Consumers urged to buy British produce
30 October 2009
The government has set up a task force to look into how we can produce and eat more home-grown fruit and vegetables, after its assessment of Britain's food security concluded that growing food locally is key to tackling the effects of climate change.
The task force will draw up an action plan to increase production of fruit and vegetables and boost the amount of fresh food we eat. Launching the initiative at Covent Garden Market, environment secretary Hilary Benn called on consumers to ask for British-grown fruit and vegetables in shops.
“If we grow and eat more fruit and vegetables here – in our greenhouses, in our orchards, in our fields, our allotments and in our own back gardens – it will be good for our health, our farming community and our landscape,” he said.
In 2008 just over 10 per cent of the fruit and 58 per cent of fresh vegetables we consumed were grown in Britain. While we are eating more British apples and strawberries compared to five years ago, the amount of pears, plums and tomatoes grown and eaten here is falling.
The 20-strong task force is drawn from a wide cross-section of interests, including TV garden presenter and designer Joe Swift as well as representatives from supermarkets, the National Farmers' Union, food security researchers and schools campaigners. They will look at how to remove barriers to producing more of our own fresh food: among those identified by the government are a lack of seasonal workers, yo-yoing energy costs and the effects of climate change, particularly on water supplies.