Examination of witnesses (Questions 320
- 335)
WEDNESDAY 12 JULY 2000
MR NICK
BRADLEY, MRS
JOANNA COMLEY
and MR OLIVER
WATSON
Mr Todd
320. Finding the eggs must be a tough job.
(Mrs Comley) We tend to find chicks this time of year,
we do not find eggs. That is what people perceive to be proper
free range. I could sell ten times more eggs than I produce. What
is somebody's ideal? I do not know.
Mr Opik
321. Mr Watson?
(Mr Watson) Sorry, what was the question?
322. What motivates people to buy organic stuff
locally, stuff that is locally produced?
(Mr Watson) When you look at these market surveys
of reasons for people buying organic foods, they are almost always
headed by personal self-interest, they want to live longer, so
there are the health issues. Then there are all the other ones
like the animal welfare ones and environmental factors. You are
getting a whole lot of intelligent organic consumers now who are
thinking about things like free trade, which is something that
is in the IFOAM principles, which does not figure very highly
in some of the supermarket stuff. There is a whole sector of people
who are concerned about this type of thing and these people are
aware of the whole package of organics. What worries me is that
some of the products do not really deserve the symbol.
Mr Opik: Thank you.
Chairman
323. Mr Watson, you are registered with the
Soil Association, are you not?
(Mr Watson) Yes.
324. Mrs Comley and Mr Bradley are Organic Farmers
and Growers. What led you to choose your respective certification
agencies given that we know they are UKROFS eventually but really
they are your immediate interlocutors?
(Mrs Comley) We got the standards from both of them
when we started looking at it and Organic Farmers and Growers
just seemed to be more farmer friendly.
(Mr Bradley) I got the impression that Organic Farmers
and Growers were more practical and the Soil Association more
ideological.
325. Did you get a sense from the Soil Association
that it was a bit messianic for your tastes?
(Mr Bradley) No.
(Mr Watson) I would agree with Nick's sweeping statement
about the Soil Association. That is a basic distinction. I would
say now with the recent UKROFS regulations the differences between
OFG and the Soil Association are going to be less and less. Why
did we choose the Soil Association? I think they were the only
one that was seriously around when we started. I do think they
embody the philosophy more than some of the other organisations.
326. So in a sense it is not really that you
feel that certain standards are more suitable for certain types
of farmers, it is almost a philosophy that you feel comfortable
with?
(Mrs Comley) Yes.
327. Is that fair to say, that you felt at ease
with that sort of approach?
(Mrs Comley) Yes.
328. Mr Bradley, you said that confusion over
standards had led you to a partial withdrawal from conversion.
Can you tell us in a little bit more detail what the problem was
that led you to withdrawing? This is an important part of our
inquiry.
(Mr Bradley) It had to do with the design of the building
which in the case of a poultry enterprise is quite a significant
investment. Every sector body, every body associated with organic
farming, that I encountered gave me different interpretations
of the rules. I simply did not want to go ahead on that basis
until such time as it became clearer. I withheld the application
and I wait for the regulations to become more clearly defined.
329. You may continue eventually but at the
moment you feel that the whole thing is a little too confusing
and you have enough on your plate at the moment, as it were?
(Mr Bradley) At the moment, yes.
330. And your experience with the regulatory
system and the way inspections are carried out, any comments that
come to mind?
(Mrs Comley) We had our second visit in April and
he was there for over six hours. He went round the farm and went
through all of our records. It was fine, he was friendly. He was
giving advice as well, although he is not supposed to, saying
"if you do it this way it would be a lot simpler for us to
see". He was very helpful. It was not a problem.
331. Could I make a statement and see whether
you agree with it, to try to sum up. The designation "organic"
refers to a method of production and that is all it refers to
strictly speaking. You went into it partly because you wanted
to survive in farming. You have said quite explicitly, Mrs Comley,
you were beginning to doubt whether you could manage without making
some sort of move, and Mr Bradley said as well, and Mr Watson
in this sense is the pioneer here. Obviously if you were not able
to survive or make a proper livelihood as a businessman you would
not be in organic farming, but at the same time you have benefitted
because organic farming summarises and encapsulates a certain
public mood at the moment which is concerned about the environment,
which is concerned about animal welfare and which is concerned
about health. One of the advantages of the organic movement is
that it has managed, as it were, to encapsulate and sum up in
a sense that general public mood so you are riding with the marketing
tide.
(Mrs Comley) Yes.
332. Is that fair? I am trying to be as fair
as I possibly can.
(Mr Watson) Yes.
(Mr Bradley) Yes.
333. None of you are tempted by the Biodynamic
Association? Have you come across the Biodynamic Association?
(Mr Watson) I know about them.
334. I think they invite you to plant according
to the astrological table.
(Mr Watson) If you had listened to Rudolf Steiner
you would not have had the BSE thing. He was the pioneer of biodynamics.
He said in 1919 that if you fed cow flesh to cows it would drive
them mad. He got a lot of things right but I am not about to go
into it, it is pretty exacting.
335. Thank you very much for coming to see us.
I am sorry that you had to give evidence in a room in which aromas
of what smells like beef are coming up from the Churchill Room.
I have no idea what the origin of the beef is or the methods by
which it was raised. I hope you have not found it too much of
a Chinese torture. We will send you the transcript. If you feel
there are points you would have liked to have made, or you would
like to re-express what you said, please do let us know. This
is not a trial, we are trying to get information to help our own
inquiry. We are very grateful to you for coming to see us. We
are going out to look at actual production in the field as well.
We are trying to combine, if you like, the academic, the theoretical
and the practical and no doubt getting in there somehow will be
the political as well, but that is our job. Thank you very much
indeed for coming.
(Mr Watson) Can I just make my statement now? I have
got one thing to say that will be very short. Whatever you decide
to do can you try to make it as bureaucratically simple as possible.
One thing that has come through in the entire two hours that I
have been sitting here is that certainty and predictability are
the main things farmers want so they know where they are.
(Mrs Comley) I second that.
Chairman: I think the other key thing is we
have talked a lot about premia but, in fact, what matters to you
is the price you get for your product. At the moment that represents
a premium over what conventional farmers are earning but in a
sense that is a red herring, what matters is the price you get,
not the differential over conventional farmers. That might influence
the rate at which people convert, or the numbers coming forward
to conversion, but as far as you are concerned it is the price.
Thank you very much indeed.
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