News
The Prince attends a reception for the Women's Food and Farming Union at Highgrove
7th September 2008
The Prince of Wales praised farmers for showing resilience in testing times and spoke of the importance of school farms and gardens to teach children about where food comes from.
His Royal Highness spoke of his farmers market initiatives around the country which are helping to put agriculture back at the heart of struggling rural economies.
The Prince addressed an audience of 130 farmers' wives and women farmer members of the Women's Food and Farming Union at his Highgrove home, near Tetbury, in Gloucestershire.
The WFU was founded in 1979 to promote an understanding of the quality of British produce, and to link the producer to the consumer to help improve the quality and variety of British food.
The Prince discussed issues facing farming including how the flooding and wet summer was delaying the harvest as well as the bovine TB outbreak.
In a speech, The Prince thanked the WFU for their work in running an education programme for primary schools to educate children about where their food comes from and how to grow sustainably and eat healthily. Since the programme began in 2001, over 2,000 schools have benefitted.
He told them: "You know better than I do about the huge challenges and difficulties in farming in the last few weeks with the appalling weather conditions and I have nothing but the greatest sympathy.
"I can never get over how you all have this remarkable resilience in the way that you deal with these complexities.
"I also have unbounded admiration for the way in which so many of you have been working hard to get the message across about what food and farming is about in this age of increasing disconnection.
"I have felt for a long time that we have missed a great trick in not understanding the vital importance of the school farm and garden because through allowing children to have that experience of growing something, harvesting it and then eating it can you hope to reconnect people to where food comes from."
He said the "powerful combination" of the WFU and the Women's Institute would make a real difference.
The Prince, whose Home Farm at Highgrove produces organic food for his Duchy Originals company, also spoke about his plans to set up a series of farmers' markets.
"I have been pursuing farmers' market initiatives all over the country, where the family farm is an essential part of the intricate tapestry of life," he said.
Roz Day, 55, a fruit farmer from Headcorn in Kent, gave the Prince a bottle of her own apple juice, called Early Windsor.
"It is basically liquid apple in a bottle, designed to be an alternative to white wine.
"Prince Charles was delighted to have it and laughed when I told him it goes particularly well with Oriental food but said he couldn't wait to try it.
"Nowadays you have to have an outside income to support farming, you have to be entrepreneurial as a farmer these days."
Margaret Hall, a Norfolk farmer's wife, spoke to The Prince about the weather which has hampered crops across the country.
"He was quite concerned about flooding and the delayed harvest and said that building on flood plains is why we are getting so much trouble," she said.