Madam, I feel compelled to respond to the letter published in last week's Gazette from the self-appointed consultant to the dairy and beef industry, Mr Steve Jones. He tells us he is a consultant to the dairy and beef industry which qualifies him to scare monger about the quality of our food and implore us all to buy certified organic meat and boycott all other meat products. I sense an agenda here and it is not to look after the dietary welfare of Ross Gazette readers.

In Ross we have two first class butchers, both of whom source local grass fed beef and lamb from local farmers as well as local poultry and pork from high welfare, hard working family farms. The supply chain is very short and comprises of farmers, abattoir and butcher. The animals are 100% traceable thanks to electronic identification tags in sheep and passports for cattle.

Growth hormones are not used in the UK so our consultant needs to go back to school on this and other points of factual inaccuracy in his letter.

We are also fortunate to have in Ross a supermarket, Morrisons, which supports UK farmers, has a much more integrated, shorter supply chain and has yet to be tarnished by the horse meat scandal as none has been found in its products.

As Steve Jones says, we do also have a first class organic store in Ross and several excellent organic farmers and growers locally supplying this niche market. However, the reality is that most consumers are not prepared to pay the premium price tag attached to organic produce and it is wrong to promote organic produce by scaremongering about the quality of conventionally produced UK food products.

The horse meat scandal is an outrage and shows us just what big business is capable of when cost and profit is the only concern. It is heartening to see British consumers realising that the best way to be sure of the quality and provenance of their meat is to by British and buy local and we thank them most sincerely for doing so.

Matthew Price, Senior Group Secretary, Ledbury & Ross-on-Wye Branch of The National Farmers Union