The Organic Trade Board’s aim to double the value of the organic market within the next five years received a mixed reception at the Soil Association’s conference on Tuesday.
At a workshop entitled ‘Trade - Business as usual or change’ one delegate attacked the board, describing its target as “pitiful and unrelated”.
“Until conventional farming is changed there is no way forward,” he told the room. “We need to be coherent. Supermarkets are not going to be dismantled in the next decade - we need to address this…
“If we are not coherent as an industry in telling [the government] to dismantle conventional farming, we will get nowhere.”
Chantelle Ludski, secretary of OTB and chair of the workshop, told delegates that the OTB is lobbying the government about dismantling conventional agriculture, as well as aiming to double the organic market.
But Guy Watson of the Riverford Box Scheme was also dubious of the OTB’s ambition. “Assuming that we need continued growth is where a lot of our problems lie,” he said. “People are getting our values and food is a central part to that. Our marketing and how we can achieve double sales - which by the way I think is extremely unlikely at the moment - is all about small groups of people engaged around food.”
It was revealed earlier in the conference that a total of 110 supermarket buyers control food produced by 3.2 billion farmers. One delegate felt that the animosity towards the major retailers at the meeting was unproductive. “By constantly knocking the powerful supermarkets, we are doing ourselves no favours,” said one delegate. “If we want to get double the products into market, then we need the supermarkets. It is the quickest way to market.”
Patrick O’Flaherty of organic juice processor RDA Organic and member of OTB retorted: “The OTB wants to work with supermarkets and distribution outlets. One thing we all want to do is increase organic growth.
“Undermining supermarkets is not going to help us. Supermarkets may not be the right tool and we have others. We have got to all work together. We worked with the Soil Association to create OTB - let’s get behind it.”
