Consumers still eat it up — but more and more farmers are deserting organic, complaining that it costs a fortune and rowing with the Soil Association. Susanna Rustin put on her wellies to find out why they’re down on the farm
Darren and Julia Quenault took their first
delivery of non-organic cattle feed a few weeks ago. After nine years of
organic dairy farming, they decided to convert back to conventional, and give
up their organic status, at the end of last year.
The
reason was simple. “Cattle feed costs were excruciatingly expensive and we just
couldn’t absorb them,” says Julia. “We’re saving £1,800 a month. We couldn’t
have continued, we would have had to put up prices significantly, and we didn’t
feel we could burden consumers with an extra 12% on the price of milk.”
The
Quenaults are not alone. Even as demand for organic food remains high, the
farmers producing it are falling by the wayside. And the results of their
transition might cause anyone else considering it to think hard. Since they
made the switch almost eight weeks ago, sales of the milk, cheese, cream and
ice cream produced by the couple, their 60 Jersey cows and 10 staff (including
their son) have held up.
And yet organic
remains a powerful brand. So what are farmers like the Quenaults to
conclude?......To Read More....
My Take - I find it ironic that feed costs have
escalated all over the world due to another greenie fiasco - biofuels,
especially corn ethanol - where we're putting food in our gas tanks? Name one
green initiative that hasn't turned out to be based on intellectual clabber that gives the world dystopia - misery, poverty, disease and early death instead of the utopian lie they knowingly and fraudulently promise. Whether it’s pesticides, organic farming or
energy, the green movement has been only successful in the being wrong – and deadly!
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