The Farmers’ Union of Wales is revamping its “Help Cut Food Miles…Buy The Welsh One” campaign with new merchandise bearing a “I Love Welsh Food” slogan which was launched at the Royal Welsh Show last week.
Slow Food UK’s Dyfi Valley group leader Gareth Johns, an award-winning chef at the Wynnstay Hotel in Machynlleth, will speak about his enthusiasm for using Welsh food at the launch in the FUW Pavilion alongside the main ring at 2pm.
Members of Mr Johns’ group are working with a network of food related organisations and projects across the region where there are a number of key food festivals including the Welsh Food Festival at Glansevern, the Aberaeron Seafood Festival and the Big Feast in Machynlleth are held.
Slow Food became an international association in 1989 and today there are 100,000 members around the world and national offices (in order of creation) in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the USA, France, Japan, UK, The Netherlands and Australia, and supporters in 130 countries.
Mr Johns said: “Slow Food believes in recognising the importance of the pleasure of food by learning to enjoy the vast range of flavours and recipes available and recognising the variety of places and people involved in growing and producing the food we eat.
“Slow Food supports a new model of agriculture, less intensive and healthier, founded on the knowledge and know-how of local communities. It works to safeguard local cuisines, traditional products and vegetable and animal species at risk of extinction, and taste education is one of the ways it does this.
“It stresses the importance for agricultural production and livestock breeding to maintain a balanced relationship of respect for and exchange with the surrounding ecosystem.”
FUW president Emyr Jones said recent Defra figures revealed Britain’s self-sufficiency — the measure of how much of the food eaten in Britain is grown here — is 58.9 per cent. “The last time the country grew so little of what it ate was in 1968.
“This deeply worrying statistic is a reversal of the trend in recent years, when Britain started to eat more home-grown food. It comes as an increasing number of sheep and dairy farmers have abandoned the industry after failing to make enough money from farming.
“Retailers are driven by what consumers want and they want cheap food. This has meant that many farmers have been forced to lower their prices to such an extent that they have been driven out of food production.
“Such a drastic reduction in self-sufficiency is a worrying trend that is having serious consequences on our farming industry and climatic conditions and we demand that imports are cut back drastically.
“This startling figure highlights how the balance between food and drink exports and imports has turned heavily in favour of imports of cheaper products, many of which are produced under far less stringent controls and conditions as those faced by Welsh farmers.
“The time has come for farmers to appeal to consumers to help us redress this unequal balance at the same time as helping their surrounding environment by cutting food miles,” added Mr Jones.
He referred to the large number of FUW members and supporters producing their own food and drink products.
“There are a growing number of farm-produced quality products now available at farmers” markets, corner shops, on the internet and even at some supermarkets.
“Sadly, the consumer may have to search painstakingly for such products in supermarkets but I am aware there is a growing awareness amongst these huge companies that they are morally bound to offer local products.
“With the United Nations projecting a global population of more than nine billion by 2050, increasing food chain efficiency will become ever more essential.
“Producers and consumers must be part of a food chain that feeds the world, provides fair prices to farmers and works in harmony with the environment.”
