A market economy

It raises two points that are critical for the future of farming, and retailing, in this country.

Firstly, it is further evidence that real food - food produced locally without being pumped full of additives from animals allowed a proper outdoor life - is better for us than stuff that is created purely for cheapness of cost and length of shelflife.

Secondly, it shows that if the supermarkets' stranglehold can be broken, this real food need not be much more expensive than the mass-produced stuff that is racked high on their shelves.

It does cost more to produce organic milk, but because the dairy is only three miles from the Memorial, transport costs are very low and so the hospital ends up paying only a slightly higher price for its milk - this slightly higher price obviously being made up for by the benefits the patients receive.

Many farmers have accepted that this sort of niche marketing is the future for their industry. It is just like the future for British manufacturing where high skill is required to make high quality products and beat the cheap, mass-produced efforts of low wage foreign companies.

Farm shops and farmers' markets are recognised as good ways to tap directly into this market.

However, most of us still shop mainly at supermarkets. The shelves are stacked high with what seems to be a bewildering choice - but it is the supermarket that decides what that choice will be.

For example, the new Sainsbury's in Darlington appears to have on its shelves just one organic runny honey - imported all the way from Argentina. How can it be cost efficient to sail it in heavy glass jars halfway round the world from Buenos Aires and then rush it up the A1 in a big lorry pumping out greenhouse gases when the dales and moors of Yorkshire and Durham are alive with bees and honey-producers?

Cannot our local supermarkets follow the lead of our local hospital and offer more local choice - to the benefit of both local people's health and local producers' pockets?