Slow Food

This Fairtrade Fortnight the theme is food. Celebrating farmers across the world for their harvesting methods, organic produce, nutritional knowledge and community values. Supporting fairtrade farmers allows more money to be put back into their communities and support their families. The theme encouraged me to research into how we farm our food here in the UK and look at the forgotten foods that we are in danger of losing. Slow food UK have this to say about food production:

Fast Life, Intensive Production Methods and Excessive Legislation are the main reasons that we are losing so many of our traditional foods and drinks. With their demise we also lose centuries of expert knowledge and cultural traditions. We lose choice, flavour and the varied landscape and wildlife associated with traditional farming. In short we lose biodiversity.

Those artisan producers who opt to swim against the tide of Fast Life need our help in explaining to the public why their products are special and, usually, cost more to make than mass-produced counterparts.
The British have been described as gastronomic magpies, owing to our eagerness to embrace other food cultures. It is often easier to find food from half way across the world than that produced on our doorstep and we have lost our sense of the link between our food, the land, and the people who produce it. However a growing awareness of the environmental implications of this has led to a renewed interest in our own food culture, and a fascinating journey of discovery awaits us as we re-learn to connect with the soil.

 http://www.slowfood.org.uk/ark-info/why-we-exist