Why British farmers are fighting back against ‘farmwashing’ - Sarah Todd

There won’t be many of us who haven’t been caught out by these brands, which are typically plastered with a Union Flag colours and a homely name, when they are actually the produce of either US-style mega farms or from overseas.

Red, white and blue packaging together with a ‘farm’ name has conned this correspondent into buying chicken from Thailand before, while tartan tempted this gullible shopper to buy venison that had been roaming around Poland.

This is a common-sense campaign and it’s long overdue that attention is paid to families that buy their food in supermarkets rather than upmarket delicatessens. Good quality British produced food should be available to all budgets, not just those with money to burn. Fobbing people off with these fake farm brands is an absolute disgrace.

Talking of fake, it was sad to see an interview at the weekend with some celebrity or other (can’t remember her name, they all look the same) who, at just 34 had undergone a full facelift.

Even our rural part of the world has people getting those awful duck lips, botox and other treatments. Hollywood surgeons say the average age of a full face-lift has dropped from early 50s to mid-40s, with the pool of patients in their 30s having grown by around 50 per cent over the last 15 years. It’s sad but true that whatever those in the news do the ‘normal’ population seems to follow.

However, this warped concept of beauty is something our society should be ashamed of.

Our children smile when they hear their mother describe somebody as ‘bonny’, but that old-fashioned open-faced attractiveness is getting rarer. What have we done wrong as a population for girls to think they all need the same hair (extensions and colour), the same teeth and the same lips. It’s a national disgrace and it’s not only girls, apparently lads are under increasing pressure to conform to some daft idea of what conventionally handsome looks like.

Politicians should be speaking about real problems like the aforementioned fake food or this worrying obsession with looks.

Young people should be spending their money going out and having fun. Real fun, with other real human beings, rather than swiping one way or the other on a screen. When they are not doing that, what about broadening their minds with travel and new experiences. Or at the very least saving some money towards buying a car or a house?

Talking of buying a house, in mitigation for young people, maybe there is an element that thinks today’s rents and house prices are so high there is no point even attempting to save for them. Might as well be sat at home in mum and dad’s house with a face full of fillers …

While Labour says it is determined to both build more houses and go green, it was reassuring to see the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), sensibly suggesting that up to 60 per cent of the UK's solar energy needs could be met by rooftop installations alone.

It advocates a 'rooftop-first' approach to solar installations, saying they should be placed on the rooftops of new homes, commercial buildings and car parks before productive farmland or greenfield sites are used.

This simple and sensible solution would go a long way towards protecting productive agricultural land and open spaces. There is an old and very wise farming saying about God not making any more land, meaning that once we have used what we have that’s it. There is no more.

Sticking to agricultural matters, much more this correspondent’s natural cup of tea rather than facelifts, farmers are using the month of October to put British-produced wool in the limelight.

For too long wool has cost more to shear – which must be done for animal welfare reasons – than what it’s actually worth. This is such a shame, when it is the original environmentally friendly material.

It’s not just brilliant for long-lasting carpets, clothing and even mulching the garden to prevent weeds coming up. It’s also a very efficient home insulator.