Kitchen Garden Forum

You are repeating the usual organic argument - they compare working with high organic content addition with working with no organic addition. Pragmatic cultivation is keeping the organic content high and not paying over the odds for blood, fish and bone or other organic fertilisers when using pelleted NPK works perfectly well.

Hi all,

I’m emailing from the Soil Association to put our perspective a little. It is sad to see organic being bashed so vehemently when, in the end, I’m sure we all sign up to some common goals – healthy plants, animals, countryside, food and rural communities. I think it’s unfair to say we’re dogmatic – driven maybe! It's not like we don't support other systems, we support sourcing of non-organic food and promote the purchase of Freedom Foods and Red Tractor products via our Food for Life programme for example.

Accusations of brainwashing and scare tactics are unfair. Bottom line is that intensive food and farming systems need radical change - It is trashing our soil (according to Defra http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2009/090924b.htm), stripping our countryside of wildflowers, birds, bees etc, abusing farm animals by treating them like production machines, and relies on oil-based inputs that may not be around much longer. We suggest that organic is a good alternative to these and other problems, and a tasty, high quality one at that, which doesn't need to cost much more (http://www.soilassociation.org/Takeaction/Buyorganic/Organiconabudget/tabid/336/Default.aspx)

There is clear scientific evidence that if diets change, organic systems could comfortably feed the current world population. We don't think GM is necessary for food security and neither do the 400 scientists who produced the IAASTD report last April (www.agassessment.org) which was supported by 60 countries, including our own. Shame the Royal Society don’t agree (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6389319/Geoffrey-Lean-Royal-Society-accepts-GM-is-not-the-only-answer.html). We think GM is more about boosting the profits of chemical / biotech companies than feeding the world. One of the great things we hear from organic farmers is that they get to keep their profits, rather than handing back big chunks to fertiliser companies etc.

When vital resources like oil and phosphate run dry, as they are doing rapidly, we will have to use ecological systems of agriculture like organic to feed the growing world population.

Best wishes,

Jack Hunter

Hi Jack (soilassociation) and a warm welcome to the forum.
As an organic gardener I hope your contributions to discussions will continue for a long time to come.

Hi Jack,
You seem to have great difficulty understanding the word Dogmatic. There is a definition in the Oxford Shorter Dictionary which fits the Soil Association to a Tee.
Dogmatic = Intolerably Authorative.
Every time you hear a representative of the SA speaking on air they all have the attitude that unless you agree with what they say then you are wrong.
Therefore it follows that the SA are always correct and that everything they say must be accepted as the truth. This is nothing but sheer dogmatism.
The sooner the SA realise that they are very seldom 100% correct the better.
An admission that you are not always correct in what you say as an organization would be a start and only a start. I will not hold my breath for a sensible answer.
Back in 1951 I attended a Soil Association meeting presided by Lady Eva Balfour. The meeting broke up in some chaos after this debacle.
Lady Eva Balfour stood on the stage in the crucifix position with her palms uppermost wiggling her fingers and with her eyes closed and head thrown back she uttered the words “Can you not feel the vibrations from the soil” At this the audience had had enough and the meeting broke up amidst total confusion.
Now come up to date: John Walker Kitchen Garden Magazine November 2009.
“One of my favourite feelings is the one I get when I plug into the earth. imagining my hand as an equivalent to a plug going into a socket, and with eyes closed, I see myself as the tiniest of specks, wondrously connected to gardens everywhere, and indeed to the whole of nature, via a powerful global web of interconnected roots.”
Now Jack, I am sure that even you may be able to note the similarity between the two episodes. This really means that in 58 years the Leopard has not changed even the tiniest of spots.
JB.