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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] UK: Farmers need to refocus if they want to sell their organic food
  • Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:06:58 -0600





The new organic farming revolution starts here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/27/organic-farming-revolution-jay-rayner
Farmers need to refocus if they want to sell their organic food


It has not been a good few days for fans of organic food. Last week, Neil
Stansfield, a company director, was jailed for selling repackaged
conventional Tesco pies as organic to Fortnum & Mason. For those of us
suspicious that many people buy organics in the pursuit of some affluent
lifestyle rather than because of the quality of the products, it was
compelling evidence.

At the same time as the judge was handing down the sentence the biggest
players in the organics world – including Green & Black's and Yeo Valley –
were meeting to discuss launching a generic advertising campaign bigging up
the virtues of organics. Their panic was understandable. According to recent
data from supermarket analysts TNS, the overall sector has dropped 13% in the
past year. Organic fruit sales are down 16%, and vegetables by a whopping
third. You can say you read it here first. Last December, this newspaper
predicted that 2009 would witness the first fall in organic food sales in 15
years. Indeed, I was the one who made that prediction, though I didn't
exactly need the powers of a soothsayer. The recession was upon us and it was
obvious that sales of premium goods were going to tank. What I didn't
anticipate was just how far those sales would tumble.

No recessionary slump is ever to be celebrated. There are the livelihoods of
hard-pressed farmers at risk here. Curiously, though, it's possible this
recession will be the making of the organic sector. It will finally mean they
have to work out what the point of their business is. Arguments raged this
summer over a report from the Food Standards Agency stating there were no
significant health benefits to eating organic food. Its champions attempted,
unconvincingly, to pick holes in the science. The reality is that, even if
there are health benefits, they are bound to be marginal.

So how should the organic movement position itself? The Soil Association,
which accredits organic farmers, has been clear in its goal to see all
British agriculture move from conventional to organic farming. That's tilting
at windmills. Sales have never risen above 1.5% of the £160bn food market in
this country, so even a tenfold increase would still leave them massively off
their goal. It is also not a solution to our food needs. The government
finally announced this summer that, in the face of global food security
pressures, we have to increase the amount we produce at home, to counter an
8% drop in self-sufficiency to 60.5% over the past decade. As the yield from
organic farming is lower than that from conventional farming, we would
inevitably end up importing more food, which is less environmentally sound
than farming it conventionally here.

Instead, while pursuing modest growth, organic producers should position
themselves as a political movement, arguing their point not on the fragile
grounds of health benefits or taste, but on issues of environmental
sustainability and ethics. Organic producers can be the conscience of British
farming, using media interest in their products to push industrial food
producers to ever cleaner and more viable methods. It should not be about
getting them to sign up to every single line and letter of the code, as if
organic farming were some fundamentalist religion. It should simply be about
better. It is the only way forward. As recent sales statistics have proven,
the alternative is oblivion.





  • [Livingontheland] UK: Farmers need to refocus if they want to sell their organic food, Tradingpost, 09/27/2009

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