OF&G :: The Blog

Fears seem to be growing in Australia that the Government there is going to effectively remove controls on the certification of organic produce, much to the horror of those in the country’s organic sector.

This seems to be an amazingly misguided step which could destroy the export market overnight and massacre the confidence of Aussie shoppers in buying organic food.

The organic industry was hoping for a tightening of the regulations, allowing them to be legally enforced for the first time, but it seems, according this report, what is actually likely to happen is a move the other way.

If there’s truth in this, it would be a very, very bizarre move. The piece includes comments from the general manager of certifying body, Organic Food Chain.

Some depressing news reported by the Theatre of Inconveniences blog about Kenya taking rapid steps towards a genetically modified farming future. Quite how they think this will be of benefit to the country is anyone’s guess, but the arguments are pretty well fleshed out in the blog posting, which I’d recommend you read.

As promised yesterday, here’s a brief report on OF&Gs’ experience of the Organic Research Centre Conference, courtesy of our Development Officer, Steven Jacobs:

The snow lay all around at Harper Adams for the start of the Organic Research Centre conference that took place 6th & 7th January, 2009.

I was told by the organisers that 180 people were in attendance. Quite a crowd and of some long established ‘organic’ luminaries. There was some level of absence due to ill health and there were certain personalities that were sorely missed. However this year it was a welcome return to good health for Lawrence Woodward from Elm Farm and with, amongst others, the participation of our own CEO this year, lively debate was enjoined.

The workshops brought us the chance to share experience and experiences, swapping stories and creating new avenues of exploration. One very interesting idea was to form an organic farming union; a place where producers can support each other, discuss standards and strategies and to collect their thoughts to give, as Lawrence called it, ‘one voice’.

Talking of which it was formally announced that Nic Lampkin, recently of Organic Centre Wales, is taking on the role of Executive Director at the Organic Research Centre. Nic is someone who has respect throughout the organic community for his clear thinking, long experience and logical approach to organic regulation and all that goes with it and I know I am not alone in expressing happiness and even a sense of relief at his appointment.

Back at the conference we were treated to some very good organic and local food prepared and served very well by the college caterers and we were happy to quaff the organic ale on sale at the college bar, in the interests of supporting the industry and ensuring a good flow of conversation of course. I’m sure you understand.

One contentious issue was over the certification of products some deemed not fit to carry the organic seal, including some types of convenience food. My feeling is that it is better to have a market place where organic alternatives are available if they comply with the regulation as it gives producers somewhere to put their goods and customers some organic food where they would otherwise not consume it. After all it is not, for instance, permissible to use hydrogenated fat in organic food processing and if by reaching a wider audience you are able to stimulate the organic conversion of more acreage then this must, surely, be a good thing.

Finally I must praise Catherine Phillips, of Organic Inform, for organising the event so well and maintaining her calm for so long. Thank you Catherine – a good job well done.

It was then a tired but stimulated bunch that said their farewells at the conference close. Opinions had been aired including those of a positive, constructive and thought provoking nature. So under now wet conditions we left to continue the thaw progressing through the organic world where people come together not to always agree but to always share and to always have some level of agreement.

We are still a minority group but we are a rather vocal lot with much to say. Although, I am minded to recall an old lecturer of mine: “You have two ears and one mouth please use them proportionately”.

Our US cousins seem to be pretty worked up at the moment about President Elect Obama’s choice for agriculture secretary.

Apparently former Iowa governor, Tom Vilsack, is a friend of the, shall we say, less than sustainable side of agriculture. Here’s what the American Organic Consumers Association* has to say about him, including a pre-written petition letter demanding he comes off the Obama team.

Our earlier quick look at Mr Obama’s organic credentials suggested, albeit tentatively, that he held some fairly strong sympathies (as apparently does the First Lady in waiting), but maybe it’s not that high up his agenda after all…

* “Campaigning for health, justice, sustainability, peace and democracy” – no harm in aiming high…

A piece in Farmers Guardian quotes a Monsanto spokesman’s belief that GM crops will be coming to the UK soon. While it’s hard to be sure what the government is plotting as a result of well-funded lobbying, this does smack of wishful thinking or a strategy of making it sound like a fait-accompli in the hope that it will become one…

A worrying piece from the Independent newspaper suggests that serious moves are underway in Europe to force genetically modified foods onto our plates. It’s quite incredible that politicians are so insistent on this when there is overwhelming evidence that people don’t want it. They are suspicious of GM and more and more information is emerging that if there are any benefits they are negligible and may be outweighed by the damage that is being done (see our previous posts on suicides among Indian farmers and the backlash by US consumers!).

Already farmers and food manufacturers are beginning to struggle to source raw materials that can be guaranteed GM free because this stuff contaminates everything, from container ships, to the lorries it is moved in. Of course this is no doubt what the biotech companies relish, because once GM is ubiquitous there’s no going back. How we might come to regret that!

OK – so it’s Obama. Congrats to him. Well done. But what has he ever done for the organic cause?

Here at OF&G we launched an exhaustive investigation. Without going into too much detail, this entailed consulting the first few pages of Google with the query “Obama + organic“…

And the results are interesting. It seems Sen. Obama has actually made quite a contribution to organics. Some would say a “stellar” contribution. For if the first two pages of Google are to be believed, he is singlehandedly sending the sale of organic cotton t-shirts into the stratosphere!

That’s right. Of about the first 200 results returned by that search it would be no exaggeration to say that at least 90% of them (we would have counted but this investigation is not that exhaustive) were links to sites selling the “Obama organic cotton tee”. One has to hope the industry has been able to keep up with demand. You can’t just turn organic production on like a tap, you know.

Fortunately there are also a couple more contributions the President Elect has made to our cause: he drinks bottled organic tea it seems (apparently the cause of an attack by his opponent at one point, would you believe?), his wife has waxed lyrical about going organic in the GoBama household and – here’s the clincher as far as we’re concerned – there is a 56-strong movement of Organic Farmers for Obama.

There’s no doubt that the US consumer has been held up as the leading adopter of GM products. We’re told by our own leaders in Europe that it’s widely accepted in the States and we are simply acting like Luddites if we oppose its spread ‘over here’.

Well, a study released by the Soil Association charity is suggesting otherwise – that the US consumer has simply had little choice but to accept GMOs in their food because of the success of the biochem lobby to avoid any requirements to add information to packaging.

Surveys apparently tell a different story about shoppers’ perceptions and preferences, as does the formation of organisations pledging to keep GM at bay. Organic-market.info has done a helpful round-up of the Soil Association briefing, but you can download the whole thing for yourself from the SA website.

It has never been OF&Gs’ aim to bash non-organic farmers – only to back those who opt to see things our way! But we’ve always drawn the line at GM and in this we’re in agreement with SA. Both OF&G and Soil Association Certification opted to stick with a ban on GM at the lowest detectable level (0.1%) even when the EU decided that food with up to 0.9% GM contamination could be sold as organic.

Let’s hope the tide is turning against this unnecessary technology. The report is well worth a read.

We don’t tend to think of ourselves as a particularly reactionary bunch at OF&G. In fact, you’ll hear the phrase ‘business-focussed’ and the word ‘practical’ uttered more than once in the course of many conversations with some of our people!

But one thing that does get us exercised is genetic modification because we can’t see a single positive side to it, other than profits for the biotech companies which have invested heavily in the science. Given the business model and the best available research to-date, it really is impossible to see any other realistic winners from the spread of this technology (and from the organic side of farming we can see an awful LOT of losers!).

That’s why Prince Charles’s no doubt carefully considered but controversial outburst (Guardian analysis, BBC video) on the matter earlier this week should be applauded. He has to know that it will bring condemnation from many quarters, not just business and political but also constitutional, yet he felt strongly enough to say his piece anyway. All credit to anyone in a position of influence or with a loud public voice who can keep this debate alive before it’s too late.

It probably comes as no surprise that potloads of cash have been washed down the drain by the Rural Payments Agency as it tries to deal with the Single Payment Scheme.

Figures are being bandied around now because of the scrutiny of the powerful House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. This process has highlighted the fact that farmers are still suffering from the failure of the payments to be properly administered.

Some of the figures are downright depressing: nearly 20,000 entitlements assessed wrongly for the 2005 and 2006 schemes; around £37million in overpayments in those two years, with many farmers still unaware if they were overpaid (and many of those who are aware apparently don’t yet know by how much they were overpaid and when they’ll have to give it back).

On top of this there is likely to be a substantial fine from the EU for the failures. I’m sure I read something yesterday that said the cost of making single payments amounted, in many cases, to about the same as the value of the actual payment. If I can find that piece again, I’ll post the link.

It beggars belief.