Ministers snub home-grown food

THE Government has been accused of having a "lamentable record" on buying British after it emerged departments have cut the amount of home-grown food they purchase.

Farmers said it was "shocking" that major institutions like the NHS, Ministry of Justice and Foreign Office all recorded significant drops in the proportion of domestic food they bought last year.

The figures were all the more surprising as Ministers have spoken repeatedly of their backing for British food and the need for the public sector to support UK farmers.

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Shadow Environment Secretary Nick Herbert said: "The Government should be backing the British farming industry but its own departments have a lamentable record in procuring food sustainably.

"A number of departments don't source a single rasher of bacon from British farms and overall the proportion of domestically produced pork, chicken, beef and lamb being purchased across Government is falling.

Ministers trumpeted the fact that soldiers on active service eat only British pork and fish, hospital patients are only served bread made in the UK, and only a small proportion of the cheese served in prisons comes from abroad.

But many of the figures released by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) paint a less impressive picture.

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The amount of UK poultry bought slumped from 68 per cent in 2007-08 to 56 per cent in 2008-09, while domestic pork fell from 74 per cent to 62 per cent, a blow to struggling pig farmers .

Departments including Children, Schools and Families, Work and Pensions and the Foreign Office failed to buy a single rasher of British bacon, and overall the proportion of UK beef, lamb, fish and cheese fell.

Across the public sector the proportion of UK produced food purchased fell from 66 per cent to 65 per cent. The Tories said that if they win the election all Whitehall departments will be required to buy food that meets British standards of production as long as it does not increase overall costs.

Tim Farron, Liberal Democrat environment spokesman, said: "It's staggering really. The one thing the Government can do easily – command its own apparatus to buy British produce – they've failed to do, which means it's a lot of talk and absolutely no action."

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Lee Woodger, head of the National Farmers Union's food chain unit, said: "I think it's incredibly disappointing in the context that we've had a number of years of the Public Sector Food Procurement Initiative which was supposed to increase the amount of domestically produced food departments bought.

"We've also had a number of public statements from Ministers talking around how much support Government departments are giving British farmers, but it's obviously not coming through. For there to be actually a fall is quite shocking."

The Government insisted that 13 out of 21 departments had increased the amount of home-grown food they serve, and, on average, more than 90 per cent of the milk, whole eggs, and whole potatoes come from Britain.

Food and Farming Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said: "We know that there's still more that government departments could do, and there are areas where British producers could potentially be supplying more to the public sector.

"Government departments are looking at how they can increase the amount of food they serve which is high-quality enough to meet Assured Farm Standards, or has been fairly traded."

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