Examination of Witnesses (Questions 460
- 475)
WEDNESDAY 25 OCTOBER 2000
MR IAN
MERTON, MR
ROBERT DUXBURY
AND MR
BILL WADSWORTH
460. Some of your competitors have, I believe.
(Mr Merton) We have because you argue it is funding
in the OMSCo sense where we guarantee the price for five years
on milk. We had to put the money up front with our suppliers.
That was because we felt there was a genuine need and it would
not get off the ground otherwise. It is very difficult for us
to fund things that come along. We can normally find ways to solve
some of these problems. The key role for Government is to ensure
a level playing field, as I have said.
Mr Todd: Let us turn to the Targets Bill, which
is not purely about the level playing field, it is about the Government
setting precise targets for conversion and for consumption by
your customers of organic produce in a way that even Joseph Stalin
did not attempt.
Mr Öpik: Strong words.
Mr Drew: Where has Austin gone?
Mr Todd
461. I was intrigued that a large private sector
body should volunteer its support to the most dirigiste
proposal we have seen in quite a long time.
(Mr Merton) Again, I come back to the level playing
field. We were very worried about British agriculture anyway and
this was a way of trying to secure some support for British agriculture
to get a level playing field.
462. It does not provide support, it simply
says that the Government should tell you what you should eat.
(Mr Merton) It may do but—
Mr Drew
463. He is saying this tongue in cheek. We hope
he is anyway.
(Mr Merton) From our perspective we were doing it
solely through the level playing field approach because we were
concerned that we were at risk here.
Mr Todd
464. So it is fair to say that your support
is about, if you like, saluting the flag of organic farming and
the chosen mechanism at the moment is to have this Targets Bill
and it is appropriate to demonstrate support although you would
question the relationship of the precise targets to normal market
forces as a businessman.
(Mr Merton) I think we understand that unless there
is a social issue the Government wish to look at and obviously
that is something they wish to take into account.
465. I think many of my colleagues who have
signed this Bill were probably doing the same thing, saluting
the flag rather than necessarily supporting the mechanism proposed.
(Mr Wadsworth) Can I come to that, if you do not mind.
I think it is very important that one of the issues we have got
with organic development in the UK is lack of support perhaps
not just in terms of cash funding to agriculture in the UK but
in terms of support and helping people get information about how
they can convert and the usefulness of it. For me, certainly talking
about the subsidies and whether it should be subsidised, I think
we should be subsidising farmers to look after the landscape in
areas like Cumbria. I do really mean that. The Rural Development
Programme where you are helping people to convert and look after
that land and make it accessible to people is a social thing which
as a country we should do. If that means that we have a subsidy
to help those farmers stay on that land then that is something
we should have.
466. The Rural Development Programme is intended
to do that although one would question whether the financial levels
are adequate.
(Mr Wadsworth) That should be linked perhaps to organic.
467. Certainly it would have made a duller Bill
to have had it focused on the goals that people are actually seeking,
which are protection of our landscape and provision of proper
choice of organic produce, but it might have been one that more
people would have seen as being coherent with the actual supply
network in this country.
(Mr Wadsworth) The other thing it raises is awareness
that there is a big organic market out there. I think some people
do not believe that is the case. If we look at the agricultural
research funding we will find only 1.8 million for organic and
54 million for biotechnology. I understand from the people who
told me about the decision process that money is not made available
for organic production systems because it is a niche market. What
we are saying is by producing a figure like that it (ie the Targets
Bill) identifies that this is not a niche market and, therefore,
the people who are providing funding and looking at the way the
Government supports agriculture need to take account of the fact
that whether you provide a subsidy now or later or do not bother,
this market will grow, there will be a significant organic movement
within the UK and it is whether you want UK agriculture to be
part of that.
468. What sort of research projects would you
be talking about? I actually endorse what you have said.
(Mr Wadsworth) It is things we are working on abroad
in Kenya. In the farm they have got a beneficial insect farm alongside
the normal farm. They breed ladybirds and other beneficial insects,
hoover them up and spray them on to fields when they have a pest
problem. That is the sort of research. How you do that sort of
thing, how you transfer the benefits and the knowledge of organic
from one region to another within the UK, that would be really
useful. I do see a model starting to develop in Wales through
the Welsh Development Agency which looks promising. I do think
that the Government in most locations does not work to help the
people within the chain understand how they can get together and
work better together and get the benefits of their knowledge and
share it.
469. Would it not be better to encourage the
sponsors of the Bill to focus on practical proposals of that kind
and particularly dysfunctionality within the market chain and
how to deal with some of the problems there are which certainly
Government does have a role in, rather than naming some figures
which everyone can say are arbitrary, one of which implies that
all of us ought to be eating a particular thing which presumably
some of us might choose not to eat?
(Mr Wadsworth) I think this is a good exercise in
raising the profile of the debate and then you follow along behind
with some sort of practical solutions, as usual.
Mr Todd: That is a fair summary.
Mr Drew
470. Just a quick thing. We have slightly different
opinions on the issues, which have been well rehearsed in a number
of sessions. In terms of research, surely two of the areas in
which it would be most helpful are biodiversity and genuinely
teasing out whether organic does help biodiversity in ways which
conventional agriculture does not and try and embrace this idea
of nutritional standards? If you have got John Krebs making a
statement which you say you do not agree with, it would help.
Maybe this is idealistic but it would at least help if somebody
was looking into this in terms of nutritional standards, let alone
taste.
(Mr Duxbury) This is very interesting because we are
not now talking about organic any more. There are reverse learnings,
if you want to put it that way, that can be translated back into
the conventional area. The area of integrated pest control where
organic growers are having to use these substances, because they
are constrained by the standards, are also going to be faced up
to by conventional growers who are having more and more restrictions
upon their limits of their activities. I do not think it is necessarily
an organic/conventional disjointed thing, it has got to be working
together.
(Mr Wadsworth) One thing that organic provides in
terms of the nutritional side is the fact that in order to provide
an organic product you have to have a virtually integrated supply
chain because you need the traceability to prove it is organic.
Once you have got that then you can actually teach your consumer
about where your food comes from and how it is made. When we launch
the ice-cream on our website we have a picture of the farms and
the factory and how the product is made with explanations of the
processes involved, like homogenisation and pasteurisation. What
we are finding is there are a lot of consumers who are very interested
in finding out exactly where their food comes from and we believe
if you educate them into that you are going to lead into teaching
them about a better diet and perhaps what they should be eating
as a balanced diet and that is one of the benefits of organic
food as much as anything else.
Chairman
471. I have three crisp final questions, thank
you very much. At the Tory Party conference Sainsbury's put on
a presentation about organic food, which was widely attended,
a lot of people turned up, and one farmer, who was a delegate,
stood up as a delegate, but, in fact, he was an organic farmer
of long standing. He said, "We should realise that occasionally
we seem dotty." He quoted that he produced organic beef and,
I think I am right in saying, he was not allowed to sterilise
his knives. He could only do so using steam. He said, "Isn't
this barmy? Do we not make ourselves look a bit daft with this
sort of rule?" Would you agree that there are aspects of
organic rules which may be "slightly dotty"?
(Mr Duxbury) I think on face value, yes, but when
you go behind and look at the rationale for some of those reasons,
it does start to become logical. As to the example in this case,
I think the gentlemen was referring to the use of chlorine in
the washing and sterilisation of both equipment and fruit and
vegetables going into processing. Organic standards do not permit
that use of chlorine and, therefore, we have to acknowledge and
respect those standards and say, "No, this material cannot
be used." Indeed, many of our customers would not expect
the use of such inputs anyway. That is the kind of thing. Once
you get behind the issue you start to see the logic.
(Mr Wadsworth) In America they do use chlorine for
vegetable washing, but in Europe you are not allowed to. If you
were to import the product from America the inspection system
would have equivalence with the European standard, not the same,
different things will vary slightly, and chlorine is one of them.
We could have brought in frozen vegetables which have been processed
with the use of chlorine and it would have been accepted in the
United Kingdom, even though we could not do that ourselves in
the United Kingdom, and that seems strange.
472. We will probably write to you and ask you
for some more. We have some detailed questions on this which it
is not sensible to try and do in this form, but we will be writing
to you.
(Mr Wadsworth) As a retailer you take the position
that you cannot defend that view, so we stipulated that our American
suppliers could not use chlorine, so that at least it is consistent.
There is a level at which, when you move away from the basic organic
environmental programmes to things like biodiversity people started
to add into the standards things which may be beneficial for a
particular insect or animal, the question really is as to how
much, and that creates a significant cost impact on the farms.
An example of that is where people plough a field alongside trees.
Some people have suggested in the standards that we ought to leave
a space around the tree and go with the plough in an arc in order
to help biodiversity. There is a balance there between how much
benefit there is to biodiversity versus the cost impact to the
farmer applying that standard. That, again, is something that
will continue to be debated as to what is appropriate and at what
level. To one farmer that is dotty. To another farmer it is very
sensible.
473. That leads me on to my second question.
Would you accept that you can have very intensively farmed organic
farms so that the intensity may itself mean that there is precious
little in the way of wild life—and I realise that the environment
means more than just wild life, but you can have precious little—if
demand really is increasing very rapidly, and if you are all anxious
to source more of that at home, you may be encouraging intensive
development of organic farming, where in many other aspects of
farming we are talking increasingly of extensification?
(Mr Wadsworth) In terms of size of fields
and scale, some of our production units in America are large scale
with the big circular fields you see from the sky—125 acre
field—so that is large scale, but the actual work on those
farms is linked into biodiversity programmes. So, yes, you are
not having significant diverse flora and fauna on that one individual
field, it is how that is operated in its location and its local
geography and how the total impact biodiversity works which is
the benefit for the organics side.
474. Finally, may I ask you is the growth in
demand for organic food recession proof? Do you have any indication
of differential demand across the UK dependent upon economic functions
and disposable income within the different regions?
(Mr Wadsworth) If we are selling a product at the
same price then we see no issue.
475. But you are not selling at the same price.
(Mr Merton) No. The important thing is having the
choice and customers can decide. Yes, if there was less disposable
income, that would affect some people.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much indeed.
We seem to have got the noises off that are coming back again.
Thank you for giving evidence and thank you for your memos. As
I say, we will be asking you one or two more detailed questions
about regulations and those sorts of things. We will no doubt
come across you again in the course of this and other inquiries.
We are most grateful to you. If there is anything you wish you
had said, etc., then do not hesitate to contact the Clerk and
let her know. We understand occasionally the pressure of these
events but we hope you have not found this too traumatic. One
day I must learn what an organic kumquat— I thought a starfish
was the sort of thing I got when fishing.
Mr Todd: I think it is star fruit.
Chairman: It says "star fish" as far
as this is concerned. If I want an organic kumquat dip, no doubt
I will know where to come. Thank you very much indeed.
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