A celebration of Lakeland food and farming for all the family.
On The 12th of June Mark went along to the “Fell Gather” day at Cockermouth Auction in North Cumbria, organised by Cumbria Farmer Network.
We were asked in the first instance to take along raffle tickets for the Gloucestershire Old Spot Pig Breeders Club. It is their centenary year and they have a fantastic selection of prizes for this draw, which will take place at The Great Yorkshire Show in July. There is however a serious side to this fundraising as the Club took on the supermarket giants regarding their labeling of pork products. Club members had spotted pork being sold as pedigree when in fact it had not been produced by registered, pedigree pigs. This type of campaign to ensure food is labeled correctly will help all pedigree breeders of pig.
Whilst there Mark also promoted our pig keeping courses and was generally on hand to talk about keeping pigs. There was a lot of interest both in the pig keeping courses and in traditional breeds of pigs such as the Saddleback and British Lop. There were cooking demonstrations and a sausage making demo as well as butchery.
We didn’t take any British Lops or Saddleback’s to the event as someone closer had already been organised to take pigs. It was a Saddleback sow with a cross bred litter. Next year we can maybe take some pure bred British Lops, Saddleback’s or perhaps some of John’s newly purchased Oxford, Sandy and Blacks?
As well as the area on pigs all aspects of farming and country life were represented with examples of sheep, goats and cattle also on show. Mark was very impressed with the event and hopefully we will be there again next year.
Carole
