The news has just flashed up on the EU’s ‘RAPID’ press releases site that the fast approaching deadline for entries to the competition to design a Europe-wide organic logo has been pushed back by five days.
The new deadline for entries will be July 6.
There is no explanation as to why it’s been pushed back (obviously that’s asking too much!). The instant thought is that it’s because of a dearth of entries, but apparently “over 500″ students have already taken part. So it’s bit odd. Probably something to do with the person who has to put the ‘competition closed’ sign on the website being on holiday… or something.
Anyway, if you’re a UK design student this is your last chance to have your design used on organic packaging right across the EU, not to mention putting a prize of up to 6,000 Euros in your pocket.
One for the record. Reuters reports that the US and Canada have reached agreement to accept each other’s organic standards and the US Deputy Agriculture Secretary apparently sees it as “an important first step toward global harmonization of organic standards”…
The Organic Trade Board has a key objective: to “double the value of the market for organic products in the UK within the five years from 2008 to 2013″.
If that can be achieved, we’ll all be cheering. And that’s not written with any degree of cynicism. A single voice for the industry, expounding the core messages of organics, is something that we’ve been missing and which is sorely needed. We’ve been talking to the OTB recently to find out more and we back its objectives. But for an initiative like this to work it needs a critical mass of members.
At the moment there are something north of 60, many of them very influential and important to the sector, but there are more than 7.000 organically registered businesses in the UK. We believe they could all benefit from having a representative voice and would urge everyone to take a closer look at the OTB and its work. And by all means let us know your thoughts here…
Our roving Development Officer, Steven Jacobs, has sent back a couple of images from his time at Cereals 09 to share with us all.
He says that tea, biscuits and chat are the largely the order of the day on our stand:
The Organic Farmers & Growers stand at Cereals 09
Organic cereals are high on our agenda at the moment, with our National Organic Cereals 2009 event on the near horizon, so Steven took time to catch up on the trial plots that have been grown for this show.
Trial plots of organic wheat
In the picture you can see Dr Richard Stanley of Campden BRI Better Organic Bread. The crop is organic wheat populations (different varieties each complementing the other) as part of the wheat link project run by Organic Research Centre. That’s Zoë Haigh, of ORC, behind the wheat.
This piece from dairyreporter.com is worthy of recording as a more detailed look at what OMSCo is doing for the Dairy Farmers of Britain organic suppliers, how the co-operative sees the market and what its priorities are.
There are many organic milk producers who may be looking for an alternative buyer following Dairy Farmers of Britain going into administration.
While, unfortunately, we don’t have it in our power to hand out contracts, we thought we could at least aggregate the organic milk buyers we know of for anyone who feels like it’s time to make some calls.
There is word starting to surface about what’s going to happen with DFoB organic collections in the immediate future (good news, it seems), but we’ll update on that if we can confirm what’s being said…
So here’s our list of names and numbers. Good luck!
OCW has unveiled its new director following the departure of Nic Lampkin to the Organic Research Centre at Elm Farm.
Sue Fowler takes over the role having been policy officer at OCW in recent years.
The centre, part of Aberystwyth University, plays an important role in research and advice for organic food and farming. You can read the full press release here.
We have good reason to be fond of Harper Adams University College here at OF&G. It’s down the road from us, we’ve held AGMs there and, most importantly, we’ve got some excellent staff who passed through it’s hallowed halls as students.
Therefore we thought it worth flagging up the campus open day Harper is holding on May 9, because it’s a chance to get a look at how it all works and what facilities are on offer. It has become a more and more impressive place over the years. So for a chance to find out how future farmers are being educated and what the teaching priorities are for modern UK farming, you could do worse than spend an hour to two taking the tour.
Anything that makes the link between farming and its customers has to be good, in our book.
[Update: It has been pointed out that I failed to mention probably the most important link we have with Harper Adams. Namely, that the Chairman of our Certification Committee, Dr Tony Harris, was a very successful and highly respected Principal of the institution for many years. Apologies Dr Harris!)
A few of us have been chuckling our way around the office having seen this:
“Beware of misleading labels implying “freedom”; only the Soil Association accreditation offers any real guarantee of a decent standard of animal care.” George Miller and Katharine Reeve,authors of the new Rough Guide to Food, The Times, 3 March 2009
Where on earth does a statement like that come from?
Let’s start with the fact that according to our own close analysis, the difference between Organic Farmers & Growers standards and the Soil Assocation Certification Ltd standards boils down to a very few variations in requirements, particularly with regard to livestock. Of those variations none of them could be called substantial and in an argument over whether our version or the SACL version is “better” for welfare, you might as well be debating whether the chicken or the egg came first, because your chances of reaching a consensus are about as good!
Secondly, quite what do the authors mean by “decent”? In organics, and with the OF&G standard, we shoot for “excellent”. Who wants “decent”?
Are they implying the SACL standard is only “decent” and not excellent???
We certainly have no desire to denigrate Soil Association Certification’s standards, but if the authors wanted to give such a piece of advice to their readership, perhaps it would have shown them to be better informed if they had substituted the words “Soil Assocation accreditation” for “organic accreditation”.
The SA, however, seem to be very pleased with the recommendation – we found that snippet in their daily news digest.
Roll out the red carpet. Hollywood, take note, OF&G is hitting a screen near you. It could be an Oscar winner.
Or maybe we’re getting overexcited… However, we were delighted to play our little role in the latest edition of the Farmers Weekly video news roundup, presented by its Deputy News Editor, Caroline Stocks.
FW has been leading the pack with its use of multimedia channels for quite some time, so they’ve got the video down to a pretty polished performance. Last week, they added what we consider to be the icing on the cake – a guest appearance by an OF&G mug. We think it carried off its part rather well and will be hoping for a Best Supporting Actor accolade in the not-too-distant future.
Organic Farmers & Growers is a leading UK organic certification body i.e. we inspect and license organic food and farming - and were the first independent body in the UK approved by Government to do this!
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Thinking about going into organic arable production? Find out everything about markets, seeds, challenges and rewards at this must-see event. Click here to find out more.
The new deadline for entries will be July 6.
The Organic Trade Board has a key objective: to “double the value of the market for organic products in the UK within the five years from 2008 to 2013″.
