AS a person of a certain age, I remember, many years ago, watching The Good Life on television at about the time that hippies were "reverting back to nature" in the hills of mid-Wales. Neither were taken very seriously by the general public, in a world where the motto of the nation could almost have been "there is always more".

A few decades on and many television repeats later, the world is very different. We know that our fossil fuels are limited and that self-sufficiency for power in the home, through the sun, water, wind or soil is rapidly becoming a viable and perhaps soon, a necessary option.

Fruit from South America or beans from Africa are on every supermarket shelf but we all know that we should search our conscience about the "food miles" that the crops have travelled to reach our tables. Fortunately, many of us are rediscovering that growing our own food, be it chickens or vegetables, makes sense not only in terms of the planet but also because we can guarantee the food is fresh, free from the cocktail of chemicals that curses modern living and comes without the packaging which some giants in the food industry are suddenly realising are both wasteful and environmentally damaging.

All this might sound a rather pessimistic view of the world, but on the contrary it offers exciting opportunities and challenges to everyone and looking at the world from a green perspective can be great fun, not to mention good exercise if it gets you digging the garden!

Welcome to the Royal Welsh Spring Festival where we know about these things! In 2006 you came in your thousands to visit the greenest event on the Royal Welsh showground - possibly the greenest event in Wales.

In 2007 we hope those of you who visited last year will have passed on the news of the event to your friends and so help to spread the message that it can pay to be green. This year you will find something for all tastes whether it be food, livestock, horticulture, our Green Horizons exhibition or simply enjoyable music and family entertainment.

Come along to Builth Wells on May 19 and 20, bring the family, make a weekend of it. You will enjoy yourselves, and you may even detox your conscience and realise that Felicity Kendall may not have been that far from the truth all those years ago on television!
Dr Fred Slater - Festival Director