Tonight I'm going all European and heading over to Brussels to talk to Director of Public Affairs at the European Crop Protection Association, Graeme Taylor @leekandpotato 

We talk about his early life growing up in Fife in Scotland, and how most of his strongest childhood memories come from food and cooking family meals together.

We hear about his decision to study politics at university, and his first job working at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and how that led to becoming more involved in EU issues and attending meetings in Brussels. 

We discuss his then role of as agriculture attache for the UK in Brussels, and some of the difficult issues he worked on, and we also go into some of the reasons the EU may be misunderstood in the UK.

We then talk in depth about his current role at the European Crop Protection Association, what the organisation is, and what they do for farmers in the EU. We go into some of the things he's been involved in there, including the hugely polarised current debate around glyphosate, and also what it's like to represent the pesticide industry in general, and how people react to that - including death threats sometimes!

We also go into the current campaign #WithOrWithout and how they're trying to get a sensible conversation going around crop protection products, and their role in providing a safe and affordable food supply for EU consumers, as well as going into the #LetsCook initiative that I was recently involved in with Graeme - check that out here https://youtu.be/52ELenMW2iA 

I also couldn't not ask about him being a Masterchef quarter finalist!

All this and much, much more.

Graeme's a lovely guy, and hugely passionate about food production and the people involved, and it was a pleasure to talk to him again tonight.

Check it out folks.. 

 

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