The Agriculture Minister, Michael Jopling, While On A Visit To The Region, Has Strongly Defended Straw Burning

Interview about government view on straw burning as Minister visits suppliers to Sainsbury’s supermarkets.

Scenes of fields ablaze with fire and smoke during straw burning. Anglia TV reporter interviews Michael Jopling MP, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for his views on straw burning. He says he is considering options, and favours strengthening rules of good practice and relying on farmers’ innate good sense. The reporter asks why the public should put up with soot, smoke and filth from burning when no other industry would get away with such pollution. The minister replies that straw burning happens at few times a year and as there is no market for straw, people would need to be paid to take it away. He welcomes people’s attempts to find alternative uses for straw. Inside the Sainsbury’s supermarket on Coldham’s Lane, Cambridge, company chairman Sir John Sainsbury accompanies Michael Jopling to the chilled meat displays. They inspect the product labelling.

Keywords

Farmers; Farming; Members of Parliament; MPs; Straw burning; Fires; Smoke; Pollution; Supermarkets; Sainsbury’s; Meat; Food labelling; British food promotion

Additional Description

Michael Jopling visited Coldham's Lane supermarket, Haverhill Meat Products Limited and Breckland Farms Limited on 14 September 1983. A report in the JS Journal records that “The Minister observed all three elements in the food chain—agriculture, food production and distribution—and witnessed at first hand the promotional support being given to British fresh foods in the current 'Sainsbury's select the best of British' campaign.” JS Journal October 1983 https://www.sainsburyarchive.org.uk/catalogue/search/sascjsj3710-js-journal-october-1983/c/3 See Cat 12367 for response by farmer Oliver Walston about straw burning.