Protecting our food from farm to fork

Suffolk farmer and TV presenter Jimmy Doherty is speaking out to protect British food standards. He tells Rachel Banham why cheap food comes at a price.

- Rachel Banham

MORE THAN A million people have signed the National Farmers’ Union petition to protect UK food standards, as post-Brexit trade deals are negotiated.

Jimmy Doherty, of Jimmy’s Farm, near Ipswich, is passionate about the issue. He doesn’t want the floodgates to be opened for cheap, low quality international imports which will affect not only the standard of food but also threaten the future of UK farmers and food producers.

Jimmy is concerned that most countries do not have the same standards as the UK, and cheap imports could mean mass, sub-standard food in this country – chlorinated chicken, for example.

He says: “Everyone thinks that ‘food standards’ is animal welfare . . . but it’s more far-reaching than that. It’s to do with all production systems, and that’s growing crops as well. The food that we grow in the UK all comes under certain restrictions of food standards, what pesticides we can apply, herbicides, all that kind of stuff.”

Jimmy clarifies that he is not ‘anti-trade’ or anti-America trade. He has been to the USA many times and recalls meeting some “fantastic” farmers. But he says this is about having the same standards for food production and he is also concerned that a deal with the US could lead to different food labeling, meaning consumers may not know a product’s country of origin.

SUFFOLK TICKS THE BOXES

Jimmy loves Suffolk and has family connections in the county too – his grandmother lived on a farm at Clare, near Sudbury.

So, when he found a derelict farm at Wherstead, close to Ipswich, he knew it was a real blank canvas for his ideas.