Technical Detail:
Date of Issue: 07 March 1989
Format: Horizontal
Size: 37mm x 35mm
Perforation: 14 x 14½
Number per Sheet: 100 Pieces
The Four Stamps Were Design By Sedley Place Limited
Printed In Photogravure By Harrison & Sons Limited
Paper: Unwatermarked Phospor Coated
Gum: PVA Dextrin
Text: Judith Hodge (British Food and Farming Year)
British Food and Farming:
British Food and Farming Year in 1989 celebrates our agricultural and food industry's history and success. Right through the food chain - from seed to supermarket - enormous developments and technological achievements have taken place in agriculture and food production over the past 150 years. the industry today is efficient and productive, By applying the discoveries of science, farmers produce over three- quarters of our home-grown food requirements. The year is designed to highlight the importance of the food and farming industry not only to the national economy but to all our daily lives. It is good applaud an industry that has outstanding successes to record - the industry that feeds us, that touches all our daily lives.
Our countryside. one of the most beautiful in the world and the backcloth to our towns, is both the place where many people spends their leisure and the farmers' workplace. It is our largest 'factory'. The stamps show a mouth watering array of the finest produce our country can offer.
Click to view larger image
This success has resulted from ever-increasing mechanisation, improvements in the breeding and veterinary care of livestock, developments in sturdier and more productive plant species, eradication of diseases in plants and livestock and an overall expansion of the food- processing, manufacturing and distribution sectors, Nowadays, fresh peas harvested in East Anglia are delivered from the fields to the supermarket, washed, frozen and packed, within hours of being picked.
We are fortunate in Britain that our temperate climate allows us to grow such a plentiful variety of top-quality produce. Each area of this fertile and varied countryside can lay claim to its own specialities, many renowned around the world.
The North of England is known for its cheeses, vegetables, top-quality beef and lamb, and fine ales. The Midlands produces ciders, mineral waters, cheeses (including the world-famous Stilton), asparagus, apples and meat pies. East Anglia produces wheat and barley, sugar-beet, soft fruit and apples, peas, onions and a cornucopia of bulbs, vegetables and salad plants from the fertile fenland.
In the South-East's 'garden of England', one can find orchards of top-quality fruits, hops for brewing and vines producing fine English wines. The West Country produces creamy dairy produce, pork, ham and bacon, chickens, turkeys, cider, fish and shellfish.
North of the border, Scotland is known the world over for its salmon, whisky, oats, beef and game. Succulent raspberries are also grown and more recently deer calves have been bred for farmed venison.
Wales and tender lamb are synonymous. The Principality is also famed for its traditional cheeses (and newer goat's cheeses), butter and fish. Across the water, Northern Ireland has a justly deserved reputation for rich dairy produce, potatoes, bacon and fish.
All these delicacies are produced on Britain's farms and fished from our rivers and coastal waters. Working long hours and often outside in all weathers, our farmers are more than just producers and growers. They are also custodians of our beautiful countryside, which so many of us treasure for the relaxation and leisure opportunities it allows us. Farmers, together with conservation organisations, have done much to shape the landscape which is rural Britain and at the same time our largest 'factory'.
The stamps have been designed to portray this rich and mouth-watering array of produce. They serve to highlight the aim of the Year which is to demonstrate the importance of the farming and food industry in all our daily lives by illustrating the vital end-product of the
industry's labours.
Fruit and Vegetables
The country's growers produce a wide range of horticultural produce. Apples, pears, currants and berries, salad plants, onions, leeks, cauliflowers and broccoli, tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, peas, beans - the list is endless.
Nowadays it also includes more unusual items such as herbs, sweet peppers, aubergines, kohlrabi, mooli, pumpkins and squashes. Mushrooms are the country's most valuable horticultural crop after potatoes. Many of our horticultural crops are grown under glass to protect them from the natural elements and to extend the period when they are in season.
Home-grown apples are used in the production of traditional English cider and also freshly-pressed apple juice, which is increasingly popular.
Meat
Our permanent pasture and hillsides provide ample fodder for sheep and beef cattle while cereal farmers produce millions of tonnes of barley, wheat and oats to feed the livestock and poultry reared indoors.
At home we eat roughly equal quantities of beef and chicken- about 21 lb per person a year - although we tend to eat more of the traditional roast beef and steaks when we are eating out. More lamb is now eaten than mutton and pork is increasingly popular, as is turkey - no longer eaten exclusively at Christmas!
Sausages, bacon and ham, meat and pork pies and steak and kidney pudding still feature prominently in the traditional British diet.
Ducks are making a come-back and the market is growing rapidly-not least in supplying the Chinese restaurant trade!
Geese too are becoming popular again as an alternative to turkey at Christmas. In all, 87% of the 4 million tonnes of meat consumed each year in the United Kingdom is produced here.
Many other important products come from livestock. Wool, of course, is the obvious one. But the United Kingdom leather trade converts hides into clothing, shoes and accessories; feathers from the poultry industry are used in our bedding; and bristles are made into paint brushes.
Dairy Produce
Britain's 45,000 dairy farmers milk our 3 million cows twice a day, 365 days a year to produce milk for drinking, cheeses, yoghurt, butter, cream and all sorts of processed foods. Many new cheeses are being produced today by traditional methods from the milk of sheep and goats. In response to the demands of today's consumer, skimmed, semi- skimmed and low-fat products are also increasingly available.
The average consumption of liquid milk per person per year is 216 pints, and we eat on
average 14 lb of cheese each!
The term 'dairy' also includes eggs. Britain's 38 million chickens lay a massive 12,000 million eggs a year.
Cereals
Britain's cereal farmers produce barley, wheat, maize and oats for a variety of uses. By far the largest is feed for the livestock sector.
Increasingly a larger proportion of United Kingdom wheat is being used for breadmaking. At home we each eat an average 100 lb of bread a year. Flour for biscuit-making is produced almost exclusively from home-grown wheat.
Barley is used in malting and distilling by the breweries and whisky distilleries. It is also used in the production of malt vinegar. Oats or oatmeal are commonly used in breakfast cereals, porridge and biscuits.
Not a cereal, sugar-beet is nonetheless an important United Kingdom crop. The processed sugar, produced predominantly in East Anglia, is used in biscuits, cakes, confectionery and jams as well as being sold as sugar and treacle. British sugar production provides 50% of our sugar requirement, the other half being made up from imports of cane sugar.
