OF&G :: The Blog

There seems to be some confusion over how much food we’re going to need in the future. The trouble is, instead of all the interested parties putting their heads together to solve this rather important problem (or at least come to a mutual best guess) the issue has been turned into an unseemly public row.

It all stems from the oft-quoted belief that we need to double food production by 2050 to keep everyone on the planet fed. That is, of course, a pretty tall order and becomes very contentious when you consider that some of the leading proponents of those figures are the biotech companies who claim to have the key to enabling that kind of growth (and therein lies a whole other, huge argument!).

In the past week the Soil Association (the charity, not the organic control body, Soil Association Certification Ltd – for the sake of clarity) has released its own analysis of these figures, which it believes are grossly inflated. Fair enough, you might say. Another element to the debate to consider.

We’re not sure, however, that the SA report is exactly going out of its way to foster an atmosphere of rational and considered debate. You only have to look at the title: “Telling porkies: The big fat lie about doubling food production“. [Adobe PDF download]

In the introduction, the report says:

“This briefing paper reports our investigations into the sources and basis of these figures. It outlines the assumptions upon which they are based and shows that, among others, the Government’s Chief Scientist, the President of the National Farmers’ Union, Syngenta, Monsanto, Government Ministers and the Conservative Party have all got their facts wrong.”

That’s a whole long list of people who now seriously have their backs up and probably aren’t going to go out of their way to include the Soil Association (and maybe the rest of the organic sector) in the debate. Unfortunately it gives them the perfect opportunity to dismiss us all as slightly hysterical.

This all runs somewhat counter to what the SA director, Patrick Holden, said at the charity’s last conference, where he talked about the whole of the agricultural community working together, rather than antagonising each other.

There are some undeniable realities to this report. The figures do appear to require further scrutiny. And of course, as with anything, there are going to be many ways toward addressing the problems, not just intensive farming or GM.

But what we have said, time and again for almost the last 20 years, is that we are all part of UK agriculture, with a role to play. Effectively branding others who are part of the debate as liars doesn’t seem, well… productive.

There’s no denying the Soil Association should be a strong voice in this debate. It represents a committed and caring membership who believe in food production that supports and enhances the land while producing high quality food. That’s why OF&G is a member of the charity too. You stand up for what you believe in.

But have you ever heard the phrase “you’ll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar”? It was repeated to me many years ago by a colleague who had just heard it from a battle-weary police inspector. It rang true then and it rings true now.

If the figures are wrong (and there are reasons to suspect they might be) we need to know. We also need to promote the role organic farming can play in meeting our needs for the future without going entirely down an ever more intensive and chemical or biotech-reliant route.

To do that we need to be heard, not met by the rest of the interested parties effectively sticking their fingers in their ears and humming ‘la, la, la, can’t hear you” when we say what needs to be said, just because they think what we’re saying has no value.

So come on Soil Association. You have the loudest voice in the organic sector. It’s not just about getting the headlines, it’s about getting the job done. We continue to support you. We continue to work with you. But sometimes we feel the need to whisper in your ear that perhaps it would be more productive to calm down a bit.

It was a good few weeks ago that we heard the winning entrant in the competition to choose an EU organic food logo had been chosen (the beginning of February, in actual fact).

This logo is, by regulation, due to begin appearing on new organic products from July. That’s right, July this year.

Unfortunately, we still don’t have an official copy of the logo or finalised details of how it must be used on packaging.

This may not sound like a huge problem in March – unless you produce organic food products. If you do, you’ll probably be one of thousands of people who are pulling their hair out because their product managers, printers, logistics people, customers, you name it, are screaming at them for finished labels and product lead times and countless other crucial bits of information needed to actually put the product on the shelves by July.

The logo is needed now. Probably six weeks ago in fact. Our harassed Processor Certification Officers have been badgering those in power on an almost daily basis to squeeze the crucial details out of them, because our licensees need to get on with business.

We’ve been told we should have the information by the end of March, latest. So, by our reckoning, that’s a maximum of six days to wait now. We’re on countdown. And, boy, will there be some screaming in this office if by 5pm on March 31 we’re none-the-wiser……..

Sometimes you’re just left scratching your head.

Here’s a simple scenario: BBC One’s Countryfile does a piece looking at the state of the market for organic food. Fair enough.

In it they talk to people involved in organic food and get a rather perceptive take from a marketer on how the sector could be pushing itself (putting aside, for a moment, the fierce and constant opposition from the ASA and FSA to even the most innocuous claim made by organics).

You wouldn’t think there was anything more controversial than normal in any of that. But no. Wait a moment. Who’s this galloping over the horizon waving a red biro and a flag saying “I’m a licence payer too!”? Aha, tis the Crop Protection Association, which, according to Farmers Guardian, has complained to the BBC Trust because the programme didn’t include any representatives of non-organic food and farming…………………………………….

Can you hear that? It’s the sound of a gentle wind blowing tumble weed down the street as everyone stands still and tries to figure out what on earth the CPA people can have been thinking.

It seems the best they can come up with is that Countryfile was ‘favourable’ to organic farming while portraying non-organic farming ‘neutrally’. Yes, well, that would be neutral as in not part of the report in the first place.

Honestly, that fact that word had gone around the organic community that a piece was going to be on Countryfile should be an indicator  that it’s still rare enough to be noteworthy, so why the CPA’s Dominic Dyer is so rattled about non-organic farming not being part of the report is baffling.

At OF&G we have every respect for all UK farmers, which is probably why we WON’T be writing to the chairman of the BBC Trust demanding that organic farming is mentioned every time there is a report on non-organic farming on the BBC. Can’t say fairer than that.

Taiwan is marking its Organic Agriculture Day today and there are some comments from the Speaker of the country’s legislature that sum up a few key issues, as reported in the Taiwan News.

Much like what we heard at our Selling Organics: What’s the Story? conference last month, he’s talking about the growing scarcity of resources and the need to capitalise on forward planning and better explanation of what ‘organic’ means with regard to food.

And while organic is only a tiny, tiny part of the farming picture in Taiwan right now, they obviously have ambition and pro-active plans (is Australia listening?).

Here are some of today’s more interesting and useful news and opinion pieces we’ve been looking at:

• Saudia Arabia is in the process of setting up an organic farming structure and, judging by this piece, they’re going about it in all the right ways.
• The Evening Standard’s Jonathan Prynn notes Liz Hurley’s emphatic comments about the FSA report on organic food (of earlier this year) as she launched her own organic snack range.
• Farmers Weekly highlights the message from Natural England that environmental farming schemes must continue to be supported as the current arrangements approach the end of their life.

Somewhat strangely, the Food Standards Agency has felt the need to publicly dismiss the findings of a French study that called into question its own recently published and controversial report.

The FSA-funded research by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine made the claim that organic food was no more nutritious than non-organic. This has been disputed heavily by some heavyweight scientists around the world but, even so, led to some very damaging and misleading headlines about organic food.

Last week we highlighted here a French study that called the FSA/LSHTP findings into further question. That French report has since been highlighted by a number of media outlets and the FSA has come out fighting, claiming that the French used ‘diluted data’. Take a look at this piece by The Ecologist.

What seems immediately strange is that the FSA feels the need not only to defend its own report, but to attack the French one in the process. Why is a body that should be agnostic on such issues coming across as desperate to avoid having to officially recognise any empirical benefit to organic food and farming? Your thoughts on a postcard – or a comment below…