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Letter from Europe
Buy local and eat local catches on in EuropeEuropean farmers are capitalizing on the growing resistance to unnecessary long-distance food transportation by promoting and selling their locally produced foodstuffs by NORMAN DUNN In many European countries, auto fuel prices have almost doubled over the last two years. As I write, diesel is selling for the equivalent of $1.85 Cdn per litre in Germany and up to $2.40 Cdn per litre at British gas stations. At the same time, EU grant aid to farmers is being progressively reduced and prices for many farm products have never been lower in real terms. Not exactly an upbeat situation. But the spiralling fuel prices in particular are now starring in a clever Pan-European marketing move to help farmer incomes on a local basis. A whole series of sales campaigns, many of them actually started by farmers, are just now reminding shoppers to think of the “food miles” (or kilometres) when buying their groceries and to buy locally grown produce if they can. Helping the whole program along is growing public resistance to the more ridiculous aspects of long-distance food trading, such as early potatoes being flown into Europe from Egypt while the home-grown article is piling-up in the stores, or the even more common news of north German milk trucked into Italy to make cheese that’s then driven all the way back to supermarkets in the far north. On top of this, there’s no denying that Europeans are getting fussier about their food and it’s certainly true that “locally produced” has a nice ring to it in terms of possible freshness and traceability. This trend has come at just the right time for many farmers scraping along with beef, milk and egg prices that are barely covering the costs of production -- farmers like Eric Moss, near Ipswich in eastern England, who claims he is now getting a much better local market for meat from his Red Poll herd, a market which has also been helped by the local council refusing permission for a large national supermarket chain to build a store in the area. In the same region, a group of strawberry growers -- Suffolk Strawberries -- competes successfully against foreign imports when selling their wares through local small stores and farmers’ markets. In Germany’s state of Lower Saxony, the theme in a poster campaign launched this summer by dairy farmers is the same. Buy local for guaranteed quality dairy products and help the environment by resisting unnecessary long-distance transport of food. And sticking to dairy products for a moment, the biggest campaign along these lines has just been announced by Campina, based in the Netherlands and number 13 in the world list of biggest dairies. Campina would be the first to admit that it sends its yogurts and cheeses all over the world. But the milk giant has noted the wave of change in public feeling and now tells its customers that it is going to change its ways, at least partly. As of next spring, it has promised that only locally produced milk (i.e. milk from the Netherlands) will go to its Dutch customers. More than that, this dairy undertakes to guarantee that even the feed for the cows supplying the milk will be home-grown in future. Well, not quite all the feed. While certainly enough grain for the rations of all Dutch dairy cows can be grown on neighbouring farms, this doesn’t apply to the all-important main protein source, soya beans. Unfortunately, these have to come from abroad. At the moment most are shipped from Brazil. Campina says that it will continue to allow South American beans to be used in rations for its milk. But, as of next year, it will accept only the use of so-called “Green Soya Beans.” Under the new plans, the beans will have to come from small, mainly family-run farms with controlled use of fertilisers and pesticide sprays. Ration components harvested on the huge corporation farms, accused of clearing natural forest and scrubland for intensive cropping, will be ignored, says Campina. Even a metropolis as big as London, England, is boosting farmer incomes along its outskirts by encouraging inhabitants to eat food grown on local fields. In fact, Greater London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone, is spending $9 million Cdn of taxpayer’s money to introduce schemes encouraging local farmers to grow the kind of food which meets a strong demand if grown locally and is therefore easier for small operators to market -- food like farmhouse dairy products, soft fruits and a wide range of vegetables. Farmers who’ve already taken the plunge and started turning up with their wares at outdoor street markets, or selling milk and eggs around the doors, say they’ve noticed another valuable spin-off from the new “food miles” and “buy local-eat local” awareness. Stronger links between producers and consumers are being forged, giving the sort of direct communication and public sympathy which many haven’t known since the “Dig for Victory Days” back in the dark days of the 1940s.BF Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.
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