Love food, Love farming

Knowing where your food comes from is something that we feel incredibly passionate about at Greatworth Hall. This is one of the main reasons for the farm education centre - to help children make informed decisions and to have a healthy attitude towards what they put into their bodies.

Meat

We have made a conscious choice to eat meat, we believe it makes up a really important part of a balanced diet. However, we also believe that if meat is part of our diet it ought to be reliably sourced - by this I mean, we want to know where it has been farmed, how it has been farmed and be confident that it has been looked after well.

Therefore, as much as possible, we either grow our own meat or we buy from farmer friends who provide different items to keep our dinner plate enjoyable and diverse. Here, we have only grown lamb for years but this year we have grown two pigs as well. I know with confidence when I eat lamb, pork and beef from a neighbour that the animals have been well kept, grass fed and cared for. I also know the process in the abattoir and, again, can confidently say that the animals were in a clean, stress free environment and killed in the most humane way possible.

In the future we would like to be able to source ALL our meat in this way; as local and as traceable as possible. We want to ensure the best farming methods have been adopted to grow our food.

Supermarkets

It is important to mention supermarkets in this blog, we cannot talk about food and farming without mentioning where most of us buy the majority of our food from. British farmers have varying relationships with the big retailers - they are key to selling the produce that we grow. I have good friends, and relatives who supply to Morrisons, Tesco and other big supermarket chains. I once saw a comment on facebook which said ‘you don’t honestly believe that the small British farmer down the road is supplying to the big supermarkets do you!?’ (words to that effect!) I couldn’t believe it, do they think we farm for fun and not to make a living!? If you have bought British food in a supermarket, then it started on a British farm - that could be a massive 2,000 hectare farm or it could be a small family run farm like ours. The scale of the farm is irrelevant, if it has the union jack on the label then it is British and even better the red tractor, which means it has been inspected to ensure high standards are being upheld (farm assured). It is important to know that you CAN buy reliably and carefully from supermarkets as long as you bother to look at the packaging. We know farmers whose practise is exemplary and they are selling high quality, British produce to the big chain supermarkets that we know and use regularly. We are proud to be a ‘farm assured’ farm (red tractor label on food) and promoted this packaging sensitive shopping at our last open day. For more on the red tractor look at https://assurance.redtractor.org.uk/

Trade

Obviously, we need to consider the importance of international trade when it comes to farming; we like to have food all year around, we don’t grow enough in the UK to provide for our growing population and it is a vital part of the economy.

One of the reasons we love British farming is because there is an expectation of very high standards of animal welfare, and crop production which is adopted by the large majority of British farmers. Before sprays are used on crops they are thoroughly tested and checked, as science evolves there are regular updates on what is safe to use. Don’t forget; farmers eat too! We wouldn’t want to be putting anything in our mouths unless we knew it was safe! I hope that other countries have the same rigorous inspections that we have here on farms and that they have the same standards. When buying products from abroad we believe we should have some idea of how it was farmed, that is our personal responsibility as a consumer.

Buying Locally

The reason for this blog really is to promote buying locally and knowing where your food comes from. This may cost a little more than going to a supermarket and finding all the offers, rummaging in the reduced isle and coming back with bags of food but we believe it is really important in a sustainable future. We haven’t always known the ins and outs of everything we’ve eaten but we are making a conscious decision to be better informed. It starts for us, with home grown meat. At the moment it is lamb and pork grown by us and beef by a neighbour. We hope to start producing grass fed poultry over the next few years and then who knows what next!?

If you are interested in buying some of our lamb or pork and joining us on this journey of sustainable eating and sustainable farming then do get in touch. If nothing else, hopefully this blog has made you consider the root (pun intended) of your food a little more.