Countryside Minister Elliot Morley said the review could result in more novernment financial support for organic food producers.

The government currently hands out £6.5m a year to farmers to help them to convert to organic methods, which usually takes about three years.

Mr Morley, in an interview with BBC1's Countryfile programme said: "I think at the moment the expansion of the organic sector is very much in line with market demand and indeed it's been going very strongly.

Charlotte Smith follows one family's attempt to go organic

"So strongly that we will be reviewing the amount of support we put into the organic sector and if we think that support is not right, if we think that demand is stronger than we thought, we will take appropriate action to adjust that."

Organic demand grows

The message of support for organic farmers and those wanting to switch to organic methods comes at a time when Britain's major supermarkets are increasing their organic product lines, and organic consumption is up by about 40%.

Anti-GM and environmental campaigners are pressing the Government to hit a target of 10% of all food being organic by 2005.

Baroness Thornton of the British Retail Consortium, representing 90% of all UK retailers, said: "The supermarkets would love to have more organic foods. The demand is there and what the supermarkets want to do is work with farmers to reduce the production costs and that will reduce costs and increase the availability."

Organic food production in the UK still only accounts for 1% of all food production but is currently worth about £400m a year while 75% of organic food sold in the UK is imported.

'Long overdue'

Adrian Bebb, food campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "Increased government backing for organic farming is long overdue. But it will mean little if the government allows the movement to be destroyed by pollution from GM crops. We can move towards organic food or further down the dangerous road to intensive chemical farming, but we can't do both."

A Ministry of Agriculture spokeswoman said later that the present financial aid package for farmers converting to organic had only been in place for three months after a review of the previous system.

She said: "There are no plans at the present time to undertake a review of the financial assistance provided to the organic farming sector, but as Mr Morley has said, the government would of course reassess the situation if the circumstances changed."