Scottish organic farmers in crisis as sales plummet

Although most of the agricultural industry has escaped the economic recession, the organic sector has taken a big hit, with the latest figures showing one in ten Scottish organic producers having given up last year.

The 10 per cent fall in organic businesses in Scotland, compared to a 3.7 per cent drop over the whole of the UK, came as "no surprise" to the Scottish Organic Producers Association (SOPA), who claimed that this was due to better government funding in England and Wales.

In fact SOPA claimed that, if the Scottish Government did not improve its support for the sector, the acreage could continue to slide downhill.

The area of certified organic land in Scotland is down from 225,137 hectares in 2008 to 176,000 in 2010. According to SOPA, more than 80 per cent of that fall in acreage was due to organic farmers leaving the sector because they could not secure organic maintenance cash.

Deborah Roberts, SOPA's development manager, said that when the Scottish rural development programme was launched, there had been a promise of 45 million of funding dedicated to support the organic industry.

She claimed that this funding was retracted within months, and since then SOPA had been continually lobbying the Scottish Government, pointing out the rural priorities scheme was not delivering appropriate funding to Scotland's organic farmers.

"Our main concern at present is to retain our existing producer base," she said, "which is why we fought so hard for the land management options organic maintenance.

"Even though these Defra figures only relate to the 2010 calendar year, we know that the downward pattern continues into 2011. Up until the last round of funding in February 2011 only 50 per cent of organic funding proposals were successfully awarded under Rural Priorities.

"With the next funding round due to meet in the next month or two, we now call on Scottish Government to stand on those promises of help. This round is critical to boosting confidence in the sector, otherwise we fear more than just a 10 per cent fall over the past three years; it could be much worse."

Looking at the wider UK position where, according to Defra, the 7,900 organic producers operating in 2008 had been reduced to 7,300 left in the business by last December, the Soil Association attributed the fall to the recession "with many consumers reviewing their food baskets".

Laura Stewart the head of the Soil Association in Scotland admitted the decline in numbers was a worry. However, she believed that working through the Organic Action plan the position could be stabilised and then improved.

Roberts was also optimistic that the reduced supply of organic food coming on to the market had helped market prices and that consumer demand continued to stabilise.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the organic sector, as demonstrated by the publication of the Organic Action Plan. To date, a total of 7.82m has been awarded through the SRDP in grant aid to support Scottish organics businesses, 4.46m of this has been specifically for maintenance."