OF&G :: The Blog

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.

To submit an entry, go to the competition site, where you can also read the rules. You can read the announcement press release here.

WalesOnline.co.uk has a detailed feature on OF&G licensee Alun Bennett and his family, of Meifod, Powys, which gives Mr Bennett’s encouraging assessment of having gone organic.

Particularly pleasing to see were the following comments:

Milk is still produced from the Clasucha herd of around 120 pedigree Holsteins, which averaged 7,000 litres, a yield that was maintained despite the decision to convert to organic production from 1998. Full status was achieved three years later.

“We were fairly intensive before, but after the initial conversion we’ve been surprised at how well the grass grows,” said Alun.

“Being organic makes it more difficult to get it right, but if you do get it right the rewards are quite good.”

Mr Bennett is among a number of farmers who can quite rightly testify to the fact going organic doesn’t mean dropping production – and they also regularly report the increased satisfaction of farming with your head and not your sprayer!

Well worth a read.

It’s not the first time we’ve heard it said, but it’s good to get a reminder every now and again that choosing to farm organically can actually make sense for the bank balance as well as all the other benefits.

This piece from Business in Dorset about OF&G licensees, Jimi Collis, and his mother, Sarah Worrall, reinforces the point, particularly as Mr Collis used to work in business banking, specialising in farming. He must know what he’s talking about!

Their Launceston Farm, in Tarrant Launceston, is on something of a roll, because Simon in our Quality Systems team also picked up on this lively piece from The Guardian travel section.

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.

Rivalry is growing in the OF&G offices as obsessive sunflower measuring becomes the order of the day.

Apparently it’s upstart new boy, producer CO Alex Patchett, leading the competition to produce the tallest helianthus annuus (don’t you just love Wikipedia?!). Alex has achieved a whopping 28cm. It’s a far cry from his widely ridiculed poor start.

Prize for the most useless effort so far also resides in the producer certification office, as Nicola Mason’s attempt was dealt a devastating blow in an unfortunate encounter with a bunny. There will be, we are told, no coming back from that!

After making all the noise in the early running with their gaudily decorated pots, the processor department ladies obviously aren’t doing enough talking to their delicate charges and have been left behind.

So here, in all its glory, is Alex’s whopping, strapping, field-leading sunflower. Don’t get too excited.

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.

Joanna Gleeson, from our Processor Certification Department is putting most of us to shame as she’s hard in training to tackle the Cork Marathon, on June 1.

We knew there was something insanely sporty about Joanna because she insists on riding her bike to work every day, come rain or shine. We just possibly didn’t quite comprehend the level of body-punishing, mile-munching dedication that was boiling away in there!

Obviously, we’re all behind her, applaud her efforts and wish her every success for the marathon, which she’s running for the excellent charity, Marie Curie Cancer Care.

If you’d like to throw your support behind Joanna as well, she has a page at justgiving.com where you can painlessly make a donation: http://www.justgiving.com/joannagleeson.

Go, Joanna!

Via the Twittering of our friends at Farmers Weekly (@CarolineFW) yesterday, this blog piece came to light regarding the farcical situation of trying to find what should be a simple piece of information – how to send a small consignment of butchered, packed and labelled organic beef to France.

While there are many bureaucratic layers involved in food and farming, the whole bizarre scenario is unforgiveable.

I’d just like to pass on a comment made by our hard-working Processing Dept team while discussing it this morning:

“It was terrible. We don’t know the answer right now, but we would have found it for them, rather than passing them round the houses.”

That’s the kind of dedication we like to see!

We’ve just uploaded some more nice pix of our visit to Natural & Organic Products Europe into our Flickr stream.

Feel free to take a look here.

A few weeks ago our Chief Executive, Richard Jacobs, was interviewed for an upcoming programme on the demise of the once great Royal Show.

We’d been approached because we publicly said in 2007 that we were opting out of attending the Royal for the forseeable future, simply because it had increasingly become less and less relevant to the farming community. Not a decision we took lightly, but as with all businesses, you have to put your resources where they will be best used. For us, that was at other agricultural shows which had kept farming at their hearts, like the excellent Royal Welsh Show, or the Royal Highland.

Now that RASE  has announced that the 2009 Royal Show will be the last, that programme, The Royal Show in Crisis, has been aired on Radio 4. Follow that link to hear it on the BBC iPlayer for the next six days.

The whole thing is well worth a listen because it sums up the ways in which the show lost its way, using the voices of those who cared about it. It’s also an insight into the dedicated team behind the show and the pain of such a tough decision as that taken to drop England’s premier show from the calendar.

Richard’s contribution is in there at about 13m 25s.