By Tom Barton

23 Aug, 2002

Page 15

A WILDLIFE group yesterday launched its own brand of organic meat produced on a North Wales farm.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has kept livestock on farms - the first being a cattle farm on the Scottish island of Islay - but has never previously sold meat under its own name.

The charity's reserve at Lake Vyrnwy has 3,500 organic sheep, which will now be sold under the RSPB's own wildlife-friendly brand.' The meat is being sold through organic specialist's Graig Farm.

Gwynfor Evans, who farms Lake Vyrnwy for the RSPB, said the reserve was unique from other organic farms because birds take priority over sheep. 'If there's a bird that needs some special treatment then me and the warden sit down and decide what we can do for it - take the sheep away or cut back the heather,'

he said.

He added his flock could be marked apart from other farms because the sheep graze over 10,000 acres of heather moorland, and that leads to meat that tastes noticeably different from traditional grass-grazed sheep. The 53-year-old farmer added his interest in birds had developed working for the RSPB, but he had always had an interest in preserving them.

'I think that every farmer is interested in the world around him, despite what some people say, and my interest has just developed by birds being at the centre of everything we do,' he said.

RSPB spokesman Andrew South said: 'We are trying to get a link in people's minds between what ends up on their plate and the management of the farms and countryside where the food is produced.'

He added more than 60 of the charity's reserves graze livestock as a conservation tool.

Gerald Noone, of Severn Trent Water, which owns Lake Vyrnwy and is a partner in the project, said: 'Lake Vyrnwy farm is managed for the benefit of birds but it is also a commercial operation with conservation at its heart. Through our partnership, we are demonstrating that organic farming at Lake Vyrnwy can bring important environmental and economic benefits to rural Wales, and the provision of a clean and healthy water supply.'

The farm is run for the benefit of birds such as hen harriers and black grouse.

And the meat is produced using silage produced from land owned by Severn Trent.

RSPB Chief Executive Graham Wynne said: 'Health and farming issues over the past decade have given these issues special significance in the red meat sector.

'The launch of organic lamb from an RSPB reserve makes the vital connection between farming practices, birds and other wildlife, as well as helping to re -connect the public with the real story of the countryside.'