States spending blow to organic farming hopes

States spending blow to organic farming hopes

Up to now the help has consisted of payments towards the rent of fields during the two-year period needed to convert land to organic specifications – up to £150 per vergée – and paying the Soil Association licence fee, which can be over £400 per year.Although a budget for this year will continue, a question mark exists over payment in the future.PoliticalThe horticultural adviser at the former Agriculture Department at Howard Davis Farm, Ian Norris, said that everything was under review and that it would be a political decision as to whether further support would be available.Steve Jones, spokesman for the Jersey Organic Association, said that if the aid were stopped, anyone wishing to convert more land would have no help in the non-productive two years of conversion and existing organic producers would lose the benefit of the licence fee being paid.

‘This could be a big blow, especially to the smaller farmers,’ said Mr Jones.’Organic farmers need to be lobbying States Members urgently, at least to have the original aid reinstated, but preferably to vote for the funding of the proposed agri-environment scheme.’The States voted in principle to accept the agri-environment scheme in 2002, but at the same time voted against funding it.

Consequently it has never come into effect.Although demand for organic food is said to have reached a plateau in the UK, farmers such as John Hamon at Vermont Farm, St Brelade, have found it beneficial to convert their land to organic status and sell organic produce to Jersey supermarkets and catering outlets.

He said recently: ‘Organics seems to be the way forward for us.

Things are changing, and people are much more aware these days of what they are eating.’One of the States’ strategic aims has been to reduce the level of pesticides by half and to take advantage of ‘affordable remediation processes’ – which has been seen by some organic growers as a clear indication of support for organics.

But that support has been seen to be negated by the discontinuation of payments that would promote them.Mr Norris said that a number of organic growers had found that they could not make farming pay.

There was a finite market locally and it was difficult to break in, he explained.

One or two had given up and he was aware of a third person who was definitely thinking about it.

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