Top restaurants and chefs back law for better quality food

The Sustainable Livestock Bill will require the Government to draw up plans to help UK farmers to adopt greener and more humane farming methods - rather than pumping millions of pounds of public money into damaging factory farms, and buying factory-farmed food for our schools and hospitals. The six restaurants, which are all in the Good Food Guide 2011, are: Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons (Great Milton, Oxfordshire) L'Enclume (Cartmel, Cumbria) Restaurant Nathan Outlaw (Rock, Cornwall) Restaurant Sat Bains (Nottingham) Pied-à-Terre (London) The Square (London) Friends of the Earth also working to back the campaign says that British factory farms rely on huge quantities of cheap soy imported from South America to feed their animals. But to produce enough soy to meet this demand, vast swathes of rainforest and wildlife rich grasslands are being destroyed every year, with disastrous consequences for local people and wildlife. The organisation estimates that 90% of the South American Atlantic Forest - home to 20,000 plant species - has been destroyed, much of it for soy farming. Friends of the Earth's, executive director, Andy Atkins said: "The Sustainable Livestock Bill is an appetising prospect for British restaurants and consumers. Successive Governments have allowed the UK meat and dairy industry to trash South American forests for far too long - Ministers must back the new law and put planet-friendly farming on the menu." Sat Bains of Restaurant Sat Bains with Rooms, Nottingham, said: "It's a sad day that in 2010 in Britain, we are still in need of an Act of Parliament to prevent a UK based industry from destroying large areas of equatorial rainforest. We are all aware of the well-documented evidence of the consequences of this destruction at a micro level, on both people and wildlife, but also on the broader macro level and its affect on global weather systems. "Even from the purely economic argument, the short-term financial gain for these farms will have long-term financial loss for all." A total of 100 MPs must now back the law in order for it to be seriously considered by Parliament.