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Good food standards = good health

Health professionals join call to keep current UK food standards

Health care professionals join Save British Farming to deliver a strong message to amend the Agriculture Bill to keep our current food standards.  Some of them tell us why.

It is crucial that we protect our food standards not just for ourselves but for future generations to come. We are seeing an exponential growth in chronic lifestyle diseases and nutrition is a fundamental pillar that we all need to look at improving if we want to lead healthier lives.

Good work and let me know if there’s anything else I can help out with!

~Chris George, GP

Lowering our food standards has the potential to have a negative effect on the health of everyone in the UK. We currently have some of the highest standards for agriculture in the world and the government are planning to lower these way beyond the acceptable levels that we’ve enjoyed for decades. We want to ensure that the government do not pass an agriculture will affect our health. Please write to your MP and encourage others to do the same to protect our food standards and our public health.

~Sophie Red, Consultant Dietitican

As a Registered Nutritionist working within the food industry for the past twenty years, I have become so proud of the high food and farming standards that we have in Britain. I have witnessed first hand some of the initiatives that have been worked on so tirelessly for years. To relax our principles now has the potential to have an incredibly negative impact on the health of our nation and we must ensure that our exceptional British food standards are protected by law.

~Charlotte Radcliffe, Consultant Registered Nutritionist

As a nursing student, we learn about the fundamentals of health, and how high quality nutrition is a key factor in ill-health prevention.
Health inequalities in Britain are evident between lower income and higher income families. The agriculture bill amendment will leave lower income families with no choice but to choose poor quality foods, further exacerbating the inequalities in health in our country. We are lucky to have our own British farms which provide us with local, seasonal, good quality food. This should be accessible to everyone, no matter your income.

.Local, seasonal, good quality produce is essential to the public’s and the planet’s health.

Good quality nutrition is a necessity, and shouldn’t be made a luxury.

Mary-Jo Whiteley, Student Nurse

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Oswestry Banner Tour!

Shropeshire SBF Banner Tour

A group in Oswestry, Shropshire, decided to take one of our banners on a tour.  The tour included the offices of several local MP, to highlight their wish that these MPs back the Lords amendments to the Agriculture Bill, preserving our current food and animal welfare standards, and environmental protections.

Locations included:

Oswestry livestock auctions
Ludlow MP constituency office
Shrewsbury MP constituency office
Telford MP constituency office
Wrekin MP constituency office
North Shropshire Conservatives office, Oswestry
Tesco’s livestock statue

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Northallerton Demo

SBF Comes to Northallerton, Yorkshire

On a bright Autumn day, tractors gathered outside the North Yorkshire market town of Northallerton.  Decked in our red banners, the tractors rolled up the High Street where a crowd of supporters waving Yorkshire flags cheered and clapped as they went past. 

Afterwards a small rally listened to speeches from a number of people including Lord Newby, the LibDem peer, and Jon Johnson, the SBF representative there.

Farmers are protesting the Agriculture Bill’s failure to include food and animal welfare standards.  Without them, farmers will be undercut by cheaper, lower quality imports.  Added to this, if the government fails to agree a deal with the EU, many livestock farmers will go out of business.

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Northallerton Tractor Demo

Northallerton Tractor Demo

Farmers are planning a demonstration in North Yorkshire against Government plans for post-Brexit trade deals with Donald Trump and others which could have devastating consequences for farmers and the people of North Yorkshire.

Where: Northallerton, North Yorkshire
When: Friday 25th September from 12:30pm

A convoy of tractors and farm vehicles will drive up Northallerton High Street demanding safeguards to stop imports of hormone-treated beef and pork and chlorinated chicken undercutting Yorkshire farmers.

A letter will be delivered to local Richmond MP Rishi Sunak calling on him to back an expected amendment to the Agriculture Bill that would stop imports of food products produced to lower animal welfare, food safety and environmental standards than those required of UK farmers.

The protest will culminate in speeches around 1:30pm from a series of invited guests including at least one surprise high-profile individual with close ties to the Conservative Party.

The protest is being jointly organised by the campaign groups Save British Farming and #3.5%.

Muster point: layby off A684 by 12.30pm on Friday. Look for “Save British Farming” signs. If travelling from Leeming Bar, follow A684 through Morton and Ainderby Steeple, then look for layby on right immediately after crossroads signed for Romanby on left and Warlaby on right

If travelling from east, drive through Northallerton town centre, take A684 to Leeming/A1, then look for layby on left just as you’re leaving 40 mph zone.

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Save Welsh Farming

Tractor Demos and a Rally in Wales

Save British Farming, in collaboration with Undod, held a series of tractor demos around in Wales in Builth Wells, Crymych and Cowbridge where a rally took place.  The protest was to defend farming and food standards which are not protected by the new Agriculture Bill.  

One farmer explained why he’s protesting.

“The cumulative impact of the Agriculture Bill, Trade Bill, & ‘no-deal’ Brexit is likely to cause a rupture within Welsh agriculture. The beneficiaries will likely be US agri-monopolies exporting food products with fewer regulations, & large Welsh businesses who will survive by exploiting the farm workers who create their profits. Smallholders, employed farm workers, & workers who labour in modern slavery conditions will bear the brunt of the crisis.

“But the crises in Welsh agriculture go much further than this. Welsh farming is a social and ecological catastrophe; there is urgent need for a radical reconsideration of our ecology, food production and our relationship to land. This is a conversation that involves ALL of us, but it has a class dimension. It is also a struggle; farm workers owning & controlling the land & production process is a vital part of this conversation.

“Though in Industrial Workers of the World Cymru we don’t have a huge amount of experience organising in this industry, if farm workers want to try to organise in defence of conditions or to grow their power at the expense of their bosses, we will be proactive in our support & will do all we can!”

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The threat to farming

Liz Webster on ITV News

On Back British Farming Day ITV West Country did a feature on Save British Farming highlighting the plight faced by farmers and consumers of a damaging Brexit.

Farms are food factories and pushing them out of business to ensure food factories with poor standards feed us from half way across the world is damaging and irresponsible.

Write to your MP and Tory association today, tomorrow and every day because the Agriculture Bill will be back in the House of Commons at the end of September.  Use our customisable letter template.

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A message from Plumpton College

Gemma talks to staff and students at Plumpton Agricultural College

As the Government has u-turned on its manifesto pledge to uphold current food, animal welfare and environmental standards, we must come together with farmers, the food supply chain, restaurants and shops to demand our right to decent affordable food. Shipping from the other side of the world – or worse, industrialising our landscape to produce factory-farmed food the US way – will harm us all. It will alter our landscape and access to the countryside, as well as destroy jobs in our farming industry.

The Agriculture Bill is one more charter for private profit. Write to your MP NOW using our customisable letter template, join Save British Farming and fight with us for the future of YOUR food!

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Neglect farming at our peril

Liz Webster and Sophie Red interviewed by ITV News

This excerpt by SBF founder, Liz Webster in West England Bylines.

“We are now set on a course to destroy centuries of European trade – and values which have ensured a world-beating agricultural industry – in order to become America’s 51st state, beginning with ‘America First’ demanding the lowering of our food standards.

“Recent polls show that between 80%-90% of people in the UK are aligned against the lowering of food and animal welfare standards. For this Government to force through these changes against the values of the majority, is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher’s obsession with the Poll Tax – which saw the worst riots in a century.”

Please write to your MP using our customisable letter template – all your need is your postcode, to let them know you don’t want food standards lowered and you expect them to support an amendment to include our current standards in the Agriculture Bill.

Read the whole article here.

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Back British Farming Day

Back British Farming Day

September 9th was “Back British Farming” Day – which the NFU has been running for 5 years.  We decided to ‘piggy-back’ on the day with our own campaign events around the country to highlight the issues we have with the Agriculture Bill.  The video below is ITV News.

The photo above was taken at our founder, Liz Webster’s farm.

Liz had two film crews there, as well as a photographer capturing it all.

Liz and David and at their Wiltshire farm.

Down on the south coast, Save British Farming campaign coordinator, Gemma Lane, visited Plumpton Agricultural College for a ‘Back British Farming’ Day report.  They’ve put up one of our ‘mega banners’ which will sit by the entrance to the college for the rest of the month.

Plumpton Agricultural College, Brighton

Meanwhile, around the country, groups held local events on the day to protest the Agriculture Bill.  A group in Devon was filmed by BBC News South West.

Ipswich, Suffolk outside the old Corn Exchange.
Hereford, beside the bull statue
Glasgow
Hexham, Northumberland
Ludlow, Shropshire

We were very pleased with both with all the news coverage our campaign received on Back British Farming Day, and the number of people who volunteered to get involved around the country.  All in all, the day was a great success!

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Back British Farming Day Roundup

A roundup of our social media on Back British Farming Day

Back British Farming was a busy day for the team with a coordinated push on social media, as well as events around the country gaining both TV and print attention.  All of it helped to raise our profile.  Here are the memes we shared.