The new organic farming revolution starts here

Farmers need to refocus if they want to sell their organic food
Jay Rayner
The Observer, Sunday 27 September 2009
It has not been a good few days for fans of organic food. Last week, Neil Stansfield, a company director, was jailed for selling repackaged conventional Tesco pies as organic to Fortnum & Mason. For those of us suspicious that many people buy organics in the pursuit of some affluent lifestyle rather than because of the quality of the products, it was compelling evidence.
At the same time as the judge was handing down the sentence the biggest players in the organics world – including Green & Black's and Yeo Valley – were meeting to discuss launching a generic advertising campaign bigging up the virtues of organics. Their panic was understandable. According to recent data from supermarket analysts TNS, the overall sector has dropped 13% in the past year. Organic fruit sales are down 16%, and vegetables by a whopping third. You can say you read it here first. Last December, this newspaper predicted that 2009 would witness the first fall in organic food sales in 15 years. Indeed, I was the one who made that prediction, though I didn't exactly need the powers of a soothsayer. The recession was upon us and it was obvious that sales of premium goods were going to tank. What I didn't anticipate was just how far those sales would tumble.
No recessionary slump is ever to be celebrated. There are the livelihoods of hard-pressed farmers at risk here. Curiously, though, it's possible this recession will be the making of the organic sector. It will finally mean they have to work out what the point of their business is. Arguments raged this summer over a report from the Food Standards Agency stating there were no significant health benefits to eating organic food. Its champions attempted, unconvincingly, to pick holes in the science. The reality is that, even if there are health benefits, they are bound to be marginal.
So how should the organic movement position itself? The Soil Association, which accredits organic farmers, has been clear in its goal to see all British agriculture move from conventional to organic farming. That's tilting at windmills. Sales have never risen above 1.5% of the £160bn food market in this country, so even a tenfold increase would still leave them massively off their goal. It is also not a solution to our food needs. The government finally announced this summer that, in the face of global food security pressures, we have to increase the amount we produce at home, to counter an 8% drop in self-sufficiency to 60.5% over the past decade. As the yield from organic farming is lower than that from conventional farming, we would inevitably end up importing more food, which is less environmentally sound than farming it conventionally here.
Instead, while pursuing modest growth, organic producers should position themselves as a political movement, arguing their point not on the fragile grounds of health benefits or taste, but on issues of environmental sustainability and ethics. Organic producers can be the conscience of British farming, using media interest in their products to push industrial food producers to ever cleaner and more viable methods. It should not be about getting them to sign up to every single line and letter of the code, as if organic farming were some fundamentalist religion. It should simply be about better. It is the only way forward. As recent sales statistics have proven, the alternative is oblivion.