Dr. Paul Benham is the winner of the Environmentalist award – sponsored by INSPIRE, University of Wales Trinity Saint David & The Waterloo Foundation
As a holistic farmer and educator at Primrose Organic Centre in Brecon, Dr Benham has developed an ecological food production system that has a low carbon footprint and works in harmony with nature.
When he first arrived at the bare field in 1985, he found a very limited awareness of organic food’s merits, but now believes he has proved the merits of organic production.
“One of the main objectives is to raise people’s awareness about the interrelationships between the way we grow our food and the health of the planet and the health of the consumer. Another is to highlight that the present food system is totally unsustainable and has a highly substantial impact on the health of the local environment and the health of the planet generally through its influence on climate change, resource depletion, soil degradation, pollution etc. A further key message is about the importance of high quality food to the health of the consumer.
In 1985 when I arrived at the bare field of Primrose Farm, there was only a very limited awareness about the merit of organic food. The general thinking was that you could not produce equivalent quantity or quality organically, however the Primrose model shows that both productivity and quality can be exceptionally high in organic production.”
Category sponsored by INSPIRE, University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the Waterloo Foundation:
