Examination of witnesses (Questions 300
- 319)
WEDNESDAY 12 JULY 2000
MR NICK
BRADLEY, MRS
JOANNA COMLEY
and MR OLIVER
WATSON
300. You would get on to the land and knock
the hell out of them.
(Mr Bradley) That is my understanding.
Mr Hurst
301. Mr Watson, I think you are the earliest
into this field of the three of you and you sell through farm
shops and the Box Scheme. You, Mrs Comley, are going through the
Co-op. What ideas do you have about how you will market your product,
your crops, Mr Bradley?
(Mr Bradley) The merchant to whom I sell my wheat
at the moment will be starting to trade in organic wheat. I am
getting a lot of advice, admittedly in the early stages from the
consultancy company I have been involved with to date. I expect
more advice to be available when the time comes.
302. Will you be selling in a fundamentally
different way from the way you sold before?
(Mr Bradley) No, I do not think I will really. I have
not got to that point really.
303. You are way down, yes. Mr Watson, is direct
marketing through farm shops the best way to selling organic products,
in your view?
(Mr Watson) I can only refer you again to the IFOAM
principles which talk about development of local economies, food
marts, packaging, all sorts of stuff, so in some respects selling
things locally and the shortening of the food chain and easing
the problems of traceability is the only way to sell truly organic
food. It is something of a contradiction in highly packaged organic
food. If you look at why the organic movement ever started, it
was to develop or promote food that is wholesome and entire. Once
you start putting it through a thousand food processes you have
contravened one of those basic principles. It is a bit of a contradiction
really although I know what the reality of the situation is.
304. I see the point you make but we have a
very low percentage at the moment of organic farming producers
in the total amount of product and it is not likely to reach the
whole the country on the sort of methods that you propound.
(Mr Watson) There are other sorts of delivery systems.
The way a lot of these box schemes are working on Internet web
sites now might become a major way of delivering food. It is a
way of making food immediately traceable to a farm through such
systems as that. People do live all over the country as farmers
are distributed all over the country, so there is the potential
for a considerable development of local food networks.
305. Can I mention a word that usually comes
up in farming and that is supermarkets. Do you organic farmers
regard them as friends or enemies? This could be obtained confidentially,
Chairman! Mrs Comley?
(Mrs Comley) We need to work with them. We need to
have a return for our work and at the moment water is dearer in
the shops than milk and a lot more work goes into producing a
bottle of milk than a bottle of water.
306. With regard to the organic product, are
they being helpful at the moment in promoting organic product
in your experience?
(Mrs Comley) I would have thought so. They definitely
want to jump in on the bandwagon, no doubt about it.
307. While it is rolling.
(Mrs Comley) While it is rolling, yes.
308. Mr Bradley, what would your perception
be?
(Mr Bradley) Every time I go into supermarkets organic
product seems to take up a bigger shelf, but at the same time
the power they have is a disincentive to go into value-added schemes.
It will put people off.
309. Are you saying you should diversify in
terms of where you supply your products to?
(Mr Bradley) Yes. I think in the end that is what
will have to happen. That is what we are aiming for, depending
on the volume of product we have, but certainly I would be looking
at alternative ways of selling product.
310. What is your experience, Mr Watson, in
dealing with supermarkets?
(Mr Watson) I have not dealt with them directly because
my brother sells a large number of vegetables through pack-houses
so he does not have direct contact. Similarly, my milk goes to
OMSCo, but a large amount of that ends up in supermarkets so I
could not deny that I was a beneficiary of the whole supermarket
system. However, I do feel that supermarkets are falling over
one another to be seen to be green and I doubt what their long-term
commitment is. They are not driven by an ideology other than making
money.
311. I see Heinz are going to make their tomato
sauce green.
(Mr Watson) Does it not make you sick. It probably
will—still, there you go!
312. Why was it necessary to set up the Organic
Milk Suppliers Co-op? What was the motivating force?
(Mr Watson) The absence of any market. As I already
said, we were producing organic milk and we did not have any processing
facility. I was not terribly active in setting it up. I was one
of the initial members of OMSCo and all the credit goes to those
who got together and talked to processors and got some products
together—Yeo Valley Yoghurt, Alvis Brothers Cheddar and
Meadow Farm's carton milk—and it was a great collaborative
effort that got the whole thing off the ground.
Mr Todd
313. This is really to you Mr Watson. You run
a mature, successful business. I notice you offer advice to those
seeking to farm this way in Russia and Albania. Do you offer any
mentoring or advice to others in this sector within this country?
(Mr Watson) I work for the advisory mentoring system
that Joanna referred to and I think that is a really good system
because that developed as a response to lack of advice. There
were not any organic people with the knowledge around. I said
earlier on, the initial advice peddled five or six years ago was
quite poor. This is why OMSCo developed the system.
314. The reason I ask is you made the profoundly
sensible and seldom said statement that going organic does not
stop you having to be a good farmer and a good businessman to
succeed and practical experience of success, particularly in your
case doing it the hard way without the subsidies, would be immensely
valuable. One of the things that certainly worries me is that
there is an enthusiasm led by the current premia on the part of
people quite often desperate to stay in farming but anxious to
make some money somehow, without sometimes necessarily a grasp
of the business dimension that is necessary to make this a successful
venture in itself. Would you agree from your own observation of
those you have met in the mentoring process that there are some
more fundamental issues to be addressed than just how do we go
organic to collect these premia?
(Mr Watson) There are definitely some who are not
going to make it. However, I find it very encouraging. The organic
movement says it takes two years to convert the soil and five
years to convert the mind, and it is absolutely true that for
most farmers it does take them quite a while to change their thinking
around and they are quite vulnerable in that time with their inability
to ditch the old thinking.
315. That is slightly dangerous territory. If
you say there is two years to convert the soil and five years
to convert the mind—
(Mr Watson) You pay them for five years.
316. Do you subscribe to the ideological thrust
of planning and pressuring the development of more organic farming
in this country? You have heard of the Targets Bill that is being
proposed. Does that make sense in practical terms as someone who
has done it? You can be honest!
(Mr Watson) It is quite a long answer really. It depends
whether you think an objective of just developing organic farming
is a desirable thing in itself or whether you consider the output
of organic farming and all the social benefits to be the objective.
I think Mr Marsden asked a question in the last session in connection
with this which is that there are other ways of achieving those
ends, as has already been discussed, with countryside stewardship
and one thing and another. One has to say that the whole enterprise
of certifying and the bureaucratic implications of certifying
a large proportion of the nation's food supply through the organic
system are bound to be expensive, so I question that it is the
best way to achieve the ends. Personally I would like to see a
lot more farming practices banned across the whole of agriculture
and to try to raise the whole level of farming both in the food
supply and environmental things, banning certain chemicals, banning
certain animal welfare practices.
317. In other words, targeting specific objectives?
(Mr Watson) If a policy is directed towards achieving
those ends, if you see the development of organic farming as an
end in itself, which I do not think many people would, it is a
fairly arbitrary set of rules and the ideology is pretty arbitrary
where you decide to draw the line about something. Society should
be looking at the total output. There are certainly other ways
of achieving those ends, I must say, tax on plastics or something.
Mr Opik
318. In terms of local selling points, what
motivates people to buy organic produce locally in your judgment?
(Mrs Comley) Quality. What they perceive to be better
quality.
319. How would you define "quality"?
(Mrs Comley) I do not know. I sell free range eggs.
I have a few hens at the side of the road and an honesty box and
I get people coming from miles because they perceive them to be
better because my hens are running along the side of the road,
up in the hedge, in my garden, everywhere.
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