Jill Evans, Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales MEP for the whole of Wales, today, Thursday 20th October 2005, addresses “Looking to Our Future” - the Welsh Organic Producers’ Conference at Builth Wells. The Conference has been organised by Organic Centre Wales.

Jill Evans said:

“Good food is essential. We need it for our very lives, our health and well being. We need to adopt a safe and healthy food policy. In recent years there have been a number of major food scres – BSE, Dioxin, Salmonella and most recently, with tragic consequences, E-coli. These scares have undermined consumer confidence in food, especially meat and processed food. It has also undermined trust in politicians to ensure food is safe.

“We in Plaid Cymru, with the Green/ EFA Group in the European Parliament, have launched a campaign whose aims are to improve the safety of food and promote a healthy diet, to create real choice for consumers and producers and enable us all to enjoy the diversity of European food cultures.”

Ms Evans added:

“We need real support for the promotion of rural development measures which in turn support regional quality products. Organic farming should be promoted with public funding for conversion and for marketing in for example, baby food, schools, hospitals and public canteens.”

Ends.