Plaid MEP Jill Evans has welcomed the European Parliament's support for promoting farmers’ markets. MEPs were voting on a report calling for better co-ordination between rural development policy and cohesion policy. Ms Evans tabled a successful amendment calling for more support for local farmers markets as well as ecotourism and schemes to help local food procurement.

Pictured at Hooton’s Homegrown are Dylan Rees (Plaid’s Ynys Môn candidate for Westminster), Jill Evans MEP, and Rosalind Hooton of Hooton’s Homegrown.

Speaking after the vote in Strasbourg, Ms Evans said:

"I hope that the Commission will co-operate and bring forward reforms for 2013 which will maximise funding for rural areas and make it more effective.

"At this time of recession we need to be planning for a stronger and more sustainable future and the rural areas are critical in this. We can't solve the economic crisis using the same stale policies that created it in the first place. We need to build a better, greener economy. One element of this is supporting locally produced food.

"In Wales we produce excellent quality food. I saw this at first hand last week when I visited Hooton's Homegrown in Brynsiencyn (Ynys Môn) where they produce and sell meat, fruit, vegetables, fruit juice, cakes and jams. Local farmers’ markets are already successful in many areas and I take every opportunity to stress how important this is to our economy."

Diwedd/Ends

NOTES:

The successful amendment tabled by Ms Evans reads:

development in rural areas requires greater attention and support for the preservation of the natural and farmed landscape, ecotourism, the production and use of renewable energy and local initiatives such as local food-quality procurement schemes and local farmers' markets;

Jill Evans MEP represents the whole of Wales in the European Parliament

PHOTO: Pictured at Hooton’s Homegrown are Dylan Rees (Plaid’s Ynys Môn candidate for Westminster), Jill Evans MEP, and Rosalind Hooton of Hooton’s Homegrown www.hootonshomegrown.com.