Mark Casci: We are a superb food brand, so let's not throw away this great regional success story

It is undeniably true that our economy has shifted away from manufacturing and become too dependent on financial services – an imbalance that saw our the nation's finances brutally damaged in 2008.

However, this weekend Yorkshire will celebrate probably the country's oldest manufacturing industry – that of food production.

Countryside Live starts today at the Great Yorkshire Showground – a

sterling event which proudly beats the drum for both Yorkshire farmers and Yorkshire food.

Present alongside the livestock and crowds will be dozens of food producers from around Yorkshire – selling and promoting some of the best meats, cheeses, beers and breads in the country.

These producers are attracting the attention of top chefs and major retailers – both at home and overseas – with Yorkshire's long-standing reputation for integrity and honesty attracting consumers on an increasingly wide scale.

The recent success of Yorkshire food as a brand should not simply be attributed to the high quality of what it produces. The region has been producing fantastic food for decades but now it has become excellent at the business of food.

Credit for this must go to the organisers of Countryside Live, the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, who via various initiatives have been supporting farmers looking to market and sell their food on a wider scale.

Significant work has been done too by the regional food group for Yorkshire and Humber. For the past few years it has been shouting very loud about just how good our food is, shouts heard across the country and beyond.

It has helped scores of small companies become commercially viable by giving them the correct advice and links they need to get their product to the right market.

It's chief executive, Jonathan Knight, and his team have put in a great deal of hard work to not only bring along producers but to put Yorkshire food on an increasingly expanding map and its deliciouslyorkshire brand it created is now fast becoming a mark of culinary excellence.

A few days ago, Brian Turner, known to most as a television chef and a proud Yorkshireman, told me that he can now source fine foods and ingredients from his native county, whereas previously he had to look abroad.

The success has been widespread in the food sector but question marks are now being raised over its future. The fight to cut Britain's crippling deficit has already seen the mothballing of Yorkshire Forward, one of the principal funders of the regional food group.

The coalition Government proposes to replace Yorkshire Forward with a series of smaller-scale Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), which has sparked consternation in the higher echelons of Yorkshire's food businesses. As astute businessmen, they know that it is far easier to market food under the Yorkshire brand, than it is say to sell it as being from Wharfedale, or Leeds, or Penistone.

The concern is that the Yorkshire food industry could find itself diluted to more localised levels – without an overview of the entire industry across Yorkshire. It will make it more difficult for some companies to operate – particularly if part of their business involves sourcing ingredients from around the county.

It will also take away the Unique Selling Point as business people so desire that is the Yorkshire brand. Yorkshire pudding, Parkin etc are not associated with particular areas of Yorkshire but the county as a whole. Even localised products like forced rhubarb, produced in the rhubarb triangle between Leeds and Wakefield, is referred to as Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb.

The latter food recently obtained Protected Designation of Origin Status from the European Union – thanks largely to the work of the regional food group. It is doubtful whether an LEP could have made this happen.

The cuts required by Britain are daunting and should not be underestimated. They will require a degree of ruthlessness to see them through. As such, it would be easy to dismiss entities such as the regional food group as quaint but unnecessary bodies who can be dispensed with temporarily. In reality, the opposite is true. Yorkshire produces 14 per cent of the nation's food and drink. When you factor in the effect it has on tourism, hospitality and business it employs an estimated 1.5 million people in the region.

Take this into consideration alongside the fact that population estimates mean we, as a region, will probably have to begin producing

anywhere between four to eight times as much food in the next few decades.

To cut, hamper or dilute the region's food industry does not make sense either morally or economically. Standing up for our food and farming industries has not been as important since the Second World War. Countryside Live and its organisers have been championing Yorkshire's food for more than 100 years but they cannot do it alone.

Just under half the food we eat as a country is now being imported. Shipping in food from the four corners of the globe is a short-term investment and a gamble that relies on too many variables – just the kind of gamble that plunged our economy into turmoil two years ago.

Yorkshire's reputation for honesty and integrity has made its food

industry capable of competing on a wide scale, and the regional food group has realised this capability over the past few years.

It gives start-up businesses the opportunity to supply national retailers and attracts a national spotlight on to the region in the same way as the Great Yorkshire Show and Countryside Live do each year.

This is just the kind of behaviour that the economy needs right now to get moving again. To take it away just as it is getting started would be a tragedy not just for the economy but for the region's identity.