Organic Farmers & Growers (OF&G) has written to the Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs, Daniel Zeichner, calling for a land-use framework which includes organic farming as a viable solution to the UK’s agri-environmental woes.
The letter outlines how organic farming creates a buffer against both environmental and market volatility, while simultaneously offering a more sustainable form of food production.
Chief executive of OF&G, Roger Kerr, detailed that organic farming fulfils each of Defra’s five core priorities, which include:
- Protecting communities from the dangers of flooding;
- Cleaning up Britain’s rivers, lakes and seas;
- Creating a road map to move Britain to a zero waste economy;
- Supporting our farmers to boost Britain’s food security;
- Ensuring nature’s recovery.
“This year’s climate shocks have laid bare the vulnerabilities of our food systems. Organic farming presents a sustainable, resilient and evidenced solution that can address all five of the priorities that have been laid out by Steve Reed.
“Supporting an increase in organically farmed land area would make a meaningful contribution to the government’s goals,” Kerr said.
The letter comes after the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit reported the second worst harvest results this year alongside increasing intensification of extreme weather events and repeated warnings of mounting climate disasters, as evident in a recent BioScience journal article.
While the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London stated in a joint report ‘2024 Living Planet Report’ that biodiversity losses verge on a “point of no return”.
These publications contribute to the growing data and body of evidence supporting the need to balance agricultural needs with those of the environment.
Organic farming
The letter asserts organic farming as a solution which balances food security; cleaner waterways; a zero-waste economy; nature restoration. and farming, while mitigating flood risks.
OF&G also pointed to a recent report from the IFOAM – Organics Europe, ‘Organic agriculture and its benefits for climate and biodiversity’, which claims that organic farming support 50% more wildlife and 34% more species diversity than conventional farming practices.
“Our natural environment is reaching a tipping point. If we are to protect and enhance it in the face of increasingly frequent and extreme weather events, we will need to progressively adopt restorative practices such as crop rotation, agroforestry and mixed farming systems.
“Organic farming minimises water pollution by eliminating synthetic inputs as well as by reducing soil erosion by 22% compared to conventional systems.
“Organic builds healthier soils, stores 25% more carbon, and has a greater capacity to improve water infiltration and retention to enhance the land’s resilience against extreme weather events. These benefits are critical in helping the UK achieve its environmental and agricultural goals,” it read.
He added that organic farming “embodies this approach while reducing dependency on external inputs, whose availability and price will become more volatile in the face of greater global supply chain disruption”.
Kerr claimed that OF&G’s target of 10% of the UK’s agricultural industry being farmed organically, would align with the government environment’s ambitions, thereby constituting a greater agreement for its future prioritisation in policy and regulatory decisions.
OF&G is one of the largest control bodies in the UK, certifying over 50% of UK organic land and operating across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, including the Channel Islands and Isle of Man.
