the middle-classness of them.

One delegate ventured to suggest that food quality issues (of the type discussed last night - in other words trying to define what 'Real food' means...you get my drift) aren't just the preserve of the wealthy but the poor too. But I'm not sure I agree. A lot comes down to price.

It's all very well to talk about the importance of reconnecting people with where their food comes from...but to what purpose?

Continue reading "Fiddling while Rome burns" »

In a week of sunshine and showers, farming has had its fair share of good news and bad.

When Gordon Brown called a Food Summit to tackle the global food crisis many hoped for some significant signals on prices paid to farmers. They should have known better, the summit yielded warm words, but little of substance. The challenge now is for the NFU and others to use the raised awareness to drive home the fact that low prices drive low output.

Continue reading "Latest content on FWi" »

The canteen in Farmers Weekly Towers decided to celebrate St George's Day in style with a special menu of food.

It was a nice thought and I am told the food was pretty good. But we can't help wonder if they rather missed the point looking at the sign below....

Is St George now the patron saint of Britain?

Funnily enough, there is a level of scepticism in the farming community about Prime Minister Gordon Brown's decision to hold a food summit.

The meeting is yet to take place, but FWiSpace forum member Jacobus has got his own ideas about what has prompted it and what is likely to be said.

Here's a taster:

There's no doubt about it, those Filipinos and Bangladeshis who have had a hard day queueing up for their rice rations will be able to sleep easier in their beds tonight, secure in the knowledge that Flash Gordon has been holding a 'summit' at Number 10 with the supermarket bosses and Peter Kendall.

Fresh from a triumphant visit to the USA, where he took care to avoid confusion with another contemporaneous visitor by not wearing white and by not being chauffeured around in a gas guzzling 'Flash Mobile', Gordon feels that he is at the height of his powers.

Look how his last budget 'simplified' the tax system by abolishing the lower rate band and forcing lower income families to pay more tax and apply to join the benefit culture to claim it back in tax credits - too bad about the 5.3 million workers who don't qualify!

Gordon (Brown)’s hastily convened gathering of the great and good from the food industry could have big implications for farmers.

Before the meeting had even taken place the 10 Downing Street website signalled that biofuels were in the firing line.

The UK needs to be “more selective” in its support of biofuels, taking greater account of impacts on food prices and the environment, it signalled as news of the summit meeting with scientists, supermarkets, farmers and aid agencies started to filter out.

Continue reading "Gordon's gathering " »

FARMING needs entrepreneurs. It always has and it always will. It depends upon their ability to cope with the unexpected and quickly exploit new opportunities. Without them it would lose its vibrancy and ability to deliver so many benefits to modern society.

So Defra’s Fresh Start initiative, launched in 2006, deserves support. It aims to help a wide range of people develop business skills in the farming sector over an 18 month course programme. Judging by the end-of-programme gathering at Hadlow College in Kent last week, it is succeeding.

Continue reading "Fresh Start Academies deserve support" »