Examination of Witness (Questions 104
- 119)
WEDNESDAY 5 JULY 2000
DR NICOLAS
LAMPKIN
Chairman
104. Dr Lampkin, thank you for coming.
(Dr Lampkin) I do apologise for the delay. It was
Railtrack on this occasion.
105. Can we begin by looking at the paragraph
you have labelled "Other issues" in your paper? "The
lack of any questions in this Inquiry concerning the benefits
of organic farming to society (environment, animal welfare, rural
development, food quality and health) is a cause for concern as
it implies a lack of recognition of the potential contribution
of organic farming in this regard and an over-emphasis on marketing
and related issues." What is the proof that any of those
things are valid?
(Dr Lampkin) The reason for it is because the whole
concept of organic farming has been developed to meet environmental,
animal welfare and other particular goals which are goals for
society as well as for the individual farmer. The market developed
solely as a means for achieving that at a time when there was
no policy support for organic farming from government. In fact,
there was active opposition from government to the development
of the organic concept in its early stages. The market was developed
by producers as a means to support them, compensating producers
for the internalisation of external costs. The risk at the moment
is that the market itself is taking over as the main, overall
objective, which is not what organic farming was about in the
first place. As far as evidence is concerned, there is now a very
substantial body of evidence not only from the United Kingdom
but also from other countries relating to the environmental performance
of organic farms. I have been asked to bring copies of our reports
to the Committee. I have them with me. One of those reports is
a review of all the environmental evidence across Europe and it
is now a fairly substantial body of evidence. Clearly countries
like Denmark, the European Commission and a number of others see
it as the most important aspect of organic farming.
106. Your thesis is that the pioneers went into
organic really because they wanted to farm in a certain way. They
thought that was a way which was more friendly to society and
a benefit to society. They were not in it for the money.
(Dr Lampkin) That is right.
107. Now you are saying there is a danger that
people are going into it for the money. When I talk to a farmer
who is thinking about going organic, the lure in front of his
eyes is 30p a litre on his milk. He does not say to me, "There
are some really good societal benefits to be got from this."
He says, "My God, I can make a bob or two." Is he wrong?
(Dr Lampkin) The issue with the farmer going in is
that there is a balance of motives behind a farmer who goes into
conversion. A farmer may well be motivated by environmental and
animal welfare reasons, but it may be the price and the potential
profitability of organic farming which gives that farmer the confidence
to undertake the conversion. There is always a mix and I do not
believe that there is a purely financial motive situation in most
cases, even amongst the farmers that are currently converting.
108. If you claim that there is a public policy
benefit from organic, how would you quantify that in such a way
that the farmer can be rewarded for delivering the most public
benefit?
(Dr Lampkin) That poses a methodology problem which
researchers have not yet addressed adequately. The reason for
that is that the environmental benefits and other benefits which
organic farming offers tend to be wide ranging but at a smaller
level than you might get from a more targeted policy, where you
are focusing on a single objective which you could really quantify.
What we have not got is a good system for assessing total environmental
quality across different farm types in order to relate that directly
to policy payments.
109. You mention in paragraph nine why consumers
buy organic foods. How confident can consumers be of encouraging
what you describe as "more altruistic concerns such as environmental
protection, animal welfare and social justice ..."? I can
understand somebody buying a product thinking of animal welfare
and I suppose I can think about it being more environmentally
friendly, but I find it difficult to conceive of somebody buying
organic produce for reasons of social justice.
(Dr Lampkin) They do very clearly through the fair
trade system. There are a lot of fair trade products which are
also organic. As far as imports of coffee, cocoa and a range of
other products from developing countries are concerned, the two
things are very closely linked. The whole emphasis now on organic
banana production in the Windward Islands also has a social justice
element to it. There are concrete things taking place in the market
which link organic production with social justice. There are also
social justice provisions within the international organic farming
standards which are not incorporated into the EU regulations.
Mr Jack
110. You almost seem to be categorising ethical
and non-ethical organic growers. There are some who have seen
the way that the market is developing with requests from food
retailers if they cannot get enough of a material that follows
an organic grain regime and therefore the market reacts and people
move in, but they may not share some of the objectives which you
detail in paragraph nine. If we talk about the pioneers, are they
the ethical and are the late comers the non-ethical?
(Dr Lampkin) No. I was trying to argue that point
earlier. As far as farmers going into the business, most of them
will have a mix of ethical and financial objectives, but the newcomers
may need more security on the financial side to be able to take
it on. Therefore, they may be giving more emphasis to the financial
side, but I believe that farmers in particular will have a mix
of those ethical and financial objectives when they take the decision
to convert.
111. Does it matter for what reasons you do
it?
(Dr Lampkin) I do not think, as far as farmers getting
involved is concerned, that that matters very strongly because
the evidence that I have, to a large extent anecdotal but some
research evidence too, is that once the farmers are getting involved,
once they are confronting themselves with all the standards and
why the standards are set as they are, they become much more interested
and involved in the ethical side of organic farming than they
might have been when they first started considering conversion.
Where my concern lies and the reason for raising the point with
the Committee is the political perceptions, the policy perceptions,
of organic farming and also the role that the major companies
have that are currently getting involved in the market, as to
whether they respect those ethical ideals. If there is on the
part of companies a failure to respect those ethical ideals, consumer
confidence in organic farming and organic food standards will
eventually be weakened. From the policy point of view, solely
looking at it in terms of the market misses the whole point that
we need to get a balance between policy and taxpayer and consumer
willingness to pay in supporting the organic industry in terms
of its benefits. I raised in my paper the whole issue of whether
it is relevant to expect a small minority of consumers to fund
the environmental benefits and other benefits which are accruing
to society as a whole.
112. You have talked about the less developed
world. In many cases, there are both animal and plant diseases
which can just wipe out a whole community's food supply at a stroke.
It may well be that somebody using a modern, for example, agrochemical
technique or some kind of animal treatment might be able to secure
with security the food supply in that less developed environment,
as opposed to traditional forms of agriculture. Which is more
ethical, the survival of the large number of people who will gain
by the application of the modern technique or the higher risk
factor which pertains by the use of the traditional (organic)
technique?
(Dr Lampkin) Firstly, if you are talking about developing
countries, you need to distinguish between subsistence agriculture
and commercial or plantation type systems designed for export
markets. If I take the subsistence agriculture case first, you
are dealing in most cases with resource poor farmers who do not
have the resources to buy many of the modern inputs or, if they
can get access to them, they are often presented in harmful ways—for
example, containers which are normally split into paper bags and
distributed in that way. There are significant risks to people.
They do not have the resources and what people are arguing in
the context of organic farming in developing countries is that,
by using ecological principles, farmers have the potential to
improve productivity and reduce risk. Jules Pretty and various
other people represent that point of view quite strongly.
113. Let us assume the practical problems that
you have outlined in the administration of the output of the chemical
industry can be overcome. We faced the same problem here. We had
an inquiry into organic phosphate dips and one of the questions
was the safety of the container. That has been resolved. We know
that technically it can be resolved but I come back to this question
of the ethics of it, because it is unusual to have an agricultural
regime determined by an ethical philosophy. I can understand the
point you made that there may be environmental benefits and animal
welfare benefits, because those effectively are measurable and
quantifiable. There may be other evidence in paragraph nine of
your evidence which are not easily quantifiable, but those may
well be. Saving lives by the use of modern chemicals or pesticides,
whatever process it happens to be, is of a higher order than the
adoption of a particular agricultural regime. You seem to be suggesting
something different.
(Dr Lampkin) Yes. I am suggesting that the evidence
is, where the ecological principles that underpin organic farming
have been applied in developing countries, the systems are more
sustainable, they are often more productive than what has been
possible without chemical inputs and certainly there is reduced
risk to the farmers from the possibility of poisoning from the
use of the chemicals.
114. That may be because they are better farmers
by virtue of somebody coming and saying, "Do this in a different
way".
(Dr Lampkin) There are all sorts of factors involved
in it. Perhaps we do not have the time to go into considerable
detail on that. It is not a situation that we are dealing with
in this country of reduced use. Again, I would refer you to Jules
Pretty's work, for example. The evidence certainly seems to be
that there is significant potential to increase productivity in
developing countries by using the ecological principles that underpin
organic farming.
Mr Todd
115. You gave a list of benefits that you felt
we might not be exploring in this inquiry. Among them was animal
welfare. Sadly, you missed the previous witness who directly contradicted
that and made it absolutely clear that certainly under the new
proposed livestock regulations governing organic farming there
were significant risks, both from a reliance on homeopathic veterinary
products which are unproven and from a complete ban on certain
other products which deal with substantial diseases, worms, liver
fluke, fly strike and so on, that those will be barred from use
in organic farming, clearly to the detriment of the animals involved.
Are you aware of that evidence?
(Dr Lampkin) I am not aware of the evidence but I
am aware that there is potential for misunderstanding or misinformation
about the regulation. To my knowledge, the regulations do not
specifically prohibit completely all of those products that you
have mentioned. There are circumstances where, under all—
116. Can I read the phrase that is quoted from
the standards? "The use of chemically synthesised, allopathic
veterinary surgeon medicinal products or antibiotics for preventive
treatments is prohibited."
(Dr Lampkin) There are several factors to that. One
of the most important ones is the development of resistance to
those products. We have seen it with antibiotics; we have seen
it with anthelminthics and so on. There is a major problem with
the development of resistance. We are doing research at Aberystwyth
on the development of alternative approaches for parasite control.
It is very clear, both through strategic use of different products
but also through the management of the system in terms of its
ecology, that there is a lot of potential to reduce that particular
problem. I do not accept at the moment that the organic standards
represent a welfare problem.
117. But these are standards that will be imposed
in six weeks' time and you say, "We are doing some research
and there is certainly potential for some of these alternatives."
That sounds a bit of an inadequate pitch when facing the effect
of a total ban, does it not?
(Dr Lampkin) If an animal is ill, these products can
be used for treatment and that is a very important factor. There
is no problem with using products for treatment other than the
restriction on the number of times the treatments may be applied.
118. Which, in certain environments, may be
quite frequent.
(Dr Lampkin) What organic farming seeks to emphasise
is that preventive management should be the primary route to achieving
health care and not preventive treatment. I would just ask you
to think a minute about human health. There are very few instances
where we would regularly take pharmaceuticals or medication in
order to prevent a disease occurring unless we had already identified
a very high risk of that happening. We would be looking to address
hygiene, exercise, nutrition and a whole range of other factors
first and I would say that agriculture has in the past covered
up for mistakes in management by the ease with which preventive
pharmaceuticals can be used. The objective of organic farming
is to reduce that significantly. That is also now an objective
of MAFF and its research programmes, to move away from these products.
I think the standards are not very much out of line with where
government policy would like to go.
119. The assertion that we clearly heard was
that these standards were inappropriate for upland, livestock
farming. They might be appropriate in lowland areas where some
of these problems are much, much less prevalent, but they are
clearly inappropriate in upland areas. Therefore, livestock farming
using organic methods in upland areas, hill farming, is going
to be virtually impossible with these regulations because of the
impact of—
(Dr Lampkin) I would disagree with that evidence quite
strongly. One, the research at ADAS Redesdale has shown the extent
to which it is possible to do it in a hill environment. You are
very often dealing with a whole range of situations like very
much lower stocking rates in the hills. I accept that it is more
difficult to achieve clean grazing systems, but again I refer
you back to the work that we are doing with ADAS and the Scottish
Agricultural College on parasite control.
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