Farming’s growing divide

The Soil Association has dubbed this month Organic September but is this method of farming all it’s cracked up to be? Two of Courier Country’s farmers give Caroline Lindsay their very different views

It is either a way of saving our environment or a false dawn that could scare youngsters off eating healthy food – depending on your viewpoint. As the Soil Association charity, which campaigns against intensive farming, declares this month Organic September, two people who know all about working the land give their views on the benefits – or otherwise – to us as consumers of going organic.

Yes Sascha Grierson, wife of Hugh Grierson, Newmiln Organic Farm in Perthshire.

My father-in-law bought the farm in 1965 and Hugh took over in 1995.

Hugh always wanted to farm organically because he had watched a lot of the wildlife disappear and thought going organic offered a great deal of benefits beyond farming.

We became organic in 2000 and started selling direct to customers in 2003.

Organic comes down to using what you have: sunlight, clover and recycled animal waste. It’s not ideal but it makes you think creatively.

There are three key benefits. For a start, it’s better for the environment and leads to wider biodiversity.

Secondly, it’s better for animal welfare, especially poultry and pigs.

And thirdly, there’s robust evidence that the nutrient content of organic produce is higher.

One of the most common arguments against organic farming is that it could never provide enough food for everyone and isn’t sustainable in the long term. However, we have to stop looking for magic bullet solutions. We need to spend less time poking holes at other farming methods.

We are fortunate that with our western organic methodology we have very stable soil but it just isn’t possible to export our farming solutions to every part of the world.

There are challenges in organic farming but change is important and organic farming has a lot to offer the future.

All I can say is that it’s working for us – we’re not aiming to feed the world, we just want to feed as many people locally as we can.

Organic September is a chance to say “This is what we do” and it’s also about exploring – trying to make just a few small changes.

If you buy organic milk you’re guaranteed milk from cows that ate grass all summer.

There is the argument that organic food is more expensive and it can be.

However, there are three ways to keep costs down: buy quality organic meat but eat it less often; join an organic veggie box scheme to ensure you’re eating fresh and seasonal every day and perhaps the most important – cut back on waste.

Around 40% of food in the UK gets thrown away and we all really need to look at that.

No Gordon Rennie, Stenton Farm by St Monans, Fife

I farm about 700 acres, with crops including oats for Quaker Oats in Cupar, wheat for Cameron Bridge Distillery by Leven and potatoes for Tesco.

I’m not impressed by the concept of Organic September. The Soil Association suggests it’s only by eating organic food that we can reduce exposure to potentially harmful pesticides.

This tactic could scare people from buying conventional fruit and veg.

I want to see schoolchildren eat more fruit and vegetables that are affordable – a pack of four organic apples can cost the same as seven conventional apples. Surely an apple a day must be better than four organic apples a week?

The chemicals we use are usually fungicides to prevent attacks on fruit and veg.

An organic apple, for example, may not have been treated with a fungicide so may well be infected and not keep so long. So ask yourself if you’d rather eat the fungus inside the cells of organic, or enjoy one that’s fungus and pest-free?

Yields of conventional crops such as sugar beet, potatoes and wheat have doubled in recent history as a result of better genetics and more precise application of fertilisers and fungicides.

In Scotland, if you convert your farm to organic the SNP Government can reward you with generous farm subsidies. But once the subsidies stop you can go back to conventional farming until the next round of subsidies to convert back to organic.

That raises interesting questions about the lasting effects of what exactly goes into the land (including weed killers, phosphate and potash fertilisers) and how it affects so-called organic crops.

I also take exception to the claim that animal welfare is more important to organic farmers. That is such an insult to the skills and stocksmanship of the vast majority of farmers.

Organic farmers also need to plough more often than conventional farmers, who do not release vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere when they are not ploughing.

By demonising conventional food, the less well-off in society may end up eating less fruit and vegetables. Never make people feel guilty about not buying organic.

Clockwise from top: a farmer ploughs his fields; Sascha Grierson, who is in favour of organic farming and Gordon Rennie, who is against.