Organic war of words over latest figures

Laura Stewart, the head of the Soil Association in Scotland, claimed the slip in sales was now bottoming out and had largely been linked to the economic recession hitting the country.

But Crop Protection Association chief executive Dominic Dyer took a different view, saying it was not just price that was putting shoppers off buying organic produce.

There was also a growing recognition, he said, that organic food was not necessarily better for the environment and had not been proven to be safer, healthier or more nutritious than conventionally produced food.

He claimed the organic food boom was over, and British shoppers were now more willing to pay a price premium for Fairtrade, locally-sourced or higher welfare products.

However, the Soil Association hit back with figures showing there were still £1.6 billion worth of organic goods sold in Britain last year and, on a worldwide basis, the market had grown 8.8 per cent in 2010. This saw the equivalent of €44.5bn of organic produce sold.

The organic market in the United States was up by 8 per cent and had increased every year in the past six despite the recession in that country. Within Europe, apart from the UK, sales had risen by between 10 and 15 per cent even in countries such as Greece and Italy which have been under severe financial pressure.

The organic acreage in France grew by 24 per cent and Poland saw a 42 per cent increase in land with organic production

But Dyer picked up on a statement made by the Soil Association, head of policy, Phil Bloomer, who told the annual meeting of the organisation the movement was “too insular”. He wanted it to be more welcoming of some of the modern breeding techniques such as marker selection which can dramatically speed up the production of new and better varieties.

Bloomer emphasised this was not an endorsement of genetic modification which sees genes transferred from one plant to another.

However Dyer said that if global food production was to make the necessary increases to feed more mouths in the future, then it would need access to all available tools and technologies.

It could not exclude particular approaches based on dogmatic opposition, he added.

“This is the third successive annual decline in the UK organic market, which is now more than 20 per cent down on its 2008 peak,” he said. “It sends a clear warning to the organic sector that continued market growth based on the routine demonisation of other approaches cannot be sustained.”

“I would support calls for the organic sector to keep an open mind on the merits of different production systems and technologies, because organic agriculture clearly doesn’t hold all the answers,” he said. “The challenge of sustainable and secure food production will require an inclusive, collaborative approach, bringing together the best of all systems.”