Organic Farmers & Growers (OF&G) believes over-the-top rules regulating its organic certification process are putting potential UK organic farmers off, and that organic food production in the UK has no chance of fulfilling its potential unless the red-tape burden is eased.

OF&G chairman Charles Peers has expressed his organisation's concerns in a letter to Defra secretary of state Margaret Beckett, and has appealed for an urgent and thorough overhaul of the way organic production is certified.

In his letter, Peers complains that OF&G is obliged to ask farmers 'ridiculous questions' to fulfil its role as the country's second biggest organic certification body.

'Because the regulations say so, we have to ask pig farmers, for example, whether their animals have access to hay or silage, for goodness sake,' said Peers.

'Frankly, questions like this make us look stupid, but we have no choice but to ask them if we're to meet our obligations.' Peers wants the government to realise that over-regulation is a major deterrent to those wanting to invest in the organic market and production of organic food.

'Of course consumers must be able to trust that what they are buying as organic genuinely is organic,' he said. 'But this has to be achieved in a much less heavy-handed way, otherwise it jeopardises the very existence, never mind development, of UK organic food production.'

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