| Green, locally produced and high quality | |
|  | | Traditional English breakfast |
| | Devon's farmers have a fine balancing act to perform - to produce top notch fare, and at a price people can afford. But how can farmers do that AND make a profit. BBC Radio Devon's farming reporter, Sarah Swadling looks at their dilemma. |
|  | | It's no wonder many Devon farmers feel beleagured at the moment.
Returns have diminished, while demands on farmers are spiralling.
The consumer aspires to buy food that is welfare-friendly, 'Green', locally produced and high quality.
Quite right too. But research shows time and again that, once the consumer is behind a trolley, these aspirations are eclipsed by cheapness and convenience.
Also fair enough; the money has to be made to go round and time is a precious commodity these days.
For all the excesses and failures of post war farming policy, it began with the laudable aim of providing affordable food for all.
In recent years its also tried to meet those consumer aspirations by improving food safety and conditions for animals.
And yet having worked so hard, our food and farming industry is in a perilous state.
There are many factors here. Our shopping habits revolve around the supermarket.
The supermarket shop has evolved to suit our lives: everything's in one place, its open all hours, and it appears to offer us bargains.
Because of this, the major supermarkets are immensely powerful.
They offer farmers and food processors the golden opportunity to sell to a huge number of people.
At the same time the supermarkets' sheer size allows them to pick and choose their price and supplier on a world scale.
This globalisation of the food market now means that a chicken farmer in Devon competes with a chicken farmer in Thailand to be on the shelves of the big stores.
The food might meet the consumers cheapness criterion, but there's little accountability for animal welfare.
A Devon chicken farmer would be quick to point out that the two are not unrelated.
Not long ago a local pig farmer told me how she and her husband had invested in making their unit impeccably pig-friendly, so that it reached the upper echelons of the RSPCA's Freedom Foods Scheme.
All this to satisfy the supermarket they supplied. She told me the supermarket then bought Danish bacon with lower welfare standards to offer its shoppers a two for one deal.
It comes back again to the choices we make as consumers, and how informed we actually are about what we're buying.
Where does the meat come from in that microwave curry?
Most of the time our imprecise labelling system means your guess is as good as mine.
The supermarket is often the bogeyman in the local food debate.
But there are success stories in the burgeoning numbers of regional products and brands appearing in the supermarkets.
These cater for a niche market and often the farmer will be getting a bigger slice of the cake by processing and marketing the food. Similarly there's a drive to add value by going organic or selling direct.
Mail order box schemes are springing up and Farmers Markets are growing.
Then there are the forgotten heroes, the shops which have always been there: the butchers, bakers, delis and greengrocers offering quality local food at competitive prices.
The problem isn't a lack of excellent produce in this country, it's how to make sure as many people as possible can get to buy it at a price that's reasonable, but profitable for the farmer.
BBC Radio Devon's Country Matters will be debating the future for British Food and Farming on Monday the 4th of November at 7.05pm.
Sam Smith will chair a panel of guests including Anthony Gibson and a representative from one of the supermarkets.
You can tell us what you think on our new message board, or perhaps suggest a question you'd like put to the experts.
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