Schools contest encourages awareness of food origins

A SCHOOLS competition, based on the origins of food, is to be sponsored by the country’s main farm organisation, IFA.

Tipperary Know Your Food is a project aimed at secondary schools nationwide.

Michael Berkery, general secretary of the IFA, who formally launched the project, said: “This initiative encourages young people and the Irish consumer to buy only meat with a Quality Assurance logo, as this is the only way to be certain that the meat they are buying is 100% fully traceable and of top quality,” he said.

As a main prize, the IFA is to sponsor a week-long study tour of the European Institutions in Brussels and the European Food Safety Authority Headquarters in Parma in Italy.

Other prizes include computer equipment for the winning school worth more than €3,000.

Mr Berkery said the Irish food market was worth more than €8.6 billion per year and employed 320,000 people in farming, food processing sector and services.

“A dynamic food industry in Tipperary is the best guarantee of secure employment opportunities for young people,” he said.

The respective IFA county chairpersons in Tipperary, Mattie Butler (North) and T J Maher (South) said it was important to encourage young people’s awareness as consumers.