Jeremy Clarkson asks ‘why are Welsh children fed chicken from China?’

Stephen Price

TV presenter and columnist Jeremy Clarkson has vented his anger at the ‘staggering’ news that children at schools across Wales are being served ‘cheap imports’ of chicken from Asian countries, at the expense of British farmers.

An investigation by The Countryside alliance which was published on 28 January, revealed that local authorities across Wales in both urban and rural areas have been exposed for serving children school meals containing chicken meat from as far afield as Thailand, China and Brazil.

The campaign group say that concerns have already been raised around council food procurement, following a report by the Countryside Alliance last year that revealed that only 12% of local authorities were able to report data concerning what proportion of food they procured was produced in the UK.

Speaking in the Senedd in September last year, Jenny Rathbone MS (Labour, Cardiff Central) called on her own government to work on “cleaning up public procurement of food, so that we support Welsh companies to feed our children rather than importing chicken from Thailand…”, showing there to be clear discomfort within First Minister Eluned Morgan’s own party about the contents of school meals.

This Countryside Alliance’s new investigation has found that, in some council areas, Chinese and Thai chicken accounted for more than 99% of chicken served to schoolchildren. Merthyr Tydfil Council reported that 99.35% of the chicken in their school meals came from Thailand and China, and Gwynedd Council stated that 87.62% of chicken products, for which data was available, came from Brazil, Thailand and China – despite both these council areas being predominantly rural. Conwy and Caerphilly Councils were also particularly bad, reporting 94% and 87.32% (respectively) of their school chicken as being sourced from outside both the UK and EU.

Out of 21 councils, just two (Anglesey Council and Bridgend County Borough Council) sourced all chicken meat for schools from the UK.

Not one council was able to report the proportion of Welsh chicken they procured for school meals.

Writing for the Sunday Times, Jeremy Clarkson shared: “On the face of it this is puzzling, because how is it possible to ship a chicken all the way from Chiang Mai to Bridgend and for it to arrive with a lower price tag than a chicken reared in some vowelless village two miles down the road?

“It would be easy to blame the government for this, so I will. Because it’s the government that imposes unbelievably strict and expensive-to-achieve standards on British farmers and then allows wholesalers to import meat and veg that weren’t grown or reared to anything like the same set of rules.

“Defra knows full well this is going on, but there’s no point in asking what it’s going to do about it because it will just say, “It is right that hard-working families in the community can enjoy sustainable blah blah blah,”

“Let me give you an example of the problem. In the olden days farmers could protect their oilseed rape crop using something called neonicotinoids. Here’s how they work. You take your rape seed and you coat it in a neurotoxic insecticide that spreads into the tissue and the pollen of the plant as it grows. So if the flea beetle comes along and tries to eat the plant, which he will, because the flea beetle is basically a miniaturised locust, he will quickly become paralysed and then he will die.

“Unfortunately, in addition to dealing with the flea beetle, neonicotinoids also kill bees. That is a Bad Thing. It’s so bad, in fact, that in Britain the use of neonics was recently banned. Quite rightly in my opinion.

“I tried to soldier on without them, but it was hopeless. The flea beetle came along, spotted the plants were unprotected and, much like Christopher Plummer in Battle of Britain, got on his radio to tell the rest of the squadron, “Help yourselves everybody. There’s no fighter escort.” In just one week I lost £4,000 of crops and I wasn’t alone, which is why, last summer, England was no longer a yellow and pleasant land. Rape is pretty and the oil it makes is super nutritious, but with neonics banned it’s just too risky to grow it.

“Still, we saved the bees from an agonising death, so that’s great. Well, yes, but neonics are not banned in most of Asia or Australia and many states in America. So the British farmer has been forced to do his bit and take the losses on the chin and you now buy your vegetable oil from a farmer in the Far East who killed a billion bees to make it.

“I wonder what Defra would have to say about that? “It’s right that hard-working bees in the community…”
Then there are the pigs, which in Britain must be housed in luxury apartments with far-reaching views and given four-poster beds and mattresses stuffed with only the finest eiderdown. And there’s more because I am not allowed by law to feed my pigs with household scraps. I must put my apple cores and potato peelings in the bin and serve them instead with edible gold and saffron.

“Things are different in other countries, where pigs are kept in cages that prevent movement. This causes them to become anxious and that in turn causes them to bite the tail of the animal in front of them. And how does Johnny Foreigner solve that? Simple. The tail is amputated at birth.

“In America cows are given synthetic hormones to make them grow bigger and faster, a practice that’s outlawed on this side of the Pond because eating hormone-infused beef can cause children to become cancerous. Which is not desirable.

“Then there’s lamb. Australian sheeps are reared to a broadly similar set of rules to those we have here. Which causes me to wonder how they can be sold here, having travelled halfway round the world, for less than the sheeps I rear at Diddly Squat? They are, though, and as a result sales skyrocketed by 40 per cent last year.”

He adds: “It’s obvious that something has to be done about this state of affairs. But what? The government is useless, and even if it weren’t, the World Trade Organisation has now lumbered into the debate saying that Britain cannot ban imported meat on the basis that the animal was not treated very well. Or that it doesn’t meet our environmental standards.

“So there we are. British farmers are priced on a wave of noble intentions into the bankruptcy court, your children get cancer and everyone from Copenhagen to Kamchatka buys a Porsche. It’s a pretty bleak set of affairs and on the face of it there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.

“But there is. The next time you are doing the weekly shop, have a look at the labelling. Because if there’s a little red tractor, it means the food you’re buying was grown by someone with mutton chops and a belt made from baler twine here in the UK.

“Getting Red Tractor accreditation every year is as annoying as bumping into an electric fence. After an hour your teeth are gritted and after two your hair is starting to catch fire. A particularly tricky problem for me is Red Tractor’s insistence that everyone working on the farm is “demonstrably competent to carry out their role”.

“Another issue, given my intense dislike of paperwork, is being able to say which chicken came from which hen and where, exactly, its breakfast was made. I also get a bit eyerolly on the need for harnesses when up a stepladder.

“Kaleb, meanwhile, is always driven to distraction by the organisation’s insistence that he tidies up after himself. He sees the Red Tractor inspector as his mum but with a clipboard. And while I can see it’s important that you hose out a trailer if an animal has shat in it, I do get a bit exasperated by having to use a hose in there when an animal hasn’t.

“However, jumping through these hoops does mean the farm is clean and efficient and well run and that the animals are properly looked after. And that is good news for the consumer. Because, sure, the government won’t do anything to stop the import of food from farms that are riddled with disease and animal cruelty, but checking for that little tractor when you’re out shopping means that you can.”

“Deeply disappointed”

Father of three and farmer Hefin Jones, who farms in Conwy, said: “As a Welsh farmer, I’m deeply disappointed and frustrated to learn that 94% of the chicken Conwy County Borough Council use to feed all primary school kids is imported from places like Thailand and Brazil.

“At the same time as high quality food production here in Wales is being reduced, we’re apparently expected to accept lower-quality food being shipped halfway around the world. That makes no sense for food security, animal welfare, or the climate.

“We should be backing Welsh farmers and Welsh produce, and ensuring our children are fed on high quality food that does not compromise their health. As parents we do our best to feed our kids nutritious healthy food , while our Council disrespects the health and safety of our kids.”

Rachel Evans, Director of Countryside Alliance Wales, commented: “As a mother and a farmer, I’m shocked and disappointed that, when we have such high quality Welsh and British produce, including chickens farmed with some of the best welfare standards in the world, so much of the chicken our children are eating is being shipped in from the other side of the world.

“There’s a real contradiction here. The new Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) launched on January 1 2026 could lead to a 5% reduction in livestock numbers in the name of climate change and sustainability, yet public bodies are serving imported chicken flown or shipped in from as far away as Thailand, China and Brazil, increasing carbon emissions and lowering food standards, all while undermining local agriculture. Sustainability should start at home, by supporting Welsh farmers and producing food responsibly here in Wales.

“The Welsh Government needs to take urgent action to ensure that public money spent on school meals supports Welsh farming, high food standards and sustainability.”

The Countryside Alliance is calling on Welsh government to review and reform school meal procurement frameworks to prioritise Welsh and British produce, and to introduce mandatory transparency and reporting on food provenance in public sector catering.

The Welsh Government said it was working with local authorities, producers and wholesalers to reduce supply chains and food miles and to support farmers, food growers and manufacturers.

It added it was committed to increasing “the use of Welsh food produced locally in schools”.

Read Clarkson’s article at The Times.