Your Countryside Needs You
28/11/05

CLA Wales chairman Ross Murray is calling on the consumer to back the future of Rural Wales by supporting farmers and land managers or risk losing the landscape and all that goes with it. Speaking at the Royal Welsh Winter Fair, Mr Murray said there is a need to raise awareness that the entire Welsh landscape, environment, culture, and language as well as our heritage of food production is at risk.

And he says more needs to be done to ensure that the consumer realises that with every mouthful he or she is making a decision affecting that precious legacy. The CLA report, Public Goods From Private Land - Why Nature Needs Farming, had clearly established the interdependency of food, farming, forestry, and the environment.

"I believe that there is an urgent need for the Government to intervene at a macro level", said Mr Murray. "But there is an equally important imperative for the public to fully understand the link between the food they eat and custodianship of the Welsh countryside.

"People need to challenge where their food comes from, and its quality, whether they are in the supermarket, the local shop, school, restaurant, or the local care home. And we all need to weigh up whether we can afford NOT to buy Welsh produce.

"Out of these decisions which, we argue, should be made on a daily basis, flows so much: the rural character, its appearance, and its prosperity. Each micro decision collectively has a huge impact on the collective environment, on rural prosperity, the way we farm, and the way the countryside looks.

"With ever increasing urbanisation throughout Britain, and the corresponding distance between consumers and the point of production, the farm, we need to help people to be better informed about the source of the food we eat and to acquire a sense of social responsibility about it."

Mr Murray added that landowners and managers also needed to press home the message at a local level whenever possible. The CLA was actively campaigning to ensure that consumers got clear and consistent information when it came to food labelling.

The organisation is calling for clearer labelling as part of its Food Chain Initiative. And more than a hundred MPs have signed up to a parliamentary motion, supporting the CLA's campaign to raise awareness of EU laws that protect the status of regionally produced and distinctive food.

Landowners and managers are also making huge efforts to improve the environment, through Farm Assurance and agri environment schemes such as Tir Gofal. But it has to be remembered that these are not self sustaining and are only a bolt on to the core business of food production.

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