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BioCultura – celebrating Spain’s organic revolution Updated for 2026

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In 1985 Angeles Parra was an untiring young woman, green actvist, organic pioneer – and founder of the BioCultura organic fair.

Now in her second flush of youth, she has fond memories of those days – and good cause for celebration, with what is now Europe’s biggest organic fair opening today in Valencia on the first leg of its tour across four of Spain’s major cities.

Some 170,000 people are expected to visit BioCultura and its thousands of exhibitors, and enjoy almost a thousand parallel activities, says Parra. But she keenly recalls how it all started:

“The embryo of the organic movement in Spain was the ‘Healthy Lifestyle Association’ and its members. At that time, organic farming barely existed in our country. A few families who were concerned about the food we were eating and about damage caused to the environment, got together and that’s how it all began.”

“The Mediterranean is the organic vegetable garden of Europe. Our products are delicious, healthy and nurtritious. I remember when Enrique Tierno Galván, mayor of Madrid, told us we should hold a fair and let the world know about our organic farming. So we did it – but we had no idea it would get as big as this!”

“BioCultura is not only an opportunity to get to know organic products, but also to see that Spanish farmers and citizens are fighting for a healthy diet and lifestyle, for a decent future for our children and for an eco-system which is free from chemicals and GM – not only for ourselves but for all humankind and other living creatures.”

Also BioCultura is organized by the ‘Healthy lifestyle Association’, an independent NGO which receives no public subsidies. “It is most important that we finance ourselves from our activities as only in this way are we independent from political and business interests”, observes Parrra.

Spain’s organic sector is booming!

And as BioCultura has grown so has Spain’s organic farming sector – at an annual rate of 10-12%, even during the worst moments of the economic crisis.

With almost 2 million hectares certified organic, Spain is now the European Union’s biggest organic producer, and a major exporter: more than 80% of its organic produce is exported to markets in Germany, Denmark, the UK, Switzerland and beyond.

“In the beginning we did everything ourselves: we did the accreditation, held courses, created a university Master’s degree”, says Barra. “Now we still do lots of things but fortunately, the sector has other protagonists. It was the desire for a decent and healthy future for our children that drove us to take action in this agri-food universe.”

Today, accreditation committees (mostly from the state sector but also some private ones), certify that food has been produced according to organic standards.  Each autonomous region of Spain has its own committee. Andalusia is the main autonomous regional producer and Catalonia the main regional consumer.

Juan Carlo Moreno, technical manager of BioCultura, emphasises that Spain’s organic revolution has had virtually no official support, and has taken place against a background of poltical indifference:

“In Spain, unlike other countries around us, the issue of organic food has received no institutional backing: neither significant promotional campaigns nor tax incentives. It is the consumers and farmers who got things going, and it is thanks to them that we are the most important producer in the EU and sixth in the world.”

And very much against the public mood, all the official support is going to biotech and the cultivation of GMO crops: “Spain is a country with a lot of genetically modified corn. Biotechnological lobbies are powerful in our country. Let’s hope that probable political changes in the near future will have a positive impact on this situation, amongst other reasons, because statistics show a clear and forceful rejection of GM by the population.”

The future is green

One of the characteristics of the ‘eco’ sector in Spain, at every stage, from the field to preparation is the extraordinary efficiency and dynamism of a young, creative, and eco-entrepreneurial class.

All the signs point to a continuous growth in the organic sector, despite the economic crisis and a climate of generalized political corruption. On the one hand the number of accredited hectares will grow and on the other, both the total national consumption and that which is exported will also grow.

This is indicated by market studies along with the fact that the profile of the ‘eco’ consumer is no longer limited. There is currently no specific profile as the target has changed considerably.

There are ecological consumers, eco activists, home makers, sports people, people concerned about their health, the elderly, couples with new born babies, in fact all types of people. Statistics also notoriously show that the ecological consumer is very loyal.

The Spanish organic sector is set for continued growth. Indeed things are changing faster than ever. School canteens, hospitals, families, professionals, farmers … are all getting their organic skates on. It is now unstoppable.

This has all happened despite a series of unsympathetic right wing governments. But an even greater expansion could take place if Spanish politics, currently very corrupt and plagued by the interests of large transnational companies, is prepared to change completely.

And Parra is anxious to remind me of the role of Teddy Goldsmith, founder of The Ecologist, in supporting her and BioCultura in its early days. “We became great friends of Teddy’s”, she says. “We even gave him one of our international prizes. We were really fond of him.”

 

Pedro Burruezo is editor of The Ecologist España y Latinoamérica.

BioCultura 2015 – dates and locations

  • Valencia. From February 27th to March 1st. Feria Valencia
  • Barcelona. From 7th to 10th of May. Palau Sant Jordi. BCN.
  • Bilbao. From 2nd to 4th of October. BEC.
  • Madrid. From 12th to 15th of November. IFEMA.

 

 




390823

BioCultura – celebrating Spain’s organic revolution Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




In 1985 Angeles Parra was an untiring young woman, green actvist, organic pioneer – and founder of the BioCultura organic fair.

Now in her second flush of youth, she has fond memories of those days – and good cause for celebration, with what is now Europe’s biggest organic fair opening today in Valencia on the first leg of its tour across four of Spain’s major cities.

Some 170,000 people are expected to visit BioCultura and its thousands of exhibitors, and enjoy almost a thousand parallel activities, says Parra. But she keenly recalls how it all started:

“The embryo of the organic movement in Spain was the ‘Healthy Lifestyle Association’ and its members. At that time, organic farming barely existed in our country. A few families who were concerned about the food we were eating and about damage caused to the environment, got together and that’s how it all began.”

“The Mediterranean is the organic vegetable garden of Europe. Our products are delicious, healthy and nurtritious. I remember when Enrique Tierno Galván, mayor of Madrid, told us we should hold a fair and let the world know about our organic farming. So we did it – but we had no idea it would get as big as this!”

“BioCultura is not only an opportunity to get to know organic products, but also to see that Spanish farmers and citizens are fighting for a healthy diet and lifestyle, for a decent future for our children and for an eco-system which is free from chemicals and GM – not only for ourselves but for all humankind and other living creatures.”

Also BioCultura is organized by the ‘Healthy lifestyle Association’, an independent NGO which receives no public subsidies. “It is most important that we finance ourselves from our activities as only in this way are we independent from political and business interests”, observes Parrra.

Spain’s organic sector is booming!

And as BioCultura has grown so has Spain’s organic farming sector – at an annual rate of 10-12%, even during the worst moments of the economic crisis.

With almost 2 million hectares certified organic, Spain is now the European Union’s biggest organic producer, and a major exporter: more that 80% of its organic produce is exported to markets in Germany, Denmark, the UK, Switzerland and beyond.

“In the beginning we did everything ourselves: we did the accreditation, held courses, created a university Master’s degree”, says Barra. “Now we still do lots of things but fortunately, the sector has other protagonists. It was the desire for a decent and healthy future for our children that drove us to take action in this agri-food universe.”

Today, accreditation committees (mostly from the state sector but also some private ones), certify that food has been produced according to organic standards.  Each autonomous region of Spain has its own committee. Andalusia is the main autonomous regional producer and Catalonia the main regional consumer.

Juan Carlo Moreno, technical manager of BioCultura emphasises that Spain’s organic revolution has had virtually no official support, and has taken place against a background of poltical indifference:

“In Spain, unlike other countries around us, the issue of organic food has received no institutional backing: neither significant promotional campaigns nor tax incentives. It is the consumers and farmers who got things going, and it is thanks to them that we are the most important producer in the EU and sixth in the world.”

And very much against the public mood, all the official support is going to biotech and the cultivation of GMO crops: “Spain is a country with a lot of genetically modified corn. Biotechnological lobbies are powerful in our country. Let’s hope that probable political changes in the near future will have a positive impact on this situation, amongst other reasons, because statistics show a clear and forceful rejection of GM by the population.”

The future is green

One of the characteristics of the ‘eco’ sector in Spain, at every stage, from the field to preparation is the extraordinary efficiency and dynamism of a young, creative, and eco-entrepreneurial class.

All the signs point to a continuous growth in the organic sector, despite the economic crisis and a climate of generalized political corruption. On the one hand the number of accredited hectares will grow and on the other, both the total national consumption and that which is exported will also grow.

This is indicated by market studies along with the fact that the profile of the ‘eco’ consumer is no longer limited. There is currently no specific profile as the target has changed considerably.

There are ecological consumers, eco activists, home makers, sports people, people concerned about their health, the elderly, couples with new born babies, in fact all types of people. Statistics also notoriously show that the ecological consumer is very loyal.

The Spanish organic sector is set for continued growth. Indeed things are changing faster than ever. School canteens, hospitals, families, professionals, farmers … are all getting their organic skates on. It is now unstoppable.

This has all happened despite a series of unsympathetic right wing governments. But an even greater expansion could take place if Spanish politics, currently very corrupt and plagued by the interests of large transnational companies, is prepared to change completely.

And Parra is anxious to remind me of the role of Teddy Goldsmith, founder of The Ecologist, in supporting her and BioCultura in its early days. “We became great friends of Teddy’s”, she says. “We even gave him one of our international prizes. We were really fond of him.”

 

Pedro Burruezo is editor of The Ecologist España y Latinoamérica.

BioCultura 2015 – dates and locations

  • Valencia. From February 27th to March 1st. Feria Valencia
  • Barcelona. From 7th to 10th of May. Palau Sant Jordi. BCN.
  • Bilbao. From 2nd to 4th of October. BEC.
  • Madrid. From 12th to 15th of November. IFEMA.

 

 




390823

BioCultura – celebrating Spain’s organic revolution Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




In 1985 Angeles Parra was an untiring young woman, green actvist, organic pioneer – and founder of the BioCultura organic fair.

Now in her second flush of youth, she has fond memories of those days – and good cause for celebration, with what is now Europe’s biggest organic fair opening today in Valencia on the first leg of its tour across four of Spain’s major cities.

Some 170,000 people are expected to visit BioCultura and its thousands of exhibitors, and enjoy almost a thousand parallel activities, says Parra. But she keenly recalls how it all started:

“The embryo of the organic movement in Spain was the ‘Healthy Lifestyle Association’ and its members. At that time, organic farming barely existed in our country. A few families who were concerned about the food we were eating and about damage caused to the environment, got together and that’s how it all began.”

“The Mediterranean is the organic vegetable garden of Europe. Our products are delicious, healthy and nurtritious. I remember when Enrique Tierno Galván, mayor of Madrid, told us we should hold a fair and let the world know about our organic farming. So we did it – but we had no idea it would get as big as this!”

“BioCultura is not only an opportunity to get to know organic products, but also to see that Spanish farmers and citizens are fighting for a healthy diet and lifestyle, for a decent future for our children and for an eco-system which is free from chemicals and GM – not only for ourselves but for all humankind and other living creatures.”

Also BioCultura is organized by the ‘Healthy lifestyle Association’, an independent NGO which receives no public subsidies. “It is most important that we finance ourselves from our activities as only in this way are we independent from political and business interests”, observes Parrra.

Spain’s organic sector is booming!

And as BioCultura has grown so has Spain’s organic farming sector – at an annual rate of 10-12%, even during the worst moments of the economic crisis.

With almost 2 million hectares certified organic, Spain is now the European Union’s biggest organic producer, and a major exporter: more that 80% of its organic produce is exported to markets in Germany, Denmark, the UK, Switzerland and beyond.

“In the beginning we did everything ourselves: we did the accreditation, held courses, created a university Master’s degree”, says Barra. “Now we still do lots of things but fortunately, the sector has other protagonists. It was the desire for a decent and healthy future for our children that drove us to take action in this agri-food universe.”

Today, accreditation committees (mostly from the state sector but also some private ones), certify that food has been produced according to organic standards.  Each autonomous region of Spain has its own committee. Andalusia is the main autonomous regional producer and Catalonia the main regional consumer.

Juan Carlo Moreno, technical manager of BioCultura emphasises that Spain’s organic revolution has had virtually no official support, and has taken place against a background of poltical indifference:

“In Spain, unlike other countries around us, the issue of organic food has received no institutional backing: neither significant promotional campaigns nor tax incentives. It is the consumers and farmers who got things going, and it is thanks to them that we are the most important producer in the EU and sixth in the world.”

And very much against the public mood, all the official support is going to biotech and the cultivation of GMO crops: “Spain is a country with a lot of genetically modified corn. Biotechnological lobbies are powerful in our country. Let’s hope that probable political changes in the near future will have a positive impact on this situation, amongst other reasons, because statistics show a clear and forceful rejection of GM by the population.”

The future is green

One of the characteristics of the ‘eco’ sector in Spain, at every stage, from the field to preparation is the extraordinary efficiency and dynamism of a young, creative, and eco-entrepreneurial class.

All the signs point to a continuous growth in the organic sector, despite the economic crisis and a climate of generalized political corruption. On the one hand the number of accredited hectares will grow and on the other, both the total national consumption and that which is exported will also grow.

This is indicated by market studies along with the fact that the profile of the ‘eco’ consumer is no longer limited. There is currently no specific profile as the target has changed considerably.

There are ecological consumers, eco activists, home makers, sports people, people concerned about their health, the elderly, couples with new born babies, in fact all types of people. Statistics also notoriously show that the ecological consumer is very loyal.

The Spanish organic sector is set for continued growth. Indeed things are changing faster than ever. School canteens, hospitals, families, professionals, farmers … are all getting their organic skates on. It is now unstoppable.

This has all happened despite a series of unsympathetic right wing governments. But an even greater expansion could take place if Spanish politics, currently very corrupt and plagued by the interests of large transnational companies, is prepared to change completely.

And Parra is anxious to remind me of the role of Teddy Goldsmith, founder of The Ecologist, in supporting her and BioCultura in its early days. “We became great friends of Teddy’s”, she says. “We even gave him one of our international prizes. We were really fond of him.”

 

Pedro Burruezo is editor of The Ecologist España y Latinoamérica.

BioCultura 2015 – dates and locations

  • Valencia. From February 27th to March 1st. Feria Valencia
  • Barcelona. From 7th to 10th of May. Palau Sant Jordi. BCN.
  • Bilbao. From 2nd to 4th of October. BEC.
  • Madrid. From 12th to 15th of November. IFEMA.

 

 




390823

BioCultura – celebrating Spain’s organic revolution Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




In 1985 Angeles Parra was an untiring young woman, green actvist, organic pioneer – and founder of the BioCultura organic fair.

Now in her second flush of youth, she has fond memories of those days – and good cause for celebration, with what is now Europe’s biggest organic fair opening today in Valencia on the first leg of its tour across four of Spain’s major cities.

Some 170,000 people are expected to visit BioCultura and its thousands of exhibitors, and enjoy almost a thousand parallel activities, says Parra. But she keenly recalls how it all started:

“The embryo of the organic movement in Spain was the ‘Healthy Lifestyle Association’ and its members. At that time, organic farming barely existed in our country. A few families who were concerned about the food we were eating and about damage caused to the environment, got together and that’s how it all began.”

“The Mediterranean is the organic vegetable garden of Europe. Our products are delicious, healthy and nurtritious. I remember when Enrique Tierno Galván, mayor of Madrid, told us we should hold a fair and let the world know about our organic farming. So we did it – but we had no idea it would get as big as this!”

“BioCultura is not only an opportunity to get to know organic products, but also to see that Spanish farmers and citizens are fighting for a healthy diet and lifestyle, for a decent future for our children and for an eco-system which is free from chemicals and GM – not only for ourselves but for all humankind and other living creatures.”

Also BioCultura is organized by the ‘Healthy lifestyle Association’, an independent NGO which receives no public subsidies. “It is most important that we finance ourselves from our activities as only in this way are we independent from political and business interests”, observes Parrra.

Spain’s organic sector is booming!

And as BioCultura has grown so has Spain’s organic farming sector – at an annual rate of 10-12%, even during the worst moments of the economic crisis.

With almost 2 million hectares certified organic, Spain is now the European Union’s biggest organic producer, and a major exporter: more that 80% of its organic produce is exported to markets in Germany, Denmark, the UK, Switzerland and beyond.

“In the beginning we did everything ourselves: we did the accreditation, held courses, created a university Master’s degree”, says Barra. “Now we still do lots of things but fortunately, the sector has other protagonists. It was the desire for a decent and healthy future for our children that drove us to take action in this agri-food universe.”

Today, accreditation committees (mostly from the state sector but also some private ones), certify that food has been produced according to organic standards.  Each autonomous region of Spain has its own committee. Andalusia is the main autonomous regional producer and Catalonia the main regional consumer.

Juan Carlo Moreno, technical manager of BioCultura emphasises that Spain’s organic revolution has had virtually no official support, and has taken place against a background of poltical indifference:

“In Spain, unlike other countries around us, the issue of organic food has received no institutional backing: neither significant promotional campaigns nor tax incentives. It is the consumers and farmers who got things going, and it is thanks to them that we are the most important producer in the EU and sixth in the world.”

And very much against the public mood, all the official support is going to biotech and the cultivation of GMO crops: “Spain is a country with a lot of genetically modified corn. Biotechnological lobbies are powerful in our country. Let’s hope that probable political changes in the near future will have a positive impact on this situation, amongst other reasons, because statistics show a clear and forceful rejection of GM by the population.”

The future is green

One of the characteristics of the ‘eco’ sector in Spain, at every stage, from the field to preparation is the extraordinary efficiency and dynamism of a young, creative, and eco-entrepreneurial class.

All the signs point to a continuous growth in the organic sector, despite the economic crisis and a climate of generalized political corruption. On the one hand the number of accredited hectares will grow and on the other, both the total national consumption and that which is exported will also grow.

This is indicated by market studies along with the fact that the profile of the ‘eco’ consumer is no longer limited. There is currently no specific profile as the target has changed considerably.

There are ecological consumers, eco activists, home makers, sports people, people concerned about their health, the elderly, couples with new born babies, in fact all types of people. Statistics also notoriously show that the ecological consumer is very loyal.

The Spanish organic sector is set for continued growth. Indeed things are changing faster than ever. School canteens, hospitals, families, professionals, farmers … are all getting their organic skates on. It is now unstoppable.

This has all happened despite a series of unsympathetic right wing governments. But an even greater expansion could take place if Spanish politics, currently very corrupt and plagued by the interests of large transnational companies, is prepared to change completely.

And Parra is anxious to remind me of the role of Teddy Goldsmith, founder of The Ecologist, in supporting her and BioCultura in its early days. “We became great friends of Teddy’s”, she says. “We even gave him one of our international prizes. We were really fond of him.”

 

Pedro Burruezo is editor of The Ecologist España y Latinoamérica.

BioCultura 2015 – dates and locations

  • Valencia. From February 27th to March 1st. Feria Valencia
  • Barcelona. From 7th to 10th of May. Palau Sant Jordi. BCN.
  • Bilbao. From 2nd to 4th of October. BEC.
  • Madrid. From 12th to 15th of November. IFEMA.

 

 




390823

The Soil Association’s ‘Catering Mark’ is helping to deliver good food for all Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Remember the ‘Turkey Twizzlers‘ debacle? Back in 2005 celebrity chef Jamie Oliver made them a symbol of everything that was wrong with our food – and the catering sector in particular.

It was revealed that this processed meat food, widespread in school meals, contained one third turkey meat supplemented with another 34 ingredients from pork fat to hydrogenated vegetable oil, and enough E–numbers to shake a stick at.

So when the Soil Association developed its Food for Life ‘Catering Mark’, it was to drive improvements in a food sector widely perceived as having lost its way.

Its aim was, and remains, to raise standards of nutrition, food quality, provenance and environmental sustainability for food served in workplaces, hospitals, schools, care homes and restaurants across the UK.

Its standards – criticised in an article on The Ecologist last week by our former trustee Lynda Brown as lacking in ambition and transparency – are designed to be tough but achievable: removing the worst foods from a health, sustainability and animal welfare perspective; promoting the best; and improving the rest.

We do not pretend that Catering Mark delivers everything we desire. But it is bringing about important improvements in the quality of the food that sustains huge numbers of us across the UK: it now covers over one million meals served each weekday, over 190 million meals a year.

It is also countering the anonymous supply chains and lack of scrutiny in the food service sector, providing the support, incentive and recognition needed to motivate caterers to improve the food they serve.

High standards of freshness, provenance and quality

The Catering Mark encompasses a wide range of standards, designed to encourage progression towards better sourcing and preparation practices. Uniquely, it provides an independent verification that high standards of freshness, provenance and quality have been met, through a robust certification process and annual audit.

And the Catering Mark reaches many places that organic standards have never reached before, while also insisting on free and easy availability of tap water, avoiding endangered fish, addressing aspects of nutrition like the balance of foods in the diet, and rewarding Fair Trade, local sourcing and lower meat consumption at Silver and Gold.

In starting the Food for Life Catering Mark, the Soil Association may be seen by a few as departing from our focus on organic farming and food. Of course, our goal is to see all catered food, and indeed all food sold by supermarkets, meeting organic standards.

But right now organic food is 1.3% of total UK supermarket sales, so the fact that 45% of Catering Mark food meets the Silver or Gold standard, and is at least 5% organic at Silver, and 15% at Gold, and is growing far faster than retail sales, is a real achievement.

And it’s working! Catering Mark is driving a significant growth in demand for organic food – providing a growing market for organic producers, and putting more organic ingredients into our meals.

Figures released today show significant growth in organic supply into catering in 2014 – up 13.6%, reflecting the growth of the Catering Mark in schools, workplaces and hospitals. The organic catering market exceeded £1 million a week for the first time and is now worth £55.8 million a year.

Our goal is 100% organic everywhere1

The Soil Association campaigns for the UK to move to a position where all publicly funded food, in schools and hospitals, is 100% organic, and we regularly point out to British politicians that Sweden has a target of 25% organic in publicly funded meals, and Denmark’s legal target is 60%. We believe similar targets must, and eventually will, happen here.

But the UK is unique in Europe in having had a series of governments giving less support to organic farming than any other in the EU, and where, compared to many European countries, people buy less organic when they shop for themselves.

One reason for this is the success that the powerful forces opposing organic – big food businesses, the pesticides and GM industries – have had in branding organic food as elitist, only fit for posh and rich (and deluded) foodies. This condemns the overwhelming majority of people to diets based on unhealthy, environmentally destructive, often cruelly produced food.

The Soil Association was founded in 1946 (long before organic standards had been invented) to support systems of food production that catered for everyone. The founders were concerned about the health and well-being of the poorest in society and were determined to change that for the better.

So, 70 years later, we could sit back and simply decry the quality of the food that over 98% of our fellow citizens eat, and complain that if they had any sense they would be like us, see the light and only buy and eat organic food. I believe that would be to betray the principles of the Soil Association, and to betray the interests of our fellow citizens.

It is the contrary belief, that everyone has the right to good food, that drove us to start our Food for Life work in schools 12 years ago – all children deserve healthy meals, to learn about how food is produced, to learn to grow food, learn to cook, and to have enjoyable school meals served in friendly surroundings.

Not just organic – more fresh fruit, vegetables in school meals

Independent research found that 28% more children at Food for Life schools ate 5 portions of fruit and veg (after two years), astonishingly 45% of their parents ate more vegetables, and that the positive effects on diet were greatest in the most disadvantaged areas.

Now 70% of schools in London that are in the Catering Mark, and 25% in England, have started out towards healthier, better quality food.

That right to good quality food applies just as much to hospital patients, NHS staff, the elderly in care homes, kids in nurseries and people eating lunch at work – this is what the Food for Life Catering Mark aims to achieve.

It is easy to forget just how bad much of catered food had become in the public and private sectors, and how firmly it was gripped by a spiral of decline, where cheapest always won.

The Catering Mark can claim some credit for the fact that this has started to change, and support from the Departments of Education, Health and Environment, based on evidence of success, and after many years of hard work, simply increases the opportunity we now have to achieve change.

So of course I think organic standards for farming and food (and health and beauty and textiles) are right (but also not perfect). I also think that if we are going to play a positive part in changing the UK’s food culture, especially for the least well off, trying to start from a position where everyone has to sign up to 100% organic, or be ignored or condemned, is doomed to fail.

A significant driver of change for the better

Twelve years ago, in school food, hospital food and elsewhere, we were set on a course where no food would be cooked where it was eaten, much of the meat served was ‘reconstituted’, shaped and fried, sandwiches could be made one side of England and eaten the other side of the country.

No one, including those serving the food knew where any of it came from nor how it had been produced, and the idea that organic food had any part to play in the cheap (and nasty) food served in most schools, hospitals, care homes, nurseries and many work places, was treated as a bad joke.

The Catering Mark has started to change that, and the fact is, thanks to it, there are now 280,000 school meals served daily at Silver with at least 5% organic food, and 150,000 school meals served daily at Gold with at least 15% organic.

We are not at 100% organic, nor Denmark’s 60%, nor Sweden’s 25%, but at least after decades of declining food standards, we are starting to move in the right direction.

 

 

Peter Melchett is Policy Director of the Soil Association.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘The Soil Association’s ‘Catering Mark’ – a compromise too far?‘ by Lynda Brown, former Soil Association trustee.

 

 




390615

The Soil Association’s ‘Catering Mark’ is helping to deliver good food for all Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Remember the ‘Turkey Twizzlers‘ debacle? Back in 2005 celebrity chef Jamie Oliver made them a symbol of everything that was wrong with our food – and the catering sector in particular.

It was revealed that this processed meat food, widespread in school meals, contained one third turkey meat supplemented with another 34 ingredients from pork fat to hydrogenated vegetable oil, and enough E–numbers to shake a stick at.

So when the Soil Association developed its Food for Life ‘Catering Mark’, it was to drive improvements in a food sector widely perceived as having lost its way.

Its aim was, and remains, to raise standards of nutrition, food quality, provenance and environmental sustainability for food served in workplaces, hospitals, schools, care homes and restaurants across the UK.

Its standards – criticised in an article on The Ecologist last week by our former trustee Lynda Brown as lacking in ambition and transparency – are designed to be tough but achievable: removing the worst foods from a health, sustainability and animal welfare perspective; promoting the best; and improving the rest.

We do not pretend that Catering Mark delivers everything we desire. But it is bringing about important improvements in the quality of the food that sustains huge numbers of us across the UK: it now covers over one million meals served each weekday, over 190 million meals a year.

It is also countering the anonymous supply chains and lack of scrutiny in the food service sector, providing the support, incentive and recognition needed to motivate caterers to improve the food they serve.

High standards of freshness, provenance and quality

The Catering Mark encompasses a wide range of standards, designed to encourage progression towards better sourcing and preparation practices. Uniquely, it provides an independent verification that high standards of freshness, provenance and quality have been met, through a robust certification process and annual audit.

And the Catering Mark reaches many places that organic standards have never reached before, while also insisting on free and easy availability of tap water, avoiding endangered fish, addressing aspects of nutrition like the balance of foods in the diet, and rewarding Fair Trade, local sourcing and lower meat consumption at Silver and Gold.

In starting the Food for Life Catering Mark, the Soil Association may be seen by a few as departing from our focus on organic farming and food. Of course, our goal is to see all catered food, and indeed all food sold by supermarkets, meeting organic standards.

But right now organic food is 1.3% of total UK supermarket sales, so the fact that 45% of Catering Mark food meets the Silver or Gold standard, and is at least 5% organic at Silver, and 15% at Gold, and is growing far faster than retail sales, is a real achievement.

And it’s working! Catering Mark is driving a significant growth in demand for organic food – providing a growing market for organic producers, and putting more organic ingredients into our meals.

Figures released today show significant growth in organic supply into catering in 2014 – up 13.6%, reflecting the growth of the Catering Mark in schools, workplaces and hospitals. The organic catering market exceeded £1 million a week for the first time and is now worth £55.8 million a year.

Our goal is 100% organic everywhere1

The Soil Association campaigns for the UK to move to a position where all publicly funded food, in schools and hospitals, is 100% organic, and we regularly point out to British politicians that Sweden has a target of 25% organic in publicly funded meals, and Denmark’s legal target is 60%. We believe similar targets must, and eventually will, happen here.

But the UK is unique in Europe in having had a series of governments giving less support to organic farming than any other in the EU, and where, compared to many European countries, people buy less organic when they shop for themselves.

One reason for this is the success that the powerful forces opposing organic – big food businesses, the pesticides and GM industries – have had in branding organic food as elitist, only fit for posh and rich (and deluded) foodies. This condemns the overwhelming majority of people to diets based on unhealthy, environmentally destructive, often cruelly produced food.

The Soil Association was founded in 1946 (long before organic standards had been invented) to support systems of food production that catered for everyone. The founders were concerned about the health and well-being of the poorest in society and were determined to change that for the better.

So, 70 years later, we could sit back and simply decry the quality of the food that over 98% of our fellow citizens eat, and complain that if they had any sense they would be like us, see the light and only buy and eat organic food. I believe that would be to betray the principles of the Soil Association, and to betray the interests of our fellow citizens.

It is the contrary belief, that everyone has the right to good food, that drove us to start our Food for Life work in schools 12 years ago – all children deserve healthy meals, to learn about how food is produced, to learn to grow food, learn to cook, and to have enjoyable school meals served in friendly surroundings.

Not just organic – more fresh fruit, vegetables in school meals

Independent research found that 28% more children at Food for Life schools ate 5 portions of fruit and veg (after two years), astonishingly 45% of their parents ate more vegetables, and that the positive effects on diet were greatest in the most disadvantaged areas.

Now 70% of schools in London that are in the Catering Mark, and 25% in England, have started out towards healthier, better quality food.

That right to good quality food applies just as much to hospital patients, NHS staff, the elderly in care homes, kids in nurseries and people eating lunch at work – this is what the Food for Life Catering Mark aims to achieve.

It is easy to forget just how bad much of catered food had become in the public and private sectors, and how firmly it was gripped by a spiral of decline, where cheapest always won.

The Catering Mark can claim some credit for the fact that this has started to change, and support from the Departments of Education, Health and Environment, based on evidence of success, and after many years of hard work, simply increases the opportunity we now have to achieve change.

So of course I think organic standards for farming and food (and health and beauty and textiles) are right (but also not perfect). I also think that if we are going to play a positive part in changing the UK’s food culture, especially for the least well off, trying to start from a position where everyone has to sign up to 100% organic, or be ignored or condemned, is doomed to fail.

A significant driver of change for the better

Twelve years ago, in school food, hospital food and elsewhere, we were set on a course where no food would be cooked where it was eaten, much of the meat served was ‘reconstituted’, shaped and fried, sandwiches could be made one side of England and eaten the other side of the country.

No one, including those serving the food knew where any of it came from nor how it had been produced, and the idea that organic food had any part to play in the cheap (and nasty) food served in most schools, hospitals, care homes, nurseries and many work places, was treated as a bad joke.

The Catering Mark has started to change that, and the fact is, thanks to it, there are now 280,000 school meals served daily at Silver with at least 5% organic food, and 150,000 school meals served daily at Gold with at least 15% organic.

We are not at 100% organic, nor Denmark’s 60%, nor Sweden’s 25%, but at least after decades of declining food standards, we are starting to move in the right direction.

 

 

Peter Melchett is Policy Director of the Soil Association.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘The Soil Association’s ‘Catering Mark’ – a compromise too far?‘ by Lynda Brown, former Soil Association trustee.

 

 




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A tale of two farming conferences: the future is ‘real’ and organic Updated for 2026

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In Oxford this week, two major farming conferences have been under way.

The newer, forward-looking Oxford Real Farming Conference is discussing innovations in technology that are needed for farming to face the challenges of achieving massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, tackling the horrendous problems of diet-related ill health, and restoring beauty, colour, wildlife and human cultivators to our farmed countryside.

Meanwhile, speakers at the much older Oxford Farming Conference seem stuck in a time-warp where for decades almost the only new development in agriculture worth discussing is GM crops, and where an annual attack on organic farming seems to be obligatory.

The Secretary of State for Environment, Liz Truss, did her bit in praise of GM – which is now just “one tool in the toolbox”, having been demoted from the “future for all farming and food” that was heralded in the 1990s.

Under what seem to be strict instructions from David Cameron not to do any more damage, if that were possible, to his “greenest government ever” claim, Liz Truss steered clear of saying anything new about GM, or announcing any action that would bring GM crops in England any closer, or indeed doing anything which you might expect an allegedly pro-GM government to do.

However, now that the Scottish referendum is over, the English Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is happy to forget that agriculture is already devolved to Scotland and Wales, and that both those countries remain staunchly opposed to GM crops.

So Liz Truss talked grandly about GM crops coming to the UK, when she’s actually only able to talk about England – 60% of the UK. Nor did she mention the commitment given by one of her junior ministers at the end of last year, namely that GM crops for England are, at best, “several years away“.

Over to you, Lord Krebs …

It was left to Lord Krebs to mount the seemingly obligatory attack on organic farming and food.

That’s the same Lord Krebs who made himself a figure of fun several years ago, when he was chair of the Food Standards Agency. On taking up his position, he announced, without any scientific evidence, that anyone buying organic food because it had nutritional differences with non-organic were “wasting their money”.

In his own field, which does not include nutrition or farming, Lord Krebs is a very distinguished scientist, so it must have hurt somewhat when, last year, a major meta-analysis was published which looked at 343 individual studies comparing antioxidant levels, heavy metals and pesticides in organic and non-organic food, focusing on salad crops, vegetables, grains and pulses.

An international team of scientists, led by Newcastle University, pooled all the existing research, and showed unequivocally that there are significant differences between organic and non-organic food, with 18 – 69% more beneficial antioxidants and 48% less dangerous cadmium.

We need more and better research in this area, and the researchers said that more studies would be likely to confirm the significance of a number of other positive trends in the differences between organic and non-organic food that they detected.

Yes, the science indicates that organic food is healthier!

That research did not look at the impact on our health of eating organic food – this takes many years and is very costly. To get clear results, scientists need to follow large groups of people who eat organic food, and a similar group who do not, for their whole lives.

As many modern diseases, like cancer and heart disease, tend to mainly emerge much later in life, it would take many decades of expensive monitoring to identify any differences. However, health problems that emerge early in life should be identifiable more quickly.

A Dutch study comparing mothers and children who drank organic milk and used organic dairy products with those that did not, found that those children suffered 36% less eczema than children on a non-organic diet.

More recently, a Norwegian study has linked organic vegetable consumption to a 24% lower incidence of pre-eclampsia, a major cause of illness in mothers and deaths of babies worldwide.

But while it is clear is that the way we farm does affect the quality of our food, the jury is still out on whether eating organic food will lead to people suffering less illness or disease over their lifetime.

Now the problem is ‘climate change’, claims Krebs (wrong again)

Given that Lord Krebs could hardly maintain his “it’s a waste of money” position in the face of this overwhelming scientific evidence, he has changed tack, claiming at Oxford that organic farming is bad for climate change, because it yields less than non-organic.

As is often a problem when scientists step outside their own fields of expertise, Lord Krebs has missed two other recently published meta-analyses, covering organic and non-organic farming, looking at yields and climate change impact.

First, a new meta-analysis published by scientists at the University of California at Berkeley pulled together all existing research comparing organic and non-organic yields (reported on The Ecologist), and concluded that the productivity of organic farming has been substantially underestimated.

Scientists found that globally organic yields are generally around 19% below non-organic, and that could reduce to only 8-9% below with better use of modern organic techniques.

It has always been the case that for some crops, like beans, peas, tomatoes, lentils and oats, organic and non-organic yields are the same, while grass-reared beef and lamb will be as or more productive on organic farms.

The study’s author, Professor Claire Kremen said: “This paper sets the record straight on the comparison between organic and conventional agriculture.”

Organic farming sequesters more soil carbon

On an even more positive note, a global meta-analysis looking at farming’s ability to restore carbon in soils came to the conclusion that organic farming stores 3.50 Mg Carbon per hectare more than in nonorganic systems.

The research found an estimated maximum technical mitigation potential from soil carbon sequestration by switching to organic agriculture of 0.37 Gt Carbon sequestered per year globally, thus offsetting up to 3% of all current GHG emissions worldwide, or 25% of total current global agricultural emissions.

The climate summit in Paris at the end of this year is going to focus everyone’s mind on to the appalling threat that climate change poses.

Most attention in climate discussions focuses on emissions from industries like power generation (coal and natural gas versus renewables) and transport (petrol and diesel cars versus public transport and electric cars).

Food and farming, which account for as much greenhouse gas emissions as either of those sectors, is largely ignored – but that cannot continue. Indeed this year Parliament’s official Climate Change Committee will be looking in more detail at greenhouse gas emissions from farming.

The story here is an exciting one – globally, soils contain massive amounts of carbon, the release of which adds to the threat of climate change. However, as research shows, globally soils also offer an amazing opportunity to store more carbon.

The things that farmers need to do to achieve this, which include growing more grass in their rotations, returning crop residues and animal manure to farmland, particularly as compost, and growing green cover-crops through the winter, are all things that organic systems encourage or require.

That is why organic farming sequesters far more carbon in soils than non-organic farming.

Farming must get real!

This was on the agenda at the Oxford Real Farming Conference, where a session on a new report, the Square Meal report, focused on the vital importance of fighting food poverty and diet related ill-health, and the multiple benefits of agro-ecological farming systems – like organic.

These are proven to deliver better animal welfare, more wildlife on farms, lower greenhouse gas emissions, lower levels of pollution from pesticides and fertiliser run-off, and healthier diets.

This broad, inclusive vision for the future of food, farming and the countryside has been supported by ten major public interest groups, but this sort of discussion seems to be off the agenda for the old Oxford farming establishment.

Indeed the question of what this hugely taxpayer-subsidised industry might do in the public interest, rather than the interests of farm businesses, landowners and multi-national food businesses, is off the old Oxford agenda.

It is time the farming industry got real.

 

 

Peter Melchett is an organic farmer, and Policy Director of the Soil Association.

Photo: Sandy Lane Farm.

 




388738

The Soil Association’s mission is organic – and it always will be! Updated for 2026

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Since the 1940s the Soil Association has campaigned for food and farming systems that support the health of our people and environment.

This work is just as relevant now as it was back then. We want to see a future where good food, organic food, is accessible to everyone and where we farm in a way that supports biodiversity, improves animal welfare and addresses climate change.

Though there is always more to do, we are making progress towards achieving this vision.

Last month, four of the Soil Association’s 17 Trustees resigned following the rejection by their fellow Trustees of a motion challenging our three-year old strategy, ‘The Road to 2020‘. Our strategy focusses as strongly as ever on organic food and farming, and also reaches out to broader audiences.

We are sorry these trustees felt unable to support our initiatives to work with non-organic as well as organic farmers, and with many other people in schools, hospitals and society more widely. We think the challenges facing our food systems today are so urgent that we need to work with all who are interested in finding solutions that are in line with our founding principles.

Transforming Britain’s food culture

Food, and how we produce it, is an entry point into people’s lives and health. It helps develop an understanding of our connection with the natural world, as well as being critically important in its own right.

We understand the pressures facing consumers today. Far from eschewing the term organic, we are working to change perceptions, by ensuring that many more people routinely eat better food, including organic, in schools and hospitals for instance.

We work with schools across the UK transforming food culture with great school meals, children growing and cooking food, and even holding their own farmers markets in partnership with local farmers and growers.

Our Catering Mark is transforming an industry previously driven by cost, not quality, and everyday hundreds of thousands of people in nurseries, schools, workplaces, hospitals and care homes people now eat fresh, healthy and locally sourced meals. At silver and gold Catering Mark award these meals now all include organic.

This work couldn’t be more important. Earlier this year, the Department of Health identified hospital food as a clinical priority for the first time and the Hospital Food Standards Panel recognised the Catering Mark as a scheme that improves food in hospitals for patients, staff and visitors.

We are working with an increasing number of hospitals to improve food served, including Nottingham University Hospital Trust whose meals have a minimum 15% spend on organic ingredients.

Our commitment to organic food and farming is as strong as ever

Organic farming has many of the answers that can help with some of the big challenges of the future such as climate change and the crisis now facing our soils. Organic farmers and growers are the true pioneers and heart of the organic movement and we remain absolutely committed to supporting them and continuing to grow the organic market.

We also know if we are to see real change in the world we need to work positively with all farmers – organic or not – sharing the research and knowledge of organic farming techniques, and learning from them too.

With World Soils Day on Friday (5th December) and the UN International Year of Soil in 2015, it’s a good moment to reflect that the health of our soil is critical to all farmers, not just organic ones.

So it was inspiring to see more non-organic farmers than ever before at our annual Soil Symposium last week, sharing ideas how to improve our soil and produce the very best food we can.

Through our Duchy Originals Future Farming programme we are supporting innovation in organic and low input agriculture, and helping farmers develop practices to improve productivity while caring for the environment and animal welfare.

Most farmers don’t have this ‘us and them’ attitude We are all trying to make a living the best we can, working together to find solutions to the issues facing agriculture in the UK. We would like to think we can find solutions which bring the farming community and wider society together – that doesn’t mean we won’t sometimes disagree, but we want to work constructively wherever possible with as many people as possible.

Farming must be fair, humane, healthy and ecologically based

We need to move beyond just telling others they are wrong; we need to share ideas and solutions to some of the big challenges facing our food system today. We want the Soil Association to become much more relevant to a lot more people – the public, farmers, businesses, schools and the public.

I want us to become better known for what we are for, rather than for what we are against. Our goal is to ensure that all farming and food is grounded in the organic principles – fair, humane, healthy and ecologically based – even if not all of it will be ‘certified’ organic.

I hope that this has made it clear that we remain completely committed to organic farming and to growing the market for organic food as the current ‘gold standard’ for good food.

The Soil Association was founded to research and disseminate the links between the way we manage our soils, and the impacts on human and environmental health.

Nothing could be more important, and our remaining trustees are fully committed to our approach, as laid out clearly in ‘The Road to 2020‘.

 

 

Helen Browning is Chief Executive of the Soil Association.

 

 




387660

The Soil Association’s mission is organic – and it always will be! Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Since the 1940s the Soil Association has campaigned for food and farming systems that support the health of our people and environment.

This work is just as relevant now as it was back then. We want to see a future where good food, organic food, is accessible to everyone and where we farm in a way that supports biodiversity, improves animal welfare and addresses climate change.

Though there is always more to do, we are making progress towards achieving this vision.

Last month, four of the Soil Association’s 17 Trustees resigned following the rejection by their fellow Trustees of a motion challenging our three-year old strategy, ‘The Road to 2020‘. Our strategy focusses as strongly as ever on organic food and farming, and also reaches out to broader audiences.

We are sorry these trustees felt unable to support our initiatives to work with non-organic as well as organic farmers, and with many other people in schools, hospitals and society more widely. We think the challenges facing our food systems today are so urgent that we need to work with all who are interested in finding solutions that are in line with our founding principles.

Transforming Britain’s food culture

Food, and how we produce it, is an entry point into people’s lives and health. It helps develop an understanding of our connection with the natural world, as well as being critically important in its own right.

We understand the pressures facing consumers today. Far from eschewing the term organic, we are working to change perceptions, by ensuring that many more people routinely eat better food, including organic, in schools and hospitals for instance.

We work with schools across the UK transforming food culture with great school meals, children growing and cooking food, and even holding their own farmers markets in partnership with local farmers and growers.

Our Catering Mark is transforming an industry previously driven by cost, not quality, and everyday hundreds of thousands of people in nurseries, schools, workplaces, hospitals and care homes people now eat fresh, healthy and locally sourced meals. At silver and gold Catering Mark award these meals now all include organic.

This work couldn’t be more important. Earlier this year, the Department of Health identified hospital food as a clinical priority for the first time and the Hospital Food Standards Panel recognised the Catering Mark as a scheme that improves food in hospitals for patients, staff and visitors.

We are working with an increasing number of hospitals to improve food served, including Nottingham University Hospital Trust whose meals have a minimum 15% spend on organic ingredients.

Our commitment to organic food and farming is as strong as ever

Organic farming has many of the answers that can help with some of the big challenges of the future such as climate change and the crisis now facing our soils. Organic farmers and growers are the true pioneers and heart of the organic movement and we remain absolutely committed to supporting them and continuing to grow the organic market.

We also know if we are to see real change in the world we need to work positively with all farmers – organic or not – sharing the research and knowledge of organic farming techniques, and learning from them too.

With World Soils Day on Friday (5th December) and the UN International Year of Soil in 2015, it’s a good moment to reflect that the health of our soil is critical to all farmers, not just organic ones.

So it was inspiring to see more non-organic farmers than ever before at our annual Soil Symposium last week, sharing ideas how to improve our soil and produce the very best food we can.

Through our Duchy Originals Future Farming programme we are supporting innovation in organic and low input agriculture, and helping farmers develop practices to improve productivity while caring for the environment and animal welfare.

Most farmers don’t have this ‘us and them’ attitude We are all trying to make a living the best we can, working together to find solutions to the issues facing agriculture in the UK. We would like to think we can find solutions which bring the farming community and wider society together – that doesn’t mean we won’t sometimes disagree, but we want to work constructively wherever possible with as many people as possible.

Farming must be fair, humane, healthy and ecologically based

We need to move beyond just telling others they are wrong; we need to share ideas and solutions to some of the big challenges facing our food system today. We want the Soil Association to become much more relevant to a lot more people – the public, farmers, businesses, schools and the public.

I want us to become better known for what we are for, rather than for what we are against. Our goal is to ensure that all farming and food is grounded in the organic principles – fair, humane, healthy and ecologically based – even if not all of it will be ‘certified’ organic.

I hope that this has made it clear that we remain completely committed to organic farming and to growing the market for organic food as the current ‘gold standard’ for good food.

The Soil Association was founded to research and disseminate the links between the way we manage our soils, and the impacts on human and environmental health.

Nothing could be more important, and our remaining trustees are fully committed to our approach, as laid out clearly in ‘The Road to 2020‘.

 

 

Helen Browning is Chief Executive of the Soil Association.

 

 




387660

The Soil Association’s mission is organic – and it always will be! Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Since the 1940s the Soil Association has campaigned for food and farming systems that support the health of our people and environment.

This work is just as relevant now as it was back then. We want to see a future where good food, organic food, is accessible to everyone and where we farm in a way that supports biodiversity, improves animal welfare and addresses climate change.

Though there is always more to do, we are making progress towards achieving this vision.

Last month, four of the Soil Association’s 17 Trustees resigned following the rejection by their fellow Trustees of a motion challenging our three-year old strategy, ‘The Road to 2020‘. Our strategy focusses as strongly as ever on organic food and farming, and also reaches out to broader audiences.

We are sorry these trustees felt unable to support our initiatives to work with non-organic as well as organic farmers, and with many other people in schools, hospitals and society more widely. We think the challenges facing our food systems today are so urgent that we need to work with all who are interested in finding solutions that are in line with our founding principles.

Transforming Britain’s food culture

Food, and how we produce it, is an entry point into people’s lives and health. It helps develop an understanding of our connection with the natural world, as well as being critically important in its own right.

We understand the pressures facing consumers today. Far from eschewing the term organic, we are working to change perceptions, by ensuring that many more people routinely eat better food, including organic, in schools and hospitals for instance.

We work with schools across the UK transforming food culture with great school meals, children growing and cooking food, and even holding their own farmers markets in partnership with local farmers and growers.

Our Catering Mark is transforming an industry previously driven by cost, not quality, and everyday hundreds of thousands of people in nurseries, schools, workplaces, hospitals and care homes people now eat fresh, healthy and locally sourced meals. At silver and gold Catering Mark award these meals now all include organic.

This work couldn’t be more important. Earlier this year, the Department of Health identified hospital food as a clinical priority for the first time and the Hospital Food Standards Panel recognised the Catering Mark as a scheme that improves food in hospitals for patients, staff and visitors.

We are working with an increasing number of hospitals to improve food served, including Nottingham University Hospital Trust whose meals have a minimum 15% spend on organic ingredients.

Our commitment to organic food and farming is as strong as ever

Organic farming has many of the answers that can help with some of the big challenges of the future such as climate change and the crisis now facing our soils. Organic farmers and growers are the true pioneers and heart of the organic movement and we remain absolutely committed to supporting them and continuing to grow the organic market.

We also know if we are to see real change in the world we need to work positively with all farmers – organic or not – sharing the research and knowledge of organic farming techniques, and learning from them too.

With World Soils Day on Friday (5th December) and the UN International Year of Soil in 2015, it’s a good moment to reflect that the health of our soil is critical to all farmers, not just organic ones.

So it was inspiring to see more non-organic farmers than ever before at our annual Soil Symposium last week, sharing ideas how to improve our soil and produce the very best food we can.

Through our Duchy Originals Future Farming programme we are supporting innovation in organic and low input agriculture, and helping farmers develop practices to improve productivity while caring for the environment and animal welfare.

Most farmers don’t have this ‘us and them’ attitude We are all trying to make a living the best we can, working together to find solutions to the issues facing agriculture in the UK. We would like to think we can find solutions which bring the farming community and wider society together – that doesn’t mean we won’t sometimes disagree, but we want to work constructively wherever possible with as many people as possible.

Farming must be fair, humane, healthy and ecologically based

We need to move beyond just telling others they are wrong; we need to share ideas and solutions to some of the big challenges facing our food system today. We want the Soil Association to become much more relevant to a lot more people – the public, farmers, businesses, schools and the public.

I want us to become better known for what we are for, rather than for what we are against. Our goal is to ensure that all farming and food is grounded in the organic principles – fair, humane, healthy and ecologically based – even if not all of it will be ‘certified’ organic.

I hope that this has made it clear that we remain completely committed to organic farming and to growing the market for organic food as the current ‘gold standard’ for good food.

The Soil Association was founded to research and disseminate the links between the way we manage our soils, and the impacts on human and environmental health.

Nothing could be more important, and our remaining trustees are fully committed to our approach, as laid out clearly in ‘The Road to 2020‘.

 

 

Helen Browning is Chief Executive of the Soil Association.

 

 




387660