Food for Thought

I have to admit I haven't read the whole report, but it must be an important step in identifying better our carbon footprints.

I was at a farmers' meeting in Cambs last week - Valentine's night of all nights! - and I said there that carbon footprints are here to stay but more work is needed on providing credibility to the arguments surrounding organic food and local food.

Having run our Local Food is Miles Better campaign last year http://www.fwi.co.uk/gr/foodmiles/index.html, I am committed still to the overall principle that if we all thought about food miles when we went shopping and did something to cut them, there would be a net saving for the environment.

Of course there will be anomolies - tomatoes from Spain and lamb from New Zealand MIGHT be examples - but I remain a firm believer that Food Miles is one of the best catch-all concepts to get us thinking about our carbon footprints.

On the issue of organic, there's no doubt the organic movement has been incredibly successful. But I think it's in danger of losing the argument, particularly when reports such as this one 'expose' some of the problems with organic. Far from saving the planet, there are examples, the report suggests, where the opposite is true.

For me it all comes back to credibility. Consumers have a right to choose - but they need to be armed with the facts.

Misinformation serves no-one. Check out the organic fiasco in organic poultry highlighted in yesterday's Sunday Times. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1400794.ece

It has been obvious right from the beginning of the ''organic farming'' crusade that it was much less efficient and therefore more environmentally damaging than responsible conventional farming.

Organic grain is a prime example. When the residual fertility from prevous conventional farming is exhausted, yields of organic grain are at best half those of conventional grain. When the need for non-productive fertility-building leys are taken into account, the relative yields per uniy of land involved is even more disparate.

Seed rates for organic grain need to be at least 50% higher to compensate for poorer germination and greater likelehood of wireworm and leatherjacket damage, and when the effect of mechanical weed-control is taken into account, each tonne of organic cereal compared to conventional cereal, takes twice the land, three times the seed, more than twice the machinery and labour, and two and a half times as much diesel.

It explains why organic cereals need to be 150% dearer than conventional cereals.

Looks like the game maybe up for us organic farmers !!! Or is it ? The most worrying thing about this report is that it goes on to say buying local produced food is no better for the environment than sourcing it from the other side of this world !! It sounds to me like this report was put together as an excuse for the government to wash it hands of British Agriculture

This report is making real waves - which is ironic bearing in mind it was published at the start of February but everyone missed it!

It has even been picked up by USAToday. Here is the link if you want to have a look...

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/02/report_organics.html

I agree with the point made in the first posting "misinformation serves no-one". It is therefore disappointing to see the following post from Julian Gairdner so comprehensively flawed. There are many out there who don’t understand organic farming & apparently many more who feel very threatened by it. Have we really arrived at a point where agricultural systems that have been refined over several thousand years have suddenly become obsolete since the advent of the sprayer and synthetic fertilizers? Or is it the case that journalism has become so detached from farming that good crop and animal husbandry is just too dull (or lacks the advertising budget) to make a good news story?

There are an increasing number of farmers who are developing organic systems that work for them. Those that are successful are not stupid and have to be good at what they do. Despite the often-propagated myth that the organic movement builds its success on trashing conventional farming practice, Farmer’s Weekly appears quite happy to trash organic farming at each & every opportunity. You are harming British farming and the genuine efforts of thousands of farmers to try and develop sustainable farming systems. Quite who you think will benefit from this, I don’t know, but I can guarantee there will be no winners (and that includes FW).

Replying to John Turner's post, John I think there's a bit of confusion about who posted what. The first post about "misinformation serving no-one" was by me - Julian Gairdner. The way this blog is set up the name below the yellow line refers to the post above not below!

Reading your post John, it seems to me you are having go at the second poster Bill Rutter rather than mine...or am I confused?!

Re my post above, the blog format has changed now so it's clearer who's posted a comment, so my entry above, may seem a bit confusing now that the change on the platform has been made!