THE organisers of a new project that will celebrate the food heritage of the Yorkshire Dales is looking for volunteers to help carry out the research.

The Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) needs individuals and groups who are interested in researching local traditions in food production, the recipes and places associated with them, and local food production today.

Volunteers will be trained to interview farmers, food producers, retailers and consumers to record their memories, stories and knowledge about how food has been produced, processed and sold over the centuries and up to the present day, and to locate archive material.

All of the information will be drawn together for a website to provide a publicly-accessible, detailed and comprehensive picture of our food heritage.

The trust hopes to start the project in March, subject to funding approval.

Don Gamble, projects development officer at YDMT, said “The project is not intended to be a nostalgic look back at a perceived golden age but rather it will enable people to make better food choices today by celebrating the best of the old and by reconnecting consumers in this rural area with farming and local food production.

“Finding out how food was produced in the Dales in the past before the age of cheap oil will increase the capability of individuals and communities to grow more of their own food now and in the future - in gardens, schools, public spaces, and in partnership with farmers and other food producers.”

For more information about the project contact Don Gamble on 01524-251002 or email don.gamble@ydmt.org