West: Organic farming

Esmond Holden
Politics Show West

Oliver Dowding is worried about cheap organic imports from Eastern Europe

A quarter of Britain's 4000 organic farmers are based here in the South West and more are converting their land each month.

It is far and away the biggest organic food area in the country.

With government subsidies at an all time high to help with the five year conversion all should be rosy in the organic garden.

Organic conversions (farms and ha) since 1999 Cornwall: 127 / 84,000 Devon: 359 / 359,000 Dorset: 124 / 9,000 Gloucestershire: 120 / 8,000 Avon: 52 / 4,000 Somerset: 117 / 8,000 Wiltshire: 149 / 14,000

But the truth is there's a gloomy besieged mentality growing among some of our farmers and they're leaving the scheme in droves.

The number applying to join has fallen from 250 a month to 40 according to the UK based Organic Monitor.

The National Farmers Union estimates a third of organic farmers are losing money and yet sales are up. So has the organic bubble burst?

Well there's both optimism and pessimism according to Simon Weatherall from Manor farm in Somerset.

He's nearly finished his five year conversion scheme but as soon as he does he's going back to conventional farming.

Has the bubble burst?

Simon said, "I did organic vegetables two years ago and overnight the market collapsed.

"This is due to large scale production in Eastern Europe with cheap labour.

"The biggest cost is labour, it's far more labour intensive"

Cheap imports are one of the biggest threats. But there are other problems.

Many farmers who were already faced with going out of business rushed to join the scheme when the government started pumping money into it four years ago.

So far it's paid out £48m to farmers as part of a £140m scheme.

Simon is returning to conventional farming after his five year organic conversion scheme ends

But Simon Weatherall says this rush to eco friendly farming caused a glut of food on the shelves, allowing supermarkets to squeeze the price and further reduce margins.

"A lot of farmers thought of it as a life line.

"They thought I'm losing money, I see this huge margin but it never materialised.

"There was no marketing structure. I think It was the death nell for many farmers"

Doubts at the top?

If we don't support British farmers food production will move abroad. Oliver Dowding

Oliver Dowding from Shepton Montague in Somerset is the Chairman of the NFU Organics Committee. He converted 14 years ago.

"If we don't support our farmers here we will see food production move abroad.

"Just as we've seen it with steel and coal and other industries.

"We thought it couldn't happen but I'm afraid it has happened"

Simon Weatherall thinks the organic bubble has burst

He wants consumers to wake up and smell the cornflakes. Cereals from abroad for example are driving our farmers out of business.

"If they want our people to work for the sort of wages a Pole works for they should buy the Polish product because we will surely have Polish wages before long"

However he is optimistic for the future. Overall organic farming is still growing and the market is expanding but he says the public have to start making serious decisions.

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