Bishop of Exeter calls for UK food security

The launch took place at a media lunch held at the King’s School, Ottery St Mary, where students and a team from the award-winning Michael Caines’ Abode Exeter, cooked and served a meal reflecting the very best of local and seasonal produce.

 

The Bishop addressed the guests who packed the school’s canteen and included journalists and broadcast producers: “It’s so good that this year in particular we’re having this lunch in one of Devon’s schools because what we’re enjoying brings together for me two of my great passions, one is education and the other is food. By food I don’t just mean that I like to eat food – though I do and today’s meal has been absolutely wonderful – one of my passions is about this country’s food security and food quality.

 

“Now I think there may be quite a few of us at this lunch who over the past few years have spoken repeatedly about the importance of this country’s food security and its link to local production; about ensuring that this country has a long term, sustainable supply of high quality and nutritious food and an agricultural sector that can deliver it for us. I have felt until very recently that this message has been falling on deaf ears. That has certainly been my experience when I tried to raise the issue in the House of Lords when we were constantly being told that the countryside needed to adjust to being a post-food production age. Really! If anyone ever believed then the events of the past few months right across the globe have shown that that is not so. Food and farming are firmly back on the agenda and rightly so. That’s one reason why I am so enthusiastic about the Show and it’s a privilege to serve as the Deputy President to the Devon County Agricultural Association alongside the Presidency of HRH The Duchess of Cornwall...

 

“My second reason to be so passionate about being Deputy President this year is that this is also the Year of Food and Farming. Most of you already know about this hugely important initiative to help children find out more about the countryside and where their food comes from through first hand experience. This year’s County Show is really taking this seriously; there are going to be new trails around the showground for children to explore different local food stories - meat, dairy, bread and honey - all of which will offer them plenty of fun, plenty of treats and the opportunity to win great prizes, but also deep and real knowledge. But most of all the whole Show will offer the opportunity to not just children but also adults to reconnect to the countryside, hopefully instilling in them a life-long appreciation for food and for the way in which it is produced. 

 

“It is a long standing passion of mine that education should be real and rooted in real life and I find it horrific that so many children and adults in our society have so little understanding about how their food is produced or even where it comes from. Around half, or 40 per cent, of young children have absolutely no involvement in growing food, many children no longer have the opportunity to learn how to cook and an increasing number in urban and suburban areas have very little to do with rural life. A quarter of 11-15 year olds have never visited the countryside.

 

“Now I think it is really good that we are eating today in a school, and a school like the King’s School, Ottery, is pointing the way to a different approach and a different future. I’d also like to pay tribute to people like [chefs] Michael Caines and Ross Melling who have done so much to work alongside young people to help make that connection. One of the key roles for schools like this is to provide an education which helps young people to think holistically about our world and make connections which were perhaps once obvious but now need to be made afresh; between things like our health and our agriculture, which too often seem to occupy different compartments of our lives.

 

“Of course it is not just schools which show the way in this respect; a huge contribution in this county is being made by the Young Farmers’ Clubs of Devon and it is my great privilege to be their president for the next three years. In their membership they have so many people like Pete Reed over here, Chairman, who have not only the vision and enthusiasm for the future of agriculture but are also developing and practicing the high level skill and knowledge which is required to make a difference. Of course, in the end, that is what this Agricultural Association [DCAA] and the county annual Show is all about.

 

“This year’s Show will, as it always is, be a wonderful celebration of Devon’s rural life; it will showcase the excellence of its food, but it will underline to all its real concern for excellence in farming. When this Association was founded in the 19^th century farming and the countryside were in a state of transition. What’s new! But in that context farmers and landowners came together to encourage friendly competition in the pursuit of excellence in breeding, in cultivation, in the development of new technologies and in the expansion of new markets and distribution. But not just for their own benefit, most of all for the benefit of all those hungry mouths in growing centres of population who needed to be fed and needed a supply of food that was healthy and secure. It’s very much the same now. I’m looking forward to this year’s Show immensely and I hope you do, too.”

 

ends