OF&G :: The Blog

We’re not sure how it happened, but some of us here missed the news that the National Institute of Agricultural Botany and The Arable Group had merged.

So, given that we missed the announcement last month, we thought it worthy of a mention here for anyone else who was too engrossed elsewhere to pick up on it!

It does seem to make sense for two leading bodies in agronomy and research to come together and realise the benefits of such a collaboration.

You can read more about it, including comments from the key players, here.

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…

It has been a short number of years now since the first evidence appeared linking organic milk to measurable health benefits. Bits and pieces of studies have continued to trickle out since then, all pointing to positives.

Today we’ve come across a piece in Scotland’s Daily Record newspaper that, in essence, suggests more of the same – continued pointers to benefits. We couldn’t find the original science, or even an abstract for the study in question (I confess it wasn’t an exhaustive search, mind you!) but who are we to doubt the venerable Daily Record?

Anyway, the piece is worth a read and you can make up your own mind. It also references the Quality Low Input Food study, carried out at Newcastle University (and across Europe) under the guidance of Prof. Carlo Leifert, and which has presented some interim findings before the full publication, which is expected next year.

Incidentally, Prof. Leifert will be discussing this at our Selling Organics: What’s the Story? conference in London, on October 8. Get in quick if you’d like to be there.

There’s an interesting study on organic food, including nutrition, that seems to run counter to the report published a few weeks ago on behalf of the Food Standards Agency.

The French Agency for Food Safety (AFSSA) begs to differ with the findings that proved so controversial in this country.

You can view the report, led by Denis Lairon, by downloading the PDF document here. It’s language is pretty accessible even for us non-scientists and it makes for an interesting counterpoint to the findings of the UK ‘study’ that the FSA will no doubt lean on for years to come.

The Independent today covers a very disappointing angle to the controversy surrounding the FSA organic report story.

I suppose we shouldn’t be overly surprised, but it seems that the report’s author, Dr Alan Dangour, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has been inundated with abusive emails and messages.

While we’ve been among the first to criticise the way this study has been focused, the conclusions it came to and the way it has been badly reported, it’s extremely sad to see that people have to make it personal and hurl vitriol at Dr Dangour.

Whether you question his approach or, as some people have, his motivations, he is entitled to publish whatever he finds to be the results of his work. If we disagree, the answer is to have our own say and perhaps some debate. But there should always be respect for everyone’s position.

Fortunately, it seems from the report that Dr Dangour is fairly sanguine about the whole affair and not letting it rattle him too much.

[Click here for the Independent piece]

We will get off this topic soon – probably. But having just come across this article from The Organic Centre, in the US, it seemed to be well worth sharing. It appears to be the most scientific and thorough assessment of the controversial FSA-funded report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that we have come across yet.

If the topic interests you, it’s well worth a read.