Food for Thought

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.

A new campaign has just launched called Label My Food. It acknowledges that supermarkets are actually ahead of the game when it comes to labelling and the big problem comes when you eat out of the home.

How do you know what you are being served in restaurants, pubs, cafes and take-aways?

The campaign has been started to help people who want more information because they have welfare concerns, allergies or are vegans etc. But it will also help people who want to support British farmers.

Remember the TV programme Kill it, Cook it, Eat it shown earlier this year which prompted loads of comments from Food For Thought readers.

Well it seems that the TV production company is going for a second series and is appealing for people to appear in the audience.

BBC3 are looking for people to take part in a returning series of the ground-breaking programme Kill it, Cook it, Eat it.

This new series will challenge conventional views about uncommon cuts of meat and will contrast the predictable with the exceptional. We’ll be killing, cooking and eating suckling pigs, milk-fed lambs, kid goats and veal calves.

Whether you’re a vegan or a meat connoisseur or simply want to confront head-on the processes involved in getting meat from the field to your fork then please get in touch.

We’re looking for people with opinions about meat and where it comes from to join our studio audience of celebrity guests, experts, vegetarians and carnivores! We’d ideally like our studio guests to reflect the age range of a BBC 3 audience – that’s between 17 and 30 though families are also welcome. Whatever your interest, we want to hear your views!

If you would like to be considered, simply send us an email with the words MEAT FORM in the subject heading and application details will be sent to you. Please be aware that you may need to be available one full weekday in early to mid September (although weekend dates may be available).

Email us at: meat@fireflyproductions.tv
Or call us on: 0207 033 2302

It is worth noting that there is some concern among industry bodies that this series is going to involve milk-fed lambs, suckling pigs and veal calves because they aren't respresentative of the UK industry and might provoke more of an extreme reaction with the public.

However, I guess that makes it even more important to have knowledgeable people in the audience will be able to explain calmly and rationally what is going on.

Farmers Weekly is holding out for a hero. We have joined forces with the NFU to seek a farming champion. As part of the 2007 Farmers Weekly Awards, we are looking for someone worthy of the title NFU Farming Champion.

The Channel 4 documentary, The Lie of the Land, is in journalistic terms the gift that keeps giving.

It was first screened back on 3 May, but the Farmers Weekly office is still getting letters and e-mails from farmers in response.

So when we heard that documentary maker Molly Dineen was attending a second screening of the programme at the Royal Society for Arts in London we were keen to go along and hear what she had to say.

Farmers are used to deadlines - it seems like every job has to be done to a deadline. Another profession working to tight schedules but very different is journalism - a lot of us read papers and magazines so it'll be interesting to see how they're produced.

If you want to get an insight into what life's like working on a magazine watch Deadline which is on ITV2 at 10pm tonight. It's a new reality show and challenges ten 'celebrities' to put together a mini magazine. This will actually be printed and appear in the magazine Closer.

Janet Street Porter is the editor, Darryn Lyons is picture editor and Joe Mott copy editor.
It would be good to see some of these so-called celebrities run a farm, then we'd really see what they're like at coping under pressure.