RURAL REVIEW - October 2008

As autumn is certainly tightening its grip on us with the occurrence of last week's Autumnal Equinox, I feel the need to comfort eat as the darker nights slowly draw in. This is especially true after reading a recent 'We Love our Steak' survey, commissioned by the Livestock and Meat Commission. It made me chuckle that almost half of Northern Ireland consumers like their steak cooked well done…

When it comes to eating a gorgeous juicy steak 47% of us prefer our steak to be well cooked without a hint of pink. Only 3% eat their steak rare and 10% of us favour medium rare. Would our neighbours in Europe be exasperated with us? Many culinary experts would suggest that the best way to eat a steak is rare to medium but is this necessarily true?

Personally, I think that it's important to have a good quality, locally sourced piece of meat to start with, and however the steak is cooked - it should taste fantastic, especially with a good glass of red wine and plenty of chips!

On the subject of locally sourced produce, it brings me to my next gripe. In the last decade imports of fruit and vegetables have soared by thousands and thousands of tons. At a time of rising food prices we should be increasing our food security, not becoming ever more reliant on imports for produce that can be grown in the UK and Ireland. Many families want to buy 'local' to support our farmers, eat seasonal produce and reduce food miles, but the Government has turned its back on British farming.

Many people across the province, and indeed throughout the British Isles, are struggling at this moment in time to survive as the price of living continues to spiral upwards. The reliance that we as a nation place on imported foods means that money, which could be spent on local produce and reinvested into the economy, is being lost to other parts of the world and we suffer for it.

We also have to watch as our farmers continue to suffer under the burden of bureaucracy and extra regulation, as it hampers their ability to produce the food we need. If our agricultural sector had more freedom then food production would become less problematic and we could cut down on the amount of imported foods that are draining our economy.

The vast majority of people in the UK want to eat British. Lessening the burden on the farming community would certainly help allow them to do so, and at the same time it would cut our reliance on imported foods.

At the end of the day, everyone wants to see fresh food that is healthy and tasty. There is no better way to ensure that than to eat local quality produce, rather than something that has flown thousands of miles and damaged the environment in the process!