Rosie BoycottPrincipal speakers
Rosie BoycottRosie Boycott, one of the founders of Virago and a former Fleet Street editor gave a stirring speech to the convention attacking our modern fast food, supermarket-based society and calling for a re-connection to the countryside.
“We have the distinction of being the largest consumers of ready meals in Europe,” she said. “For many families, cooking is a lost art. One of the sadnesses of supermarket food shopping is that many people don’t know where the food comes from. It is vital that we keep the connection to the countryside and its shape and to where food comes from.”
Rosie Boycott told how she and her husband Charlie started a small farm after she had recovered from a serious car smash. The story of how she struggled to develop her smallholding is told in her book ‘Our Farm’. To read an extract go to weblink: Our Farm
The smallholding is near Ilminster in Somerset – a market town which shortly faces the opening of a Tesco supermarket. “It opens on Guy Fawkes day and it is sending all sorts of ripples through the town,” said Rosie. “I fear for the future of the town.”
She said that supermarkets take money out of local circulation “like hotel chains in third world countries. The supermarkets’ agenda is a frightening one. How can we survive? What can we do?”
She spoke of the need to banish the bargain mentality which destroys our farmers and the land they work on. “There is also pain and suffering built into the supermarkets’ food producing systems. It is worth that extra pound or two to get free range alternatives.”
She said that intensive farming is a pressure cooker threatening to blow “and the fire under that pressure cooker is the supermarkets.”
The solutions would come partly from consumers and the choices they make. “We can buy proper food at a proper price and this sets up a virtuous chain. But we also need help from the government.”