Andrew Vine: Our chance to show appreciation to the region’s farmers

Innate modesty and a characteristically down-to-earth matter-of-factness are all very well, and admirable enough, but we have as a county too often not blown our own trumpet as loudly as we should.

That’s changing, and a good thing too. The merits of proclaiming loud and long the glories we have to offer paid dividends last year with the arrival of the Tour de France, and another golden opportunity to appeal to a huge audience looms enticingly on the horizon with Hull’s year as UK City of Culture in 2017.

But we need not wait for such milestone events to be secured in the face of national or international competition to proclaim what Yorkshire has to offer, when there is the chance to do so every summer.

It comes in the form of the Great Yorkshire Show, which begins on Tuesday and over its three days is emblematic of everything good about our county.

There is no finer showcase anywhere in the country for what agriculture and the wider rural community do for us all, and everybody in Yorkshire should take an unashamedly immodest pride in the show, as well as spreading the word to their friends and families who live beyond the county’s borders.

This year, the BBC is doing just that by broadcasting its immensely popular The One Show from the Great Yorkshire, which has the very welcome potential to attract visitors, just as the television coverage of Le Grand Départ undoubtedly did.

And it’s important that word should be spread about the show and the agriculture it celebrates.

Despite the likely attendance of more than 130,000 visitors over the next few days, there are many who know too little about farming, and have a woefully limited understanding of how vital a component it is in the everyday lives of families and the country as a whole.

Even governments have on occasion been guilty of taking too little interest in agriculture, though the current Conservative administration, with its benches full of MPs with rural constituencies, appears likely to have a better appreciation of its importance than some of its predecessors.

Ask virtually anybody their feelings about the countryside, and it is almost certain they will profess to love it.

But ask somebody who lives in a town or city what makes the countryside tick, and there is a strong possibility that their only answer will be a blank look.

The answer to the question is, of course, farming. For too many townies, the countryside is a mystery beyond being a pretty place to have a run out into in the car on a sunny Sunday.

Hardly a thought is given to what shapes and cares for the landscape, to the men and women whose hard graft on every day of the year, whatever the weather, makes the countryside what it is.

And if there is too little recognition of those farmers, there is for many an equivalent degree of ignorance about how much agriculture does to keep Yorkshire’s economy afloat.

The hard graft translates into many hundreds of millions for the economy and thousands of jobs, both directly and in agriculture’s supply chain, supporting rural communities and ensuring that Yorkshire’s countryside is a vibrant, 
living place as well as a 
beautiful one.

The growth in the market for regionally-produced food is an encouraging sign that awareness of farming is increasing among at least one group of consumers.

Those who like to know where their food comes from, be reassured that it has been produced to the highest welfare standards and not travelled thousands of miles before it reaches their plate are natural cheerleaders for agriculture in Yorkshire.

So should many more people be. All those who love our countryside should give thanks to the farmers who look after it, and take an interest in what they do.

The Great Yorkshire Show is the ideal place to start doing just that. It is where the heartbeat of farming can be heard most distinctly, because for the next three days it is the focal point of agriculture not just in our county but for the nation.

For those who work in agriculture, it is a hugely important forum, a place to 
meet and discuss both the 
trends and travails of a profession which is unrelentingly hard and can for some be lonely and stressful.

For the crowds which pass through the gates, the show is 
not just an event to be enjoyed. It is one at which to admire 
and learn about agriculture, which is all around us, whether we live in town or country, at the heart of our lives, and yet still unnoticed by too many.

Above all, the Great Yorkshire Show is a celebration of farming. And that is a celebration that all of us in Yorkshire should join.