Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380
- 399)
WEDNESDAY 25 OCTOBER 2000
MR RON
GREEN, MR
GRAHAM KEATING
AND MR
KARL TUCKER
380. That is why I am asking the question.
(Mr Green) I have had an answer, it was about six
months late. It still did not really satisfy me as to how they
were going to police and stop the letter that I had actually heard
of from the Soil Association Inspector. It is that, what happens
to that process. I do not know if it was a fresh produce packer
or a processor but something was wrong there. I do not want it
to go public but I just want it to not happen again. I think it
would be very dangerous if it went public. No-one gave me an answer
as to what it was.
381. Your analogy, in a sense, is that you do
not want an argument about what is GM free or not GM free to start
filtering through into the organics. Is that the whole analogy?
(Mr Green) With the type of process that Graham is
processing, I know of some of the mixed processors where, as Graham
says, they can wash down all their plants and make a batch every
day perhaps. Fresh produce, when you have got perhaps 20 lines
or 30 lines and you are making relatively small runs and it is
all in the same store, and some of these guys have got it in the
same store as conventional, I can see the problems. It is just
horrific to police. Self-policing is frightening. When I heard
this inspector, what he said, it horrified me and I still have
not got an answer on it yet. I have not given up getting an answer.
382. We may need to explore that.
(Mr Green) Yes.
383. Mr Keating, the present regulations for
organic products do allow them to contain non organic processing
aids, additives and ingredients. I would just like again to draw
the analogy. I think even the most stringent retailers of non
GM have a tolerance for a small element of GM. Now one should
not take the analogy too far because it is a different chemistry
here. Should this tolerance continue or do you think your sector
of the market could deliver 100 per cent organic absolutely?
(Mr Keating) At the moment probably no. There are
certain natural flavours which are natural flavours which cannot
be gained organically but within eight to 12 months I believe
they will be and we are actively pursuing that to attain the 100
per cent. Wherever possible we have been working with the Soil
Association to try and help them formulate their views as well
as to react to what we think the market wants.
384. It is an ambition but not current aspiration?
(Mr Keating) It is an aspiration, it is not a current
reality at the moment. There are very few small items we use.
Mr Jack: I recently attended the HRI Conference,
Opportunities and Challenges at Ashford over organic fruit supply.
Over lunch I was astounded to learn that, for example, in Germany
there appear to be little "work arounds" which are available
at the level of the grower to provide perhaps non-organic treatments
to deal with pests, diseases and problems which do not appear
to be available to people in the United Kingdom. I really want
to ask the question, when we use this generic term "organics",
and perhaps Mr Green can comment in case he has 52 weeks of the
year availability using imported produce, are you satisfied that
what we have in terms of our certification processes under our
regulations as organic are replicated with the same degree of
integrity throughout all other sources of supply? This story about
Germany gave me the impression—as I say I am open to correction—that
there were facilities to get round some of the regulations that
we have and yet the output of those producers would still be classed
as organic under the European Regulation regime that the Chairman
has just been discussing.
Chairman
385. Can you "organify" crops?
(Mr Keating) I think there are stories of this nature.
We have taken the view that as a business we have put great faith
in the Soil Association's standards. We are certified by the Soil
Association. Our fruit processor in the UK who takes the fruit
and cooks it is also certified. We have taken it a stage further,
because we have built a long term relationship with them, our
fruit supplier is part of a business trust who are into organic
dairy farming, organic cheese manufacturing and organic dessert
manufacturing also and, therefore, they have added their own weight
of checks. So, unlike probably many consumers or buyers of fruit,
for example, from abroad so far this year we have had nine visits
out to the field and I can reel off the names of the number of
fruit growers and where they are, which fields they grow from.
We have effectively used the Soil Association rules and then added
our own integrity checks. That is something, because we have been
doing it for a long time, we have been able to do. So we feel
confident that our house is in order and we are not seeing products
that are going around the regulations. It comes back to as demand
is there will other manufacturers or processors use the same sort
of checks. I will leave it for the Committee to decide.
Mr Jack
386. Without asking you to comment on other
people, you think it will be useful—as part of our inquiry—to
probe further whether there is a uniformity of standard right
across what we call organics currently? You have heard some stories,
I have heard some stories. Mr Green?
(Mr Green) There is a standard, a European standard
but it is minimal standard. The Soil Association have got a standard
that is slightly above that on certain things. We are the same
as Graham, we are the Soil Association and all our suppliers from
abroad have to be compatible with the regulations of the Soil
Association. If we are importing from Sicily, wherever he is a
member of, the company which is certifying has to be compatible
with the Soil Association. We get that checked with the Soil Association
first and say "If we are going to trade with this company,
are their rules the same as the Soil Association?" The Soil
Association say "Yes, they are okay. They have been checked
and they are fine".
Chairman
387. The consequence of that, if you do insist
that the higher standards be met, is then necessarily, as a consequence,
more public money is required to help people convert for the UK?
In a sense that is a policy which inevitably requires more public
money to be devoted to the conversion process?
(Mr Green) Yes.
(Mr Keating) Not just public money but if there are
on-going on-costs of a higher standard then as a purchaser one
has to fund those as well in terms of the purchase price.
388. If one of your organic consumers was to
holiday on the continent, you would say "You had better be
careful buying organic vegetables you might not be getting what
you are getting here"?
(Mr Tucker) There is an international body called
IFOAM—which is the International Federation of Organic Accreditation
Movements—which is working currently to get an international
standard of organic processing and growing applied throughout
the world. The Soil Association is hoping to form that body. Robert
Duxbury, behind us now, knows far more about it than I do. Certainly
we support that process of getting consistency and equivalence
across all national borders.
Mr Jack
389. Do I deduce from that, yes there are differences,
and are there any sources known to you where their current standards
outside the United Kingdom do not comply with ours and therefore,
by UK standards, would not be considered to be organic?
(Mr Tucker) In Europe they all comply to EC 2092/91
regulation which is the minimal standard for Europe. The other
bodies in America, etc., they have their own localised organic
accreditation systems. All of the fruit that we buy, for instance,
from South America, the Soil Association has visited and has done
an equivalence test with those bodies to make sure that their
standards are comparable and meet all the UK expectations. What
IFOAM is trying to do is trying to speed up the whole process
of accreditation to ensure that it is much easier to bring products
to the market.
Mr Drew
390. I think we have largely covered accreditation
but it would help me—because I am still struggling with
this map of who accredits whom—would you support one accrediting
body or is the very nature of the organic food supply that some
differentiation is helpful?
(Mr Keating) I think we would support the IFOAM standard
which is one standard. Accreditation bodies then become the checkers
and as long as they are being checked and are meeting the IFOAM
standards then that is acceptable. The Soil Association has a
huge workload because of the number of people wanting to convert.
There are some market forces at work available, if I want to go
to somebody else, I could go and get accredited by them. I choose
not to but that is simply because I believe the Soil Association
is the gold standard in the UK which we believe IFOAM will then
bring everyone up to.
391. Can I ask Mr Green, at the very least,
if you are a farmer converting, the number of different bodies
you could go to, one, for advice and, two, for accreditation is
a bit confusing.
(Mr Keating) Yes, I would accept that.
392. Mr Green?
(Mr Green) Yes, I would agree with that. It would
be much simpler if everyone was with IFOAM and we all knew where
we were. You could just talk to any company and say "Are
you IFOAM?" and they would say "Yes" and you would
know that you were safe to trade with them instead of having to
get all the certification sent to UKROFS to see if it goes through
our same standards so you can work with them. In an ideal world
if everyone was IFOAM there would not be a problem.
393. Would that overcome the conflict of interest?
(Mr Green) Yes.
394. The propagandism of organic as against
the accreditation or is that somewhat exaggerated?
(Mr Green) If you are talking about the amount of
bodies, I think it is six bodies in this country who can accredit—
395. They are all propagandising on behalf of
organic?
(Mr Green) Yes, that is right. I think whilst we have
got more than one person doing it, I would rather keep it with
more than one set of standards but to a minimum standard.
396. Mr Keating or Mr Tucker?
(Mr Tucker) The number of accreditation bodies is
confusing and the number of logos in general in the food world
is quite confusing. You get another six potential ones and UKROFS.
The most important thing is that consumers can have faith and
trust that if a product says it is organic and has got a logo
on it, one which they recognise, then that means that product
is organic and meets all the standards that they are expecting.
The key issue at the moment with the growth rate which is going
on is getting the number of trained and suitably qualified personnel
into these bodies to be able to make sure those standards and
that integrity is maintained. There could be a tendency to go
to OF&G for example because the Soil Association are being
slow but if everybody moves to one body the resources of the industry
will have to go there, whether it is one or five as long as it
is adequately resourced.
397. If I could go on now to look at your attitude
towards the Government. Perhaps starting with you, Mr Green. Could
you sum up very quickly what you see the role of Government being
in the area of organic farming?
(Mr Green) With the body of UKROFS, it just seems
to be a body that is sitting there and doing not a lot at the
moment. Certainly what we hear from the growers is that on the
continent, if you look at the statistics on what those growers
receive compared with UK subsidies, they do not get a lot. I think
the Government needs to look into some of the ideas which have
been put forward on how the Government can help the growers instead
of just putting language in like "set aside".
(Mr Keating) We asked the question should MAFF or
the Government have a specific role in trying to shepherd the
growth of organic agriculture in the UK. Taking the example of
Denmark and Sweden where—now merged—MD Foods and Arla
were very strong dominant co-operatives trying to convert farmers
and trying to keep pace with that, they have broadly succeeded.
They have actually overshot the mark, they have excess organic
milk at the moment. The concern we have in the UK is that the
opportunity to miss a trick and not have enough milk or get too
many people to convert and end up having wasted effort is enormous.
Probably going forward, as UK organic supply grows, the whole
supply chain for it, the growth of organic cereals to feed the
cattle in winter and so on is a huge chain which at the moment
is not being addressed. We are going for the first hit, we are
going for the dairy farmers but what happens to the cows which
are not required to replenish the herds, is there a route that
they could be fed to produce beef cattle? How is that process
managed? At the moment there is no real control or guidance and
certainly there will be a huge shortage in the UK of organic cereal
to feed the organic beef and dairy cattle. Therefore, who is managing
that, who is going to steer that? Is that a Government thing?
We believe the Government has an opportunity, for example through
the opportunity of changing set aside, towards putting set aside
towards organic cereal manufacture where you have a lower yield
anyway which is achieving the goal of set aside. Is that a route
that can be pushed forward from Government? It costs no more money,
gets the UK agricultural land making money, employing people,
ensuring our balance of payment is advantaged.
398. Clearly you would both advocate a role
for Government in terms of helping the conversion. Can I just
be clear about the subsidy situation post conversion. Do you think
that, as happens in other countries, Government does provide some
support either overtly or covertly? What is your view, maybe it
is sectoral?
(Mr Green) I agree. Obviously if you can do it without
spending any more money like set aside then that route should
be taken.
399. Realistically speaking?
(Mr Green) Why is it not realistic?
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