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High-quality food from natural land
Cattle and sheep reared on natural grazing produce tastier and healthier meat, and maintain biodiversity according to a study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
The ESRC study, run by Exeter University, found that livestock farming on wild land is good for the environment, the consumer and the producer, but needs stronger support from policy makers.
The report supports a return to pasture-based rearing which is already in progress, driven by fashion and economics.
As reported previously in the Yorkshire Post, a group of farmers are working with Asda to promote North Yorkshire lamb as a brand made distinctive by its heatherland origins and regional development funding has been allocated to encourage similar ventures. Lead author of the report Henry Buller, of Exeter University, said he hoped it would help upland farmers in general to get the sort of brand recognition Welsh and saltmarsh lamb have achieved.
The research was inspired by those examples and more like those in France, where supermarkets recognise a much more widespread interest in the sources of produce.
Prof Buller said: "Many French farmers actively maintain the biodiversity of their grasslands in order to protect the future of the high-quality food produced from it.
"We wanted to know if this approach could provide a model for more sustainable farming in the UK."
His research concentrated on the benefits of "natural" pastures over those improved by selective sowing, weeding and fertilising, and did not go into the theoretical advantages of grass in general over the manufactured feeds some beef cattle are reared on.
It showed that the variety of plants on natural grasslands provided more varied nutrition, making up to some extent for less productivity in terms of kilos of meat per acre.
About 40 farmers in Britain took part in the study. Taste tests rated beef from foraging breeds such as Longhorn as more tender and more flavour-intense than the competition. And chemical analysis showed the meat from animals with a biodiverse diet was healthier too.
Meat from wild-grazed lambs, particularly those grazed on heather, had higher levels of the natural antioxidant vitamin E, fatty acids and anti-carcinogenic compounds.
Prof Buller pointed out that the French have a long history of linking the qualities of a particular area with high-value produce through such schemes as the Appellation d'Origine Controle and more recently through the Protected Food Names legislation, introduced in 1993 by the European Union.
He said findings from the focus groups showed clearly that consumers are willing to pay for food with links to natural-sounding places.
But Britain has been slow to take advantage.
While France has 52 protected designations for meat products, Britain has only eight.
He said: "The British notion of local has become far too fixed on distance. Locality should be about the quality of the place and the relationship between the agricultural and ecological landscape."
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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