THE Prince of Wales yesterday urged the Government to order all public bodies to spend their multimillion-pound budgets on British food to help shore up farm incomes and give the country’s farming community a viable future.

He is incensed that the Army, hospitals, schools, Whitehall and local government continue to buy food from suppliers who frequently import food. Britain imports food and drink worth £18 billion a year, compared with £8.5 billion of exports.

Such a multibillion-pound investment — the NHS alone spends £500 million a year on more than 300 million meals — would transform the prospects of UK farming.

Prince Charles’s latest intervention appears in an article for Farmers’ Weekly. He writes: “Our public bodies buy enormous quantities of food. Just imagine the amount of food purchased by our hospitals, Armed Forces, local government, schools and universities. What an impact it would make on the viability of the British farmer if each was to buy ‘British’, and preferably, buy ‘local’.”

The Prince dismisses statements from ministers and officials who have repeatedly insisted that a “buy British” policy would contravene European competition rules, saying that legal mechanisms allowed public bodies to buy any food they wished and that other European states often used these to support their own farmers.

“I have been told that EU tendering rules mean that it is impossible to specify the type of food you wish to buy under contracts which are worth over a certain amount,” he writes. “However, the University of Wales, of which I am Chancellor, has recently completed an excellent piece of work showing that there are perfectly legal mechanisms to avoid this particular problem, which are often employed by many of our European partners who understand, perhaps rather better than us, the value of good quality, home-produced food.”

In regions of France and Italy, for example, local authorities allow schoolchildren to be served food from local farmers.

In Britain school meals are supplied by contractors appointed by local education authorities. The total meals budget is more than £8 million a day in England alone. It is believed that only in Devon are suppliers told to give any sort of priority to local produce.

It is unlikely, however, that British farmers would be able to meet the demand for many years. Britain has not been self-sufficient in food since the Second World War. Imports account for 53 per cent of all chicken eaten in the country.

The study by Professor Kevin Morgan, an economist from Cardiff University’s department of city and regional planning, has already been taken up by the National Assembly for Wales, though a spokeswoman yesterday was unable to say how bodies could interpret the Brussels rules.

She said: “All I can say is that it is an extremely helpful study and we want to do everything to encourage more local business and local supplies.”

According to Cardiff University’s website, Professor Morgan advocates more creative public procurement to encourage local food chains and encourage the sustainable development of communities.

Public bodies nearly always claim they are bound by strict “best value” and “value-for-money” rules when they purchase food and other products.

Last night, however, Denis MacShane, the Minister for Europe, conceded that the Prince had a point. “Prince Charles has struck a chord. There are too many jobsworths up and down the country overzealously applying EU rules,” he said.

The Prince, who won a landslide victory in Farmers’ Weekly Personality of the Year award, criticised the “sheer folly” of the UK’s not being relatively self-sufficient in food.

The Ministry of Defence said in August that its food supply contractor “is required to secure the best value for money for the UK taxpayer, while giving full consideration to British taxpayers”. As a result only 2 per cent of lamb, 16 per cent of chicken and 55 per cent of beef that it buys are produced in Britain.

The growth of farmers’ markets has encouraged interest in locally grown food and regional dishes. These markets started as a small movement in 1997 and are now pumping some £166 million a year into the rural economy.

This has prompted supermarkets to encourage local suppliers. There is still concern, however, about the power of supermarkets in the marketplace. Even though Tony Blair once referred to supermarkets holding farmers “in an armlock”, the Labour Government is generally seen to enjoy a cosy relationship with the retailers. Farmers believe this is linked to hefty donations made by Tesco and Sainsbury to the Labour Party.

A recent survey by the National Farmers’ Union showed that a basket of farm food including beef, eggs, milk, tomatoes, apples and bread cost £37 in shops. The price paid to farmers was £11.

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