Awards

Receiving the Organic Food and Biodiversity award one year ago in Madrid

Receiving an award is always very satisfying and this year we have been “distinguished by Karen Brown Readers as Spain’s property offering Greatest Value for 2009! If you don’t know Karen Brown, she publishes a series of accommodation guides, which are very popular in the United States. I like to think that our prices are competitive for what we offer, but to be considered Spain’s property offering greatest value for 2009 for me is rather over the top. Still I suppose we should be pleased to have got this recognition.

It was just over 1 year ago (before we had the blog operating) that we achieved the award Organic Food and Biodiversity for the hotel or restaurant which best uses organic food in their gastronomic offer. This was awarded by the Spanish Ministry for the Environment in association with the Biodiversity Foundation. Winning this national award was particularly satisfying as it symbolises our beliefs - and recognises our work - in organic farming and biodiversity.

The idea behind these awards was to stimulate and recognise the efforts made by people in different sectors of organic food in defence of the environment. There was a lot of publicity associated with the event in order to increase the public’s awareness of organic food, which in Spain is quite low. We went to Madrid to receive the award and were presented it by Cristina Narbona who was the Environmental Minister at the time

Group photo of all people from different sectors of organic food, who received the Organic Food and Biodiversity award in 2008

Unfortunately one year latter there is no longer an environmental ministry in Spain. It has been amalgamated with the ministry of agriculture and become; MARM the Ministry of the Environment, Rural Affairs and Fishing! Cristina Narbona is no longer the environmental minister and some of her work on how to stop the degradation of the Spanish coastline appears to be getting lost in the high courts!

Still let’s not get involved in politics, and just appreciate the awards we have received in the last year.