Food insecurity
OPINION: Good on the UK'S NFU for battling to get supermarkets to prioritise local farmers' produce.
Europe's food connoisseurs can't get enough of British cheese, according to new UK Government figures.
Last year almost $700 million of British cheese exports went into the EU market; export volumes have increased by 8% since 2010.
Visiting Wyke's Farm, in Somerset, this month, UK Environment Secretary Liz Truss hailed the success of British cheese exports, three-quarters of which went to Europe last year. France alone bought $125m of British cheese, now growing reputation on the continent for quality and taste.
Wyke Farms is a family run company in the heart of the Somerset cheddar-making region. It is one of the largest independent cheese makers and milk processors in the UK, producing 13,000 tonnes of cheddar per year to the same award winning 150-year-old recipe.
Demand for Wyke's cheddar is growing in France, with sales up by 30% last year; 60% of all exports went to the EU, the top customers being France, Spain and Czech Republic.
The farm uses milk from its own herd which grazes the Mendip Hills, and from 150 other farms; it employs 250 people, making the business a crucial part of the rural economy.
Meanwhile, UK revenue and customs data recently showed that Britain exports far more cheese to France than to the US, despite the US population being nearly five times larger: in 2015 cheese exports to France were worth £125m vs $95m to the US. Last year, UK exports to Ireland alone — its top EU market — were $157m, more than exports to the US, Canada, UAE, South Africa, Australia and China combined.
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
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