AT the Taste of the West Awards held in Bristol on October 15, the team at Ansty Farm Shop, near Shaftesbury, were delighted to win the category of Best of Savoury Bakery for their Five Seed Loaf, which Karren Price, co-owner and head chef, and master baker Peter Smith developed in the farm shop kitchens last winter.
BOTH Hampshire Fare and Sparsholt College have farming, food and the countryside at the top of their agendas. While the county food group is dedicated to working closely with today’s local producers, Sparsholt College is busy educating the next generation of countryside specialists. This synergy in values has led to the two organisations agreeing a new partnership agreement.
CONSUMERS are increasingly buying fresh beef and lamb to cook with rather than ready meals, according to new figures.
LAST year, the village of Cranborne was selected as one of 12 communities UK-wide that would participate in a Vodafone pilot project to bring mobile telephone signal to rural “not-spot” areas.
THE Francis report on the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust makes for grisly reading.
ORGANISATIONS representing British pig farmers will adopt a policy of zero tolerance towards retailers, food manufacturers and caterers that flout European animal welfare law.
A NEW market is opening up for high value British pork following the agreement of health certificates with Australia.
RELENTLESS lobbying from welfare and vegan pressure groups geared towards criticising British pig-keepers’ already high welfare standards is preventing growth and expansion, stifling innovation and promoting a return to peasant farming, says National Pig Association (NPA) general manager Zoe Davies in her recently-published Nuffield paper, Movers and Shakers in Global Pig Production.
FREE woodland management courses are available to commoners, farmers and landowners in the New Forest and Avon Valley over the next two months.
