Regional funding has helped Yorkshire; now can the EU help our rhubarb farmers?

I spent this morning in Sheffield, which looks more impressive each time I visit, at the launch of the EU Regional Funding for Yorkshire up to 2013, with Commissionor Daunta Hübner and John Healey MP giving the key note speeches. South Yorkshire has benefitted the most due to its Objective One status over several years now and it has been key reason behind the area’s impressive economic regeneration. The level of funding Yorkshire will receive will now drop because of enlargement, but the region will still receive a substantial amount of money to help ensure its growth.

Following that I drove to Janet Oldroyd’s farm in Carlton to learn more about how Yorkshire rhubarb is produced. Huge, dark sheds contain thousands of stems of forced rhubarb, with the eerie silence inside only punctured by the popping of the stems through their pods.

As I have mentioned before, Janet and the other rhubarb growers are applying for Protected Designation of Origin status, which requires products to have features and characteristics which must be due to the geographical area.

Yorkshire rhubarb is so renown because the frost, soil and rainfall combine to create the perfect conditions for forced rhubarb, while the special techniques accrued by generations of growers ensure that it cannot be replicated.

Rising temperatures mean that it is becoming increasingly costly for growers to produce consistently large harvests, which makes it all the more important that Yorkshire rhubarb is awarded PDO status, so that growers can charge the price their product deserves and consumers can buy it, confident they are getting the real thing.