The Summer 2017 No.39

ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance

IN THIS ISSUE 10th Anniversary Edition Schofield Scribbles...... 2

Editor’s notes...... 2

News...... 3

OGA AGM: Growing with Nature...... 6

Seed sovereignty of UK & Ireland...... 10

Researching the trading of organic food.11

Big is now beautiful...... 12

A Matter of Scale...... 14

Small is beautiful… and bountiful!...... 17

Ten years of the OGA/Organic Grower.18

The humble radish...... 20

Desert island grower: Patrick Noble...... 23

ProSpecieRara ...... 24

Buckwheat for couch control...... 26

Horticultural hindsight: Jonathan Smith. 27

Eastbrook Farm agroforestry...... 28

Sheep have devoured the people...... 29

Grower Profile: Waterland Organics and Cambridge CropShare...... 30

Nature notes – place invaders...... 32

Book reviews...... 33

Precariat or progression?...... 35

Events...... 36

Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 hoped that this situation will not continue and many people involved in this process hope that this year’s autumn meeting Schofield scribbles will be a significant event. I will of course keep you informed and hope you will all join with us in putting in submissions to show Firstly, welcome to this 10th Anniversary the strength of feeling against hydroponics in organic production. Edition of the Organic Grower. Many submissions have been received from around the world and Unfortunately, I was unable to contribute to IFOAM EU has now published a clarification paper on growing in the last issue due to a family bereavement pots and substrates. It is important that we show a united global but our editor Phil Sumption stepped up response to this issue if we are to stand any chance of a reversing to the mark and did an excellent job in what has, in the last ten years, become the status quo in USA. my absence. Apparently, it is estimated that over a billion dollars worth are Pilling in Lancashire has seen a predominantly dry winter traded annually in so-called hydroponic organic. and spring and although the frosts lingered on well into May, Finally, after ten years of service to the OGA committee both our we have not suffered and all early crops are of excellent quality. secretary, Roger Hitchings and our treasurer, Debra Schofield As we grow on mainly wet land, a dry spell is quite a novelty for have decided that it is time to call it a day. They are not easy jobs us and allows us to get on with early cultivations and plantings. and we are very grateful for all that they have achieved, especially But I know a lot of you have suffered due to it being too dry, so as they have worked voluntarily and with enthusiasm. But we hopefully by now you have all had some rain. are now looking for their replacements and I am in the process of Our AGM, which we hosted here at the end of March, went very drawing up job descriptions for both of these posts and will say well and as the weather behaved itself we all sat outside on what more in the next edition. was a beautiful spring day. Further details of the AGM are in For now, I will sign off, wishing you all an enjoyable and fruitful this edition. summer and here’s hoping that weather obliges. Spring has also been a busy time for meetings of the Soil Association Alan Schofield, Chairman Organic Growers Alliance Farmer and Grower board and the English Organic Forum (EOF). As I said in my last Scribbles, a letter to the Farming Minister was being prepared by the EOF for submission as a start to our own Brexit negotiations and this went in late last year. As a result of this, Defra Editor’s notes are happy to liaise with this group, which is widely representative Welcome to the 10th anniversary issue of The Organic Grower. of the organic sector, and a meeting took place with Defra officials Please excuse us for a bit of self-indulgence, this time. We are proud in London early in May. Due to the general election call, further of our magazine and we reflect on ten years of the magazine and meetings were postponed, but I hope to attend the local one when ten years of the OGA. Since the EU referendum there has been a they are re-scheduled. The Food Foundation is also hosting a meeting lot of navel-gazing and brainstorming, as to what we want our on a New Deal for Horticulture on 7th June and members of the OGA agricultural policy to look like post-Brexit. This dominates the committee will be in attendance at this. All in all, it is a very interesting news in this issue, as it is likely to do for years, if not decades to time for the future of UK organic horticulture. come. Philip Conford gives us some food for thought with a Alongside all of this, the review of the EU Regulation on historical perspective on Brexit. ‘Is big now beautiful?’ he asks, in Organic Food and Farming is also taking place, but there are response to Tim Lang’s gnashings at the ORC Organic Producers’ major disagreements on a number of issues, which hinder its Conference. ‘Small is Beautiful’ was a concept once influential in progress. The EOF added their contribution to others from the organic circles and inspiring to young radicals, he said, and seemed EU, suggesting that these discussions be abandoned, but they far removed from the mood of Conference. In the ‘young radicals’ lumber on. With regards to horticulture our major problem is the category is the Ecological Land Co-operative and we tell the story use of demarcated beds in some Nordic states and with the lack of how their share offer exceeded all expectations and is working to of improvement in the situation in the USA, this is seen as major enable new entrants to get onto the land. We also present the long- risk point, if the use of these beds is extended. However, we are awaited results from Rebecca Laughton’s A matter of scale study resisting this move and so far seem to be making progress. which suggest that small can be productive for organic vegetable growers. Articles on agroforestry from Ben Raskin on the exciting In the USA, it is unfortunate that the National Organic Standards project at Eastbrook Farm, and the report from Alan Schofield’s Board (NOSB) failed to have their recommendations to ban more established system at Growing with Nature also suggest hydroponic production ratified in recent meetings. Their original how holdings can become more productive by using the ‘extra advice, given ten years ago, was disregarded by the National dimension’. There is much more inside, as always. Thanks to all Organic Program Certification Scheme (NOP) and consequently, who have contributed to this one and over the last ten years. hydroponic organic operations continue to be certified and supply the US organic market with their pseudo organic produce. It is Phil Sumption, Editor The Organic Grower

Cover: Photos from the first 10 years of the Organic Growers Alliance (Phil Sumption) Page 2 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Policy news Organic regulation negotiations, New deal for farmers post-Brexit time for a change Sustain, an alliance of 94 organisations, launched a new briefing The forthcoming debate at the Council of Agriculture Ministers Beyond 2020: New farm policy. It recommends that the next Government on 12th June will be an opportunity to discuss on-going issues. should retain taxpayer support for farmers after Brexit, but replace The organic and fair trade movements and organic certification the old two pillar EU system with a new four-part deal for farming bodies will reiterate the importance of evaluating whether the text based on payments for public goods, capital grants, free advice and currently on the negotiation table provides real added value to the wider policy measures to ensure farmers can thrive. existing legal framework, or whether alternative approaches need Key proposals are that the next Government should: to be envisaged. • Shift payments from large landowners and biofuel production According to IFOAM EU, EOCC and FTAO, the current approach to; supporting resilient farming, nature and animals; helping to the negotiations is creating a lose-lose situation for institutions, to alleviate flooding; creating more rural jobs and growing organic operators and consumers. It will not lead to the overall our own healthy 5-a-day fruit and vegetables. All supported development of the organic legislative framework and does not by a new Land Management Scheme. meet the initial objectives of the revision process. These included • Consider making front loaded payments to farmers and land removing obstacles to the development of organic production managers, with Government tapering or capping payments in the EU, guaranteeing fair competition, maintaining consumer to use taxpayers’ support wisely. confidence and simplifying the legislation and associated bureaucracy. • Support new enterprises including: new entrants into farming, smaller and diverse farms, agroforestry and “The future regulation must be technically sound and provide struggling sectors like fruit and vegetable production. significant added value compared to the current legislation. A win- Overhauling farmer training and advice, enabling access to win situation is still possible by integrating in the current Organic the tools they need. Regulation those aspects discussed during the negotiations that would be expected to lead to a positive development of the organic • Adopt vital complementary measures across government. sector” said IFOAM EU President, Christopher Stopes. This would include extending the Grocery Code Adjudicator’s powers ensuring fair trading practices from supermarkets He added “As for the most discussed item so far, the presence of and their suppliers, keeping high standards, and requiring residues in organic products, it is important to start the debate an increase in the purchase of local and sustainable food for from a clear and objective fact: today organic products are often public-sector organisations such as schools and hospitals. residue-free and rarely contain some residues due to the fact that 95% of EU agriculture relies on the use of chemical pesticides. Vicki Hird, Sustainable Farming Campaign Coordinator for the Organic farmers should not be considered responsible when Sustain alliance, said: organic products are contaminated by the chemicals used by “Farming is so much more than business. Our proposals recognise their neighbours: the polluter-pays principle must not be turned that farming provides wider public benefits including thriving upside-down.” rural communities, valued farm workers, good nutrition, a “It is crucial that the final text is readable, consistent and easy to protected and nurtured environment and wildlife, and high implement” added EOCC Board member Michel Reynaud “This animal welfare. is not the case at the moment: the text is not technically consistent “The next Government has a once in a lifetime opportunity with and clear at this stage. It should be clear that organic is based on a Brexit to end some of the absurdities of Europe’s CAP which has process approach and it cannot be delegated to a simple tool – the not supported small and family farms well and which contributed laboratory test – whether a product is organic or not.” to a loss of farmland diversity and wildlife. Our alliance proposals There is an increasing dissatisfaction among the Council and present a practical way forward and a basis that the Government the Parliament. The Vice-Chair of the European Parliament could use for common ground between the industry, and those Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development Paolo De groups championing the rural economy, conservation, public Castro clearly stated that the proposed text - as it is now - would health and development.” water down the organic regulation. Pippa Woods, farmer and director of Family Farmers Association said: “These excellent proposals contain most of the objectives which Family Farmers have been working towards since 1979.”

Page 3 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Policy news

recognition of the role ‘Game-changing’ ideas from the SA Making Food Sovereignty a Reality Making Food Sovereignty a Reality small-scale and family Recommendations On Monday 20 March, the Soil Association launched a new report, farmers play in feeding for Post-Brexit Agricultural Policy setting out six proposals for domestic agricultural policy after the country. The UK’s the UK leaves the EU. These are game-changing ideas that have exit from the Common the potential to transform farming and land use at the scale and Agricultural Policy pace required to meet multiple challenges - from tackling climate provides the most change and nature degradation to supporting rural livelihoods significant opportunity and improving public health. Every farming practice we talk about in a generation to here already happens on the ground in the UK, but is currently the reverse the inequalities exception rather than the norm. of area-based payments They propose: and replace them with • A national agroforestry strategy a truly progressive policy framework that • Investing in soil

genuinely supports more Our recommendations for Post-Brexit Agricultural Policy | 1 • A tipping point for organic Alliance Landworkers The by Published farmers and better food.’ • A good life for farm animals ‘As we leave Europe and the opacity of the CAP behind we’re • Support for farmer innovation confident that UK taxpayers will no longer tolerate farmers • Making the most of public procurement being paid simply for owning land. We believe the farm support The report presents a growing consensus on some of the key budget could be targeted much more effectively in providing the principles that should underlie the new policy: research and infrastructure necessary to enable farmers to supply quality produce to local markets. This model does not depend on • We need to maintain high environmental and farm animal UK consumers paying more for high quality local food – it does welfare standards. however depend on more effective regulation of the industry to • Public money should pay for public goods such as clean ensure farmers receive a greater share of the food pound.’ water, farmland wildlife, carbon storage and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Download the report from LWA website. • Government should maintain the overall annual farm In-conversion land area on the rise payment budget of around £3.2 billion. The key findings of Defra’s release of organic farming statistics • We need a joined up approach that looks at land in the round for 2016 are: – farming, forestry, water, wilderness – taking account of public health, food poverty and international development. • Organic land use and crops. In 2016, the UK had a total area • Policies must work for farmers and growers, and help them of 508,000 ha of land farmed organically, down from 521,000 move towards sustainable business models. ha in 2015. The area in-conversion expressed as a percentage of the total organic area rose for the second consecutive year. • We need a renewed focus on supply chains to improve resilience, farmer incomes, and environmental sustainability. • Organic livestock. Poultry and sheep remain the most popular Public participation in debate and decisions on the future of livestock types farmed organically in the UK. farming is critical. • Organic producers and processors. The total number of organic producers and processors rose by 5.1% in 2016 to 6,363. Landworkers’ Alliance post-Brexit The number of producers only and producer/processors Policy launch continue to decline. The number of processors only rose for The LWA have published a comprehensive 20-page report the third year running and now stands at 2,804, the highest outlining the LWA’s key policy proposals for re-orientating number since 2008. Aside from the manufacture of ‘other agricultural support to deliver high quality food to UK consumers food products’, most processors in the UK were engaged while building an environmentally, socially and economically in the processing and preserving of meat and production of resilient farming industry. meat products and the processing and preserving of fruit and vegetables. Ed Hamer, LWA policy spokesperson, says ‘The Landworkers’ Alliance has been campaigning for the past five years for greater Full details can be found at www.gov.uk/government/statistics/ organic-farming-statistics-2016

Page 4 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 General news Want to start your own organic The Organic Farm Shop at Abbey Home Farm are finalists in the best retailer category, alongside Unicorn Grocery Co-op from growing business? Manchester. Hodmedod’s, who source and supply beans and Friends’ Field is a new social enterprise on the edge of Sheffield, other products from British farms are up for Best Food Producer. which has been set up to provide opportunities for experienced Due to the General Election the awards ceremony was moved organic growers to develop their own small commercial from June 8th to Wednesday 20th September. enterprises.

They are offering affordable leases on between one and five acres, Defra authorises GM potato trial including use of polytunnels, on a 15 acre horticultural site with Despite 119 public representations raising a wide range of easy access to Sheffield’s shops and markets. Friends’ Field will concerns, Farming Minster George Eustice quietly gave consent develop into a cluster of small-scale sustainable producers, with on 27th April to a controversial open air field trial of GM potatoes opportunities for skill-sharing, training and co-operative working. that have not been tested under controlled conditions. Leases are available from early 2018. For more information The trial will see experimental potatoes planted in an open please see the website: friendsfieldltd.blogspot.co.uk or contact field at The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) in Norwich for the next [email protected] four years. Field trials usually follow an extensive programme Research suggests organic could of greenhouse experiments but TSL stated in its application that most of the potatoes in this trial had not yet been created, reduce risk of serious health effects much less tested in a more controlled environment. This was a from pesticides key concern in objections lodged against the trial, including a An EU review of existing scientific evidence on the impact of organic detailed, fully referenced, multi-agency objection signed by 33 food on human health has suggested that eating organic food could organisations including farmers, scientists, retailers, caterers and reduce the risk of serious health effects from pesticides. There is environmentalists. increasing evidence that insecticides damage the brain and there’s Liz O’Neill, Director of umbrella campaign GM Freeze, which also a link between organic food and reduced levels of allergic coordinated the multi-agency objection to the trial, said: “We are diseases. Peter Melchett, Policy Director at the Soil Association, deeply concerned that Defra has signed a regulatory blank cheque said: “This report is great for organic farmers and everyone who in consenting to the planting of experimental potatoes which have eats organic food. Organic food sales have been growing strongly not even been analysed in a test tube, much less properly studied for five years, and a key reason that people buy organic food is that under controlled greenhouse conditions.” they feel it is better for them and their family – that is why more than In addition to a number of technical concerns, objections to this trial half the baby food sold in the UK is organic. This new, independent, raised issues of food safety, the risk of GM contamination and the scientific review confirms people are right.” fact that these potatoes will be of no net benefit to society. Writing BBC Food and Farming Awards 2017 on 27th April, Eustice stated that he had “taken advice from the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE)”. Congratulations to the organic businesses nominated for the BBC However, that ACRE advice explicitly states that it “does not Food and Farming Awards. include a food safety assessment” and “has not addressed issues Seed Co-operative, the UK’s community owned seed company, that are not safety concerns.” is one of three finalists in the Future Food category. This award is O’Neill finds this unacceptable: “More and more people are for an ambitious and ground- breaking idea found within the food objecting to GM field trials, but their concerns are being ignored. supply chain; from initiatives by national retailers and major food What we grow and eat is intrinsically linked with our values as and drink manufacturers to new models being put into practice by a society. Good governance is about more than narrow technical farmers and producers. David Price of the Seed Co-operative said risk assessments and it is entirely unacceptable to dismiss “We are delighted to have been given this chance to tell our story concerns about the wider economic, social and societal impacts about the future of food. Food is not ‘man-made’ but produce of GM crops. These may not be in ACRE’s remit but that doesn’t of the natural world and it all starts with seed. We are bringing mean they should be disregarded by our elected representatives.” seed production back home and re-connecting farmers, growers, gardeners, chefs and ‘people who eat’ with the natural world, through co-operation. Vitality, diversity and resilience is what our seed is all about.”

Page 5 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 10th OGA AGM - Growing with Nature It was fitting that this year the OGA returned to Bradshaw Lane Nursery, home of our Chairman Alan and our Treasurer Debra Schofield, where it all started ten years ago. Not many made the long trip ‘oop North’ to Lancashire but for those that did it was a memorable weekend. With snow gracing the tops of the Lake District fells, glorious sunshine greeted us in a county better known for its rainfall. Admittedly, it was still wet underfoot, but being warmer outside than in the packing shed, we assembled on the lawn, while oystercatchers and curlews provided the soundtrack. Ten years ago the OGA was formed in a spirit of optimism. Organic businesses were thriving and expanding and ‘Growing with Nature’ (GwN) was in the vanguard. Fast forward to the present and GwN is a very different business to then – one fifth of the size, but, importantly, still here. The story of Growing with Nature there were no shortage of advisors. The answer they found was to be more flexible with their offer. At the start they had been Alan hitched himself up dictatorial – ‘here is a standard box – take it or leave it.’ Over time on a bench in one of the ,they allowed customers to opt out of a maximum of two items, tunnels and told us the but people now expect to be able to choose. So, now they operate story of GwN so far. When a bespoke weekly ordering system via email, not online. The Alan and Debra bought average spend is £25. Effectively, they have three different price the three-field holding, at tiers - the honesty shop, veg box with up to two changes, plus what seemed a high price the bespoke box. Now GwN take less than 15% of the produce of £3000/ac, the locals grown by their linked growers, but they have been able to survive laughed: “how are you by supplying into the booming Manchester market (Unicorn, etc). going to grow vegetables As always, Alan offered, forthrightly, many top tips, the fruits in there, Alan, with all those trees?” The holding was organic of his many years of experiences. Here are some ‘Maureens’ when they bought it and was one of the first to be certified. As an (Little Gems…): agroforestry farm, long before #agroforestry was trending, it was ahead of its time. • If you know how to grade, present and charge for your product you will be successful. After cutting his organic teeth at Douglas Blair’s nursery, Alan was ready to cut loose on his own. While at Blair’s, they were • He vowed never to buy in transplants – once he did and paid selling directly to 44 shops, of which only four remain today. the price by introducing red spider mite to the holding. Supermarkets have moved aggressively into fresh produce, made • Alan believes F1 crops have a place. Growing is a business possible by innovations in packaging and the cool chain. With - growing money. You need the best tools available. He the wholesale market in decline, Blair’s moved into bed with the would decertify if forced to grow organic seed. He trials supermarkets, which Alan wasn’t comfortable with. Backed by varieties every year and knows the best varieties for his his father who guaranteed the loan, Alan bought Bradshaw Lane system and they are not always organic. An example of this Nursery, moved into a caravan on site, and, inspired by Tim and is ‘Summer Isle’ Spring onion, the leaves of which don’t fold Jan Deane, they started a box scheme. over and therefore is not so prone to disease. Diversity is key. ‘Alderman’ was a great pea but it was only available for one It was, as the cliché goes, ‘a steep learning curve’. At Blair’s, they year as organic seed (he now saves his own seed). had only grown six key crops, and suddenly they needed to grow a whole range of new and unfamiliar crops. Working with a • A great innovation is Alan’s plant marking rollers – barrels network of five growers, they worked to each others’ strengths, with three different spacing blocks, which he knocked up in a for example GwN is too wet to over-winter crops successfully, but workshop at Douglas Blair’s many years ago (see pic opposite). Newfields in Yorkshire could do it well. Acting as a hub, Alan • Go for the highest specification tunnels you can afford for could concentrate on plant-raising and protected crops. wind loading and snow bars.

They expanded at 30% a year until the recession hit, built • The innovation over the years amongst organic growers has themselves a new house and a packing shed and employed 18 been incredible. First to put spinach in bags, first to do boxes, people, at the peak. The recession hit them particularly badly then salad bags, and the list goes on… and the business declined at 10%/year. Nobody offered any help • Watercress can be grown successfully in the soil! He grows as to managing decline, whereas during the expansion phase half a bed every year.

Page 6 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 • Gareth Davies of HDRA looked round the holding as part of the DOVE (Disease of Organic Vegetables) project, funded Agroforestry at GwN by Defra, in the early Noughties. “The bad news is you have almost every brassica disease known to man”, he said. Alan The agroforestry system was planted more than 30 years ago asked what the good news was, Gareth replied “none of them by the previous owner of the nursery and Alan liked the fact are present at damaging levels”. that the holding had trees on it for the wildlife benefits they bring. The lines of grey alder are spaced 15 or 20 m apart as • Propagation box – see OG2. Alan used the heated box windbreaks, with the vegetables grown in between. for chitting potatoes until they broke dormancy. He puts cardboard on top of trays to keep the mice off. Alders grow very well on the low-lying silty loam soil as they • They are one of only four certified vegan holdings in the are water loving and help drain the land. Situated around country. The protected cropping runs on compost and the three quarters of a mile from Morecambe Bay, the windbreaks outside cropping runs on green manures. Their policy is to protect from the strong cold winds blowing in off the Irish Sea, use diverse green manures every year. especially in spring. The alders are managed on a five-year pollarding rotation. They are cut to chest height and used for their wood-burning stove. They re-sprout quickly and in year three they prune the side-growth leaving just the uprights, which produce some useable timber by year five.

Alders are nitrogen-fixing and the adjacent beds have benefitted from the nitrogen, in contrast to the usual competition effects that can be found with crops grown in the alleys. Vegetables can suffer a little bit from shade, however, as the trees mature, and the system is designed so that the fertility-building period is when the shade is at its peak. After 18 months of grass/clover ley, the trees are pollarded and this is followed by three years of vegetable cropping.

The tree strips are managed by flail mowing tight up to the trees during the summer. In the winter the understorey is left as habitat for predators.

Despite appreciating the wildlife habitat they have become (even Alan’s booming voice was almost drowned out by birdsong), Alan reflected that he wouldn’t necessarily plant alder, if he was to start over again and might be tempted to plant a crop that could earn more money…. Photos: Phil Sumption

Page 7 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 The AGM business in a nutshell

Website • Tenders were submitted for re-vamping the website but they proved too expensive, so, we accepted GreenIT’s (current provider) proposal to fix the main problems. There have been significant improvements but there are still occasional glitches. Membership • A lot of members have been lost and a membership drive pulled many of the faithful back but not all. A new membership drive will target expired members. The new Affiliate membership category is a good thing, but it is not clear how much it has been promoted to LWA, etc. Organic Grower Elections • The editorial team continues to provide great support, with more helpers coming on board going forward. • Debra Schofield, Alan Schofield, Roger Hitchings and Phil Sumption were re-elected to the committee. Debra wishes • It can be difficult to get technical articles from growers, to stand down as soon as a replacement is found and Roger especially in the height of the season. Also valued are wishes to stand down at the next AGM. human interest articles e.g. on well-being, growing with children, etc.

Chair’s report • It is ten years of the OGA so it would be good to generate • Alan’s report covered many of the activities he has been an index if someone can be found to do it. working on over the year, including discussions over the Events implications of Brexit at the Soil Association Farmer and Grower Board and as part of the English Organic Forum. • Successive AGMs have asked for OGA events so a At meetings of the IFOAM-EU UK group, the organic weekend event at North Aston was planned for August regulation revision is still on the agenda. It could mean last year, but it did not happen partly because the expense demarcated beds (e.g. tomatoes grown in growing media in for hiring marquee, toilets, etc., could not be covered. large beds on concrete, with no connection to the soil) north • We are engaged with other events (RZ/SA open day, of the 57th Parallel. Oxford Real Farming Conference, ORC Organic Producers’ Finance Conference, etc.). • Family issues have delayed the accounts work and our Promotion

accountant sadly died. We appointed his partner Sandra • Good website statistics are needed to see how social Williams of S & A accounting services to continue the good media are affecting profile and membership number. We work. Accounts have now been finalised, after the AGM. need committee members with social media skills

• We made a loss in 2015 of £2k for a number of reasons. The • Facebook campaigns not expensive so could be loss in 2016 was £874. Extra money was spent on the website considered along with ‘Use this code to get a discount’. but the accounts came in on budget. Other options were discussed.

• We have £4.5k in hand but the annual budget is £7k so we • Phil Sumption is writing a piece for ‘Growing Green’ on don’t have a year in reserve, which is the aim. ten years of the OGA. • Advertising income is reasonably constant (credit to John • Antonia Iveson is promoting the OGA well in Scotland. Crocker). An increase in rates could only be justified by an increased membership. Research

• Debra wants to step down from her role as Treasurer and • No significant activity (aside from field labs through recommends that her replacement has fundraising experience Innovative Farmers) this year as Wendy has been very in addition to book-keeping ability. The committee is to seek tied up on Scottish Action Plan work. a replacement.

• The budget is more or less static with keener cost control.

Page 8 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 AOB • The constitution change agreed at the last AGM has not happened because of a number of reasons including the death of the accountant and other factors. It was agreed to get on and action it.

• There was an update on the changes to the SA Future Growers scheme (formerly the Apprenticeship Scheme). It is now a six month programme aimed at 18 participants but they now have 20 on the books. Faye Balderson is taking over the coordination role from Rachel Harries. Phil Sumption OGA Award

ONLINE ORGANIC SEED POTATO BUSINESS FOR SALE Photo: Isabeau Meyer-Graft This year’s award was to a surprised Phil Sumption (a certain amount of subterfuge had kept it from him). The bowl, inscribed To Phil – Sower and Scribe – from the OGA, was presented by Alan, as appreciation for the work Due to retirement I am selling my online Phil has done on the Organic Grower. business selling organic seed potatoes. The site sells to gardeners in small packs through a website that has several pages with all the information customers need and an online shop that Organic Restaurant, Guest receives payment with every order. House and Farm Shop

North Cornwall The site has been developed over two years and there is scope to add more Certified organic B&B accommodation products to grow the business. There with fully organic breakfasts from £45 pppn (10% off for OGA members) is a supply chain and an extensive list of customers that would come with the Totally organic seasonal food served in the relaxed setting of our licensed business. evening restaurant using fresh produce grown with passion in our gardens Please contact: Laurence Hasson Telephone 01288 361297 Email [email protected] 01823 400838/07964 355316 Bangors House Poundstock Bude Cornwall EX23 0DP www.bangorsorganic.co.uk [email protected]

Page 9 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Seed sovereignty of the UK & Ireland

In 2014, ‘The Great Seed Festival’ was held at The Garden Museum in London to bring together all those interested in the issues around seeds with a wide range of organisations and individuals. The event was coordinated by The Gaia Foundation, with support from The A Team, Salvia Foundation and The Big Lottery’s ‘Awards For All’. One of the people who presented a talk was Jane Rabinowicz representing ‘The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security’. This programme began in 2012 with a pilot study and was followed by a detailed programme from 2013 to 2017, which has now been extended, to develop and support a regional network for seed security in Canada. The programme was inspirational in developing something similar in the UK & Ireland. (See OG31).

In response to the interest from those who attended the 2014 Festival, Gaia conducted a feasibility study to understand the challenges and opportunities related to seed security in the UK, map the existing seed networks and identify the potential for a sustainable seed system by scaling up production and access to quality organic seeds. The study revealed that there was huge appetite for a UK-wide programme. I know many people from the OGA fed into this by giving comments, and some were involved in interviews, too, so thank you for your input.

A Steering Group was then set up consisting of Ben Raskin from the Soil Association/OGA, Ashley Wheeler from the Land Workers’ Alliance, Jason Horner of Leen Organics/OGA/Irish

Seed Savers, Lawrence Woodward from Beyond GM and David Photo: Phil Sumption Neil Munro talks on the Seed Sovereignty programmme at the OGA AGM Price of The Seed Co-operative. Information on varieties is an issue that is always raised by From this feasibility study a plan was drawn up for a three-year growers, and so a database (91% chose this) and variety trials programme focusing on the areas that were highlighted as the (81% chosen) would be useful in selecting potential varieties. The most important to create an effective seed system. Over 90% of database would enable growers to contribute information that those in the study said that regional networks of growers would could be added to by overlaying metadata such as rainfall, etc. be useful in making this happen, and so this has formed one of the The varietal information wouldn’t just be seen as a static resource; main focus areas, the aim being to build upon groups and hubs a participatory plant breeding (PPB) model could be utilised as the already in place rather than trying to create new ones. Not that network becomes established. new hubs won’t be established if there is a demand and people are willing to put the time in to develop it. The aim is that in key As can be seen from the desire for a project such as this, there areas a part-time coordinator could lead on developing a plan for are few organisations currently growing seed. Raising awareness production in that region and facilitate the other areas that the was heavily featured along with engaging current growers, programme will look to develop. future growers and the wider public through articles, talks and workshops. Finally, it was stated that all of this couldn’t be pushed Of these areas, over 80% of participants highlighted the need forward successfully without the support from key decision for good quality training in how to grow, select and maintain makers in government; 83% put this down as essential. quality seed stocks. There are few people available to provide this training so it is envisioned that the number of trainers will need So, how can you get involved, help, or put your thoughts forward? to be increased as well as training those keen to begin producing You can support those initiatives already in existence, such as The seed. Access to equipment has also been mentioned (77% saw this Seed Co-operative, mentioned in previous issues (OG37,OG35). as important). In some countries, larger pieces of machinery are Additionally, if you haven’t already, please let me have your shared amongst local growers and this may be one option. comments; although this programme aims to get more seed grown by growers, it is also very useful to know from those who As many of you will have heard over the years, those wanting to grow with seed what they see as important. If you are thinking market seed to small-scale producers have come across problems about seed production as a possible diversification or are wishing when it comes to legislation. Now is an ideal time to begin to learn how to, then again, please contact me. putting forward an alternative to the current directives in place. A group will be put together to decide on a better framework I hope to give updates in the future as to how it’s developing. that will encourage smaller producers into the market without Neil Munro jeopardising quality. [email protected]

Page 10 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Researching the trading of organic food

I used to co-own a small horticultural holding on the edge of London for three years which supplied box schemes, and I learned the commitment and passion required in order to make a living out of growing vegetables. Unfortunately for me, that commitment and passion ran out and I found myself not wanting to have anything to do with growing food. The hardest thing was the sacrifice I was making financially, emotionally and physically to grow and sell organic vegetables, I found this sacrifice unfair because I felt it wasn’t recognised or appropriately financially renumerated.

When I faced my feelings, I decided to move on. I wanted to carry on working in food but not in growing and I decided to apply to for a fully-funded PhD at Coventry University’s Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience. The research topic was developed by Professor Moya Kneafsey, Senior Researcher Dr Ulrich Schumtz and Julie Brown from Growing Communities.

Before being a grower I worked at Sustain - the alliance for better food and farming - on their Capital Growth project. This project helped Londoners start over 2,000 community food- growing gardens. Whilst there, I was contacted by students and academics, who usually asked me about the motivation that people have to grow food. I think that at least 10 Masters dissertations had the same title between 2009 and 2012! So, when I learned about the Coventry University PhD proposal I was hesitant at first and worried that I would end up doing something that wouldn’t be that useful. But, after speaking to colleagues, friends and family I gained confidence that maybe, because I had actually experienced what it is like to run a

horticultural business, I could do something more practical and Photo: Phil Sumption relevant. Paola Guzman, talking at the OGA AGM

My PhD in order to ensure that people’s commitment and passion to grow and trade food is fulfilled. I hope, therefore, that my research starts Because of my professional experience at both Sustain and the to inform everyone in the movement what that renumeration is farm, I was accepted, and in September 2015 I happily left London, like and what some businesses are doing to improve it. for Coventry and started my PhD. It has been challenging, especially reading complicated academic language and writing. In practical terms, I am doing two things where I would like Nonetheless, I have somehow put together some research that I your involvement - a national survey of box schemes and CSAs hope is helpful and contributes to trading organic food in the UK. and six in-depth case studies. So far, 27 enterprises have filled I am trying to manage my expectations as to what is achievable. out the survey and if you have a box scheme or CSA you can fill Doing a PhD is like doing an apprenticeship at a farm, you only out the survey by typing in the URL: goo.gl/a0EPdr, or search learn by doing, you only learn by making mistakes. for National Box Scheme and CSA survey and go to the first link. The survey is open until Wednesday 26 July 2017, and those who Appeal to growers complete the survey have a chance to win £100 worth of tools from But why I am telling you all this? I am trying to appeal to you, Bulldog Tools. The six in-depth case studies will give me more fellow OGA members, that, if you have a box scheme or CSA to insight into how box schemes and CSAs manage their finances take part in my research. I have been able to identify about 250 and how their economic activities benefit their local communities, box schemes and CSAs with the help of Duncan Catchpole from and already Growing Communities and Cambridge Organic Food British Organic Box Schemes and Maressa Bossano from the Company have signed up. By taking part in the case studies, the CSA network (www.communitysupportedagriculture.org.uk). enterprises will receive an economic impact assessment report, The aim is to build a picture of the economic viability of box £100 and volunteer time (from me) if appropriate. schemes and CSAs, identify the challenges, opportunities and the Please contact me at [email protected] visit potential for ‘alternative’ trade in order to become a significant my website goo.gl/a0EPdr or follow me on twitter @ player in the retailing of organic food. My previous experience PaolaGuzmanPhD. I look forward to hearing from you. left me feeling that appropriate economic renumeration is crucial Paola Guzman

Page 11 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Big is now beautiful As I listened to Professor Tim Lang’s opening speech at the Aston conference in February, I was unaware that he considered me insane. I had not yet seen the internet clip of him speaking last summer to an audience in the wake of the referendum result and telling them that Britain had gone mad. This was an early contribution to what the philosopher John Gray has described as the “uncomprehending wail of self-righteous indignation” from Remain voters, that those of us who voted Leave have had to endure ever since.

Professor Lang explained to us at Aston the reason for the result. of the middlemen who exploited both producers and consumers, It had not surprised him, because he comes from the North and profiting from the exchange and manipulation of goods and money. has family in the industrialised areas of Lancashire. “This is a Agricultural depression did not occur immediately, but after 25 different world,” he assured us in hushed tones, as if fearing to years or so British farming was swamped by a flood of cheap arouse the atavistic Lancastrians and draw them southwards en overseas grain and entered a long-term slump. masse, with their ‘very real’ gut feelings of dislike for ‘London fat Britain’s neglect of her agriculture, followed by the destruction cats’ and foreigners, and their message of ‘stuff you’ to Europe. of shipping during the 1914-18 war, resulted in some belated (Professor Lang may have meant the European Union, which is encouragement for farmers in the form of better prices. In not quite the same thing.) 1921, however, Britain returned to the pre-war situation where I listened to this patronising travesty with increasing agriculture had largely to fend for itself. Adherence to free trade bewilderment, as Professor Lang’s views seemed to be approved brought such severe problems during the slump of the early of by the majority of his audience. He dipped into the past by 1930s that the government introduced protectionist policies and asking how many of us knew the date of the repeal of the Corn subsidised certain primary agricultural products. Despite a slow Laws (1846); but I was troubled by memories of a more recent recovery of agriculture and horticulture during the later 1930s, period. Strange phrases floated into my mind: ‘small is beautiful’ Britain again faced the prospect of serious food shortages when … ‘self-sufficiency’ … Was I imagining it, or had such ideas once war broke out in 1939. been influential in organic circles, inspiring young radicals to take risks with their lives in the faith that they could withdraw from Organic movement coalesces the industrial/capitalist system, and point the way to a more around Social Credit sustainable future? In the room at Aston, full of conference-goers The organic movement began to coalesce during the 1930s, in close anxious to “keep a-hold of nurse”, it seemed improbably remote. association with the monetary reform doctrines of Social Credit. I was relieved the following day to discover that there was at least This set of economic theories appealed to many in the organic one other person who felt as I did – though, no doubt significantly, movement because it opposed the finance-capital orthodoxy she was from Lancashire …. of free trade and its destructive effects. Finance did well out of Professor Lang predicted that withdrawal from the EU will free trade, but farming suffered. Deflationary economic policies present British agriculture with the need for far-reaching (‘austerity’) led to increased unemployment and malnutrition. The changes in order to increase home production of food. This state of affairs was completely unacceptable: people badly needed should hardly be a surprise to the organic movement, which fresh, health-protective foods such as eggs, vegetables, fruit has traditionally called for a high degree of independence from and milk, but farmers, hamstrung by lack of credit from banks, imported foodstuffs, and been suspicious of free trade. A look were unable to provide what was necessary. Britain had become at the organic movement’s history demonstrates that a concern increasingly parasitic, expecting other lands to provide a large for agricultural and horticultural productivity on a national level proportion of her food. In doing so, foreign soils were exhausted, was one of the movement’s most powerful driving forces. It will desertification set in, and starvation and social collapse followed. need to become so again. Let us consider some examples of how How could Britain’s agriculture ever be healthy, H.J. Massingham leading figures in the organic movement have, over the decades, wondered, as “the catspaw of a foreign importing and the victim thought about national self-sufficiency. of a home exporting policy”? The repeal of the Corn Laws The organic movement’s concern for self-sufficiency continued well into the 1950s. Massingham collaborated with Edward Hyams Professor Lang was right to identify the repeal of the Corn on Prophecy of Famine (1953), outlining a detailed programme Laws as a watershed in the history of British agriculture. For the whereby Britain might greatly increase food production. Jorian organic movement’s pioneers, it was the moment when national Jenks, editor of the Soil Association journal from 1946 to 1963, agriculture was sacrificed on the altar of industrialism and free disputed the liberal view that international trade was essential trade. These served the interests of factory-owners, who wanted for world prosperity and peace. On the contrary, competitive cheap imported food in order to pay their workers lower wages, and trade had been a source of friction, and national economies had

Page 12 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 been injured by the dumping of imports or over-concentration on crime and ugliness, it seems remarkably prophetic in the light of exports, which caused hardship and discontent. current developments. Or look again at Seymour’s Bring Me My Bow (1977): the aim is have more control over more of the things Jenks mistakenly anticipated a world in which trade would which affect us, and to be prepared for the day when dwindling decrease in proportion as economic stability was achieved. He resources force us into a more de-centralised society. thought that Third World countries would avoid exporting soil fertility in the form of primary produce, and large parts of the New Farmer and Grower voiced opposition to the European world would devote their agriculture to feeding their own, not Economic Community and the EU. The Autumn 1992 issue other nations’, people. This is a vision far from the ceaseless condemned its regulations as disruptive and its policies as competition of EU neoliberalism. Jenks was also instrumental in hostile to small-scale farmers. The following year, Julian Rose the publication of Feeding the Fifty Million, a 1955 report by the warned that organic producers were being overwhelmed by Rural Reconstruction Association on whether Britain could be bureaucratic pressures and would not be protected if they entered self-supporting in food. the free-market fray. Instead, the organic movement’s destiny lay among fields, villages and market towns, rebuilding networks One other aspect of the organic outlook in this earlier period of communication to form “a web of dialogue and commerce needs noting. We hear much today of the need for free movement on a human and socially pleasing scale”. Patrick Noble’s latest of workers (i.e. people treated as resources for the benefit of publication, Towards the Convivial Economy, stands very much in those profiting from their labour), but should bear in mind the the same tradition. importance which the organic movement attached to the family farm, to the craftsman’s skills, to the local and the regional. One of John Major’s anti-EU ‘bastards’ in the 1990s was Sir If Massingham’s writings on such matters seem too sentimental, Richard Body, a strong ally of the organic movement who wrote read the American farmer Wendell Berry on the same themes; he some forceful books on farming policy in which he disputed makes a powerful case, both principled and pragmatic. the ‘efficiency’ of an agriculture dependent for its survival on government subsidies – whether national or European. Body was Self-sufficiency MP for Holland-with-Boston, the strongest pro-Brexit area last Britain’s self-sufficiency in food production increased greatly year, and opposed the realities of “free movement of labour”, as during the 1950s and ‘60s (though not by means the organic represented by the gangmaster system in the Fens. movement favoured), and the availability of food was again taken Of course, all this was a long time ago. Readers will object that for granted – until the winter of 1973-74, when the sharp rise in oil times have changed, making what people thought 25, let alone 50 prices caused by the Arab-Israeli war, and the strikes called by the or more, years ago irrelevant. But if the received wisdom in the power workers and miners, brought home how vulnerable our organic movement is now that we should be frightened of leaving oil-based industrialism really was. a dysfunctional and authoritarian bureaucracy, based on an This was the period when a younger generation started to be economic model which we once vigorously opposed, it is worth actively involved in the organic movement. They were inspired asking how and why this reversal has occurred. The world of free- by E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful (1973), John Seymour’s market capitalism is every bit as precarious today as in the 1970s. writings on self-sufficiency, and books such asBlueprint for Survival Our food supply continues to rely on cheap fuel and energy, and and The Limits to Growth (both 1972). Alternatives to the industrial is now in addition extremely vulnerable to the failure or sabotage system were promoted in The Ecologist, the Sams brothers’ Seed of complex systems of digital technology. magazine, Richard Boston’s Vole, and Resurgence. Sue Coppard’s Working Weekends on Organic Farms enabled dissatisfied Recapturing our radical past urbanites to learn skills for survival when the industrial system Professor Lang is right that the organic movement faces an no longer functioned, and the Centre for Alternative Technology enormous challenge if Tony Blair’s best efforts fail to overturn at Machynlleth provided the practical means whereby you the referendum result. It is also a great opportunity to urge a could detach yourself from it before that day came. The organic substantial increase in national food production, preferably by movement was intertwined with all these initiatives. organic means. So, we should look at the movement’s history in order to recall just how radical it was 30 or 40 years ago, and hope Did they favour neoliberal capitalism, large-scale bureaucracy, that it can recapture that former sense of confidence in its future. centralised control of national policies, erosion of local cultures, removal of trade barriers for the benefit of multinational companies, Philip Conford an oil-based long-distance transport system for juggernaut lorries, and all the infrastructure, both technological and administrative, which are features of the European Union? Simply to ask the question is to reveal the absurdity of such an idea. If you read what Schumacher had to say about ‘vast abstractions’ which are out of touch with the human realities of alienation, poverty,

Page 13 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Organic growers excel in the survey ‘A Matter of Scale’

Way back in the spring of 2015, you may remember being cajoled to fill in a rather long and complicated questionnaire about small farm productivity. You might have wondered what happened to all those figures you laboriously gathered and shared with me – well you are about to find out! Two years later after countless hours analysing figures on spreadsheets, several drafts and the creation of five short films, the end is in sight. As you read this article, I hope we will be launching the A Matter of Scale (AMOS) report and the five short films that accompany it.

Why study productivity? herbal teas. Most of the sample uses organic techniques, although only 42% were legally certified as organic. Many of the businesses There is great scepticism about the viability of small farms and were recent start-ups, with 64% running for ten years or less. many assume that they are all hobby farms. This is perhaps not Likewise, the age profile of the sample was younger than average surprising, as most assume farming to be driven by economies for agriculture in the UK, with 20% under the age of 39, compared of scale. Furthermore, statistics show a trend towards the with 3% of UK farmers being under the age of 35 years.3 concentration of land into fewer and larger farms (between 2010 and 2015 the number of farms of 20ha and less declined Small is productive, where from 104,000 to 98,000, while the number of farms of over 100ha vegetables are concerned increased from 41,000 to 42,000)1 . However, studies of farming in If the adage, ‘The best fertiliser is the gardener’s shadow’ is true, the global south have shown there to be an inverse relationship then this was the study to prove it. The two most striking results between farm size and productivity, due to increased labour were the high yields of crops that require more hand labour, and intensity on smaller areas2. The main motivation for undertaking the exceptionally high levels of employment per hectare. Yield this research arose from the need to show how small farms in the data (kg per square metre) was collected for 18 indicator vegetables UK perform in terms of productivity 7and financial viability, when and was compared with equivalent data for larger scale organic arguing the case for such farms to be given planning permission and non-organic operations (see Figure 1). Average yields for for agricultural workers’ dwellings. 6 crops that benefit from regular harvesting by hand, such as salad leaves, kale and beans appeared to be higher than those for A diverse sample 5 standard non-organic production, while for crops where Of the sample of 69 holdings, 78% were using less than 5ha for husbandry and harvest is easily mechanised, small scale food production, including 35% (of 4the total sample) who were production was less of an advantage. using less than 1ha. 10% were using 5-10 ha and 12% were using 7 3 10-20ha. Even some very small farms (<5ha) showed astonishing 2014/2015 AMOS Sample diversity, with 44% of the sample operating between three and 6 2 six enterprises, including mushrooms, cut flowers, pigs, poultry Standard Non-Organic and bees. However, 5 VegetableYields (kg/ m) sq 1 by far the most 4 frequent enterprises 0 represented were Kale Salad

Leeks 3 Potato vegetables (59 Carrot Squash Parsnip Onions Beetroot Cabbage Courgette Calabrese holdings), top fruit Sweetcorn 2014/2015 AMOS Sample Broad bean

French bean 2 (33) and soft fruit (32). Standard Non-Organic Most holdings direct- VegetableYields (kg/ m) sq Leaf beet and chard 1 market their produce either through box 0 schemes, CSAs or Kale Salad Leeks Potato

farmers’ markets, Carrot Squash Parsnip Onions Beetroot Cabbage

or wholesale to Courgette Calabrese Sweetcorn Broad bean independent shops, French bean and many process produce into juices, Carrot harvest at North Aston Organics. Workers Leaf beet and chard are attracted to small-scale farms by the variety, Fig 1 – Comparison of yields (kg/m2) from ‘A Matter of Scale’ survey with data for jams, chutneys or interest and meaningful nature of the work non-organic producers (British Growers’ Association, pers. comm.)

Page 14 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 What made holdings so productive? On a few holdings, yields for both mechanically and hand cultivated crops were several magnitudes higher than for standard-scale non-organic cultivation. Visits to film the eight most productive holdings revealed some of the features enabling these holdings to achieve such high yields. Common themes included:

• Harvesting and marketing systems - Hand picking of crops allowed for a longer harvesting period than a ‘once through’ mechanised harvest and reduced crop wastage as vegetables could be selected and handled more carefully. Direct sales provided a better market for the variety of sizes and quality of produce, due to diversity of customer preference. PYO Spinach and Chard at Stroud Community Agriculture Community supported agriculture schemes, where harvesting labour is shared by members, • Efficient systems - Thoughtfully designed systems ranged were among the more financially resilient farms in the survey. from field scale, tractor cultivated vegetables to small scale The full-time equivalent (FTE) figure was calculated by dividing raised beds. Minimum tillage and no-dig techniques were the average number of hours worked per week by 40 (taking 40 sometimes employed to reduce weed seed germination and hours per week to be full-time), meaning that those who work protect soil. more than full-time appeared as more than one FTE. To compare • Skilful combination of machinery and hand labour - employment across the holdings, a FTE per hectare figure was Technology appropriate to small-scale operations was calculated by dividing FTE by total holding size. The high figure employed within systems designed to combine handwork for FTE/ha can partly be explained by 13 of the 69 holdings and machinery use to maximise efficiency. being less than one hectare, causing a magnification effect on the employment figure. For example, a 0.2ha holding employing • Good soil and aspect - Most of the high yielding growers 0.9 FTE, appears to be employing 4.5FTE/ha. When holdings benefitted from Grade 1 or Grade 2 agricultural land with good of less than one ha are excluded from the average employment soil and a south facing aspect or shelter from a walled garden. calculation, the average FTE/ha figure comes down to 0.68. • Experience and training - Many top ranking growers had at Nevertheless, the fact remains that very small holdings were least ten years experience, providing time to develop skills, generating paid employment at an extremely high level of labour improve soil, establish good systems for cropping, pest intensity. In addition, many holdings benefited from volunteer and weed control. Several had also benefitted from formal labour inputs to a greater or lesser degree. agricultural or horticultural training. It became apparent during interviews with workers at the most • Secure land tenure - All of the high-yielding farms had productive holdings, that they were attracted to small-scale agro- sufficiently secure land tenure to give them the confidence ecological farms by the variety and interest that the work offered, to invest in infrastructure, such as buildings, irrigation as well as the friendly working environment, the opportunity to equipment and fencing, thereby increasing the efficiency of develop skills and the meaningful nature of the work. their holding.

• High inputs - Some systems were using high yields of either physical inputs, such as municipal compost or wood chip, or labour in the form of volunteers. Labour on small farms Across the whole sample, an average of 2.25 full time equivalents (FTE) was working on each holding (including the proprietor/s and paid workers, but not volunteers), with the average FTE per ha being 3.2. This is significantly higher than the mean annual work units (AWU) figure of 0.026 per hectare for the UK (Eurostat 2011, p5). Although it was anticipated that labour intensity would be higher, since the AMOS sample contains a high proportion of two of the most labour intensive forms of farming (organic, and

a predominance of horticulture), the magnitude of increase in Photos: Rebecca Laughton Crops such as climbing French beans benefit from regular picking, and give small labour intensity is surprising. farms employing several people a yield advantage over more mechanised, larger farms.

Page 15 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 A complex economic picture Barriers to productivity The results on financial viability were mixed. On the one hand, Labour issues, including insufficient time and energy, not being average net farm income levels appeared discouragingly low, able to afford to hire sufficient labour and lack of availability with 63% of those providing financial data having a net income of of skilled labour, represented the most frequently mentioned £10,000/year or less, even when the value of subsistence produce barriers to productivity. Furthermore, the mismatch between the consumed on the holding was included. Such low average net income possible from farming and the cost of accommodation and farm incomes reflect the high labour costs involved in small-scale other living costs was a concern echoed by several respondents. horticulture. On the other hand, three holdings were generating a Inefficiencies resulting from inadequate infrastructure or net income of over £25,000, and this rose to four when subsistence equipment, and lack of working capital to invest in the business is included. A further 10 to 13 holdings, representing 22% of were also cited as a barrier, as were lack of affordable land and the sample, were generating an income of £10,000-£20,000. under investment into R&D into technologies appropriate for Those holdings that appeared most financially resilient were all small-scale, agroecological farming. traditional vegetable box schemes or CSAs. Take heart, organic growers! When income breakdown is compared with average incomes for Organic growers can find encouragement in these results, which UK farms, the viability of small farms can be viewed in a more reflect their achievements to date and indicate a future role for a positive light. In 2013/14 (the years for which AMOS financial thriving small-scale horticulture sector. As we prepare to leave data was collected), UK agricultural production contributed the European Union uncertainties abound, not least about who £6000/year to average total farm incomes of £43,000, while Pillar will work in the UK horticulture industry and where the 62% 1 payments (those CAP payments direct to farmers) contributed of vegetables that we currently import will come from. Fruit over £23,000 per year, and £14,000 came from agri-environment and vegetables are by far the greatest source of imports in the 4 payments or diversification out of agriculture. By contrast, 78% UK food system, representing 37% of the UK’s total food trade of the AMOS sample was not in receipt of any form of subsidy, gap of £21 billion in 2014.5 At the same time, in 2013 only 16% of and any extra income needed tended to come from off farm children and 26% of the UK adult population were consuming the employment. Produce sales generated more than 60% of total recommended five or more portions of fruit and vegetables per income for 33% of the AMOS sample, 40-60% for 33% and up to day6. The AMOS survey shows that small-scale agro-ecological 20% of income for 28% of respondents. growers are capable of exceeding non-organic standard yields The low net farm incomes reflect the fact that many of the farms of more labour-intensive crops, while attracting a motivated in the survey were in their early years of establishment. Where labour force by offering meaningful and varied work. All this economic viability was being achieved, this was through a has been achieved without heavy reliance on subsidies and little combination of direct marketing and processing. encouragement to new entrants by way of training, affordable land and the availability of investment capital. Imagine what could be achieved with better support! Right now, a unique alignment of interests (public health, employment and labour, academic) is creating fertile ground for a push to increase small scale, organic horticulture. If as organic growers, we can collectively make the case that with greater policy support and a targeted new entrants’ scheme, we can help close the UK’s fresh produce trade gap, we might find those in power willing to help us overcome the barriers to becoming an even more productive sector. Rebecca Laughton Rebecca Laughton is Campaigns Researcher for the Landworkers’ Alliance. Look out for the full A Matter of Scale report at www.landworkersalliance.org.uk, as well as the five short films of the most productive farms in the survey. 1 Defra (2015) Agriculture in the UK. P7 2 Cornia, G.A. (1985) Farm Size, Land Yields and the Agricultural Production Function: An Analysis for Fifteen Developing Countries. World Development. Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 513-534. 3 Defra (2015) Agriculture in the UK, p9 4 Defra (2014) Farm business income by type of farm in England 2013/14. National Statistics 2014 5 Schoen, V. and Lang, T. (2016). Horticulture in the UK: Potential for meeting Photos: Rebecca Laughton dietary guideline demands. Food Research Collaboration Policy Brief. High value leaf crops, such as lettuce, salad leaves, kale and spinach provided a yield advantage for small-scale farms, when compared to non-organic industry figures. 6 Schoen, V. and Lang, T. (2016). Horticulture in the UK: Potential for meeting dietary guideline demands. Food Research Collaboration Policy Brief.

Page 16 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Small is beautiful… and bountiful!

It all begins with the seed of an idea. well-being. Scaling back, not scaling up, can thereby provide a model for a truly ecological agriculture.

In the report Small is Successful, eight smallholdings (in England) growing food on 10 acres or less were shown to demonstrate that, “the mental attitude and approach of those involved […] is a stronger determinant of success than acreage, aspect, soil Back in 2005, a number of organisations got together for a series conditions or expertise.” Such an approach requires commitment, of informal discussions that would eventually lead to the idea of creativity and solution-focused thinking, all hallmarks of small- the Ecological Land Co-op (ELC) - an organisation dedicated to scale agriculture where an ethic of care for the land goes hand- getting new entrants into agriculture. in-hand with the plain desire to feed people good food. This runs counter to the dominant food production system we see in The impulse very much came from co-founder and director, Zoe England and increasingly the rest of the world. Wangler, who, having been involved in protesting around climate change, decided to change course. “I went in search of solutions The industrial farming model has led to an ecological crisis in and I came across lots of fantastic people who wanted to practice the UK. We have a lot to answer for in our pursuit of more and agro-ecology and who wanted to set up organic or biodynamic more. Biodiversity loss, the degradation of soils, environmental farms or permaculture projects. They had the passion, they had contamination from agrochemicals, disease and antibiotic the commitment and they had the skills but they just couldn’t resistance, high greenhouse gas emissions and huge amounts afford land in the countryside or rural housing. So, the idea of of food waste. According to the FAO, 75 percent of the world’s using community share capital to purchase bits of land began.” food is generated from only 12 plants and five animal species. This narrowing and specialisation is prone to the shocks and The ELC is the only organisation in England to offer affordable challenges of a changing climate. residential smallholdings for ecological land users. Set up in 2009, the ELC is a democratic social enterprise. Their approach aims to The ELC seeks to create ecologically-based, stewardship-minded overcome two key barriers to accessing land: high land prices and farms to make small-scale agriculture a viable reality for the 21st the planning system. century. Working only in England, the ELC develops and retains the skills, experience and expertise necessary to show planning Planning law in England is a major issue when it comes to getting a authorities why such small-scale farms make sense financially and foothold into farming as Zoe explains: “Ecological producers can’t culturally. As a co-operative, retaining the acquired knowledge easily get planning permission, or afford a dwelling, in the open around planning and policy is crucial in replicating the ‘small clusters countryside. We thought, if we form a co-operative which would of farms’ model and in dealing with planning law allowing future retain the necessary skills around planning and give local authorities farmers to focus their energies on growing their business. greater assurance (in terms of applying for planning permission), that the dwellings we created in the open countryside would remain for As a not-for-profit community benefit society the ELC largely rural workers, and that this would potentially be a solution.” relies on public financing to carry out their work. Their recent community share offer was a huge success. Aimed at raising The core business model of the ELC is the creation of clusters £340,000 for the creation of two new clusters of small farms, the of smallholdings by purchasing parcels of agricultural land and share offer was regarded as a direct way for supporters and like- dividing it into smaller units for future farmers. Providing shared minded folk to engage in a cause they believed in and could back. infrastructure, shared planning applications - as well as site Smashing their target before the closing deadline of 12th June, the monitoring - the ELC helps to keep costs down for those applying share offer went on to raise a whopping £440K!. for a plot. Sites are also protected for affordability and ecological agricultural use in perpetuity. Exceeding all expectations, the community share offer is proof positive that the ELC are on to something. This is a pragmatic, Post-Brexit many hope that small-scale, agroecological farming unique and straight-forward model that seeks to redress the will have a more prominent place at the table. That’s yet to be seen, imbalance of power when it comes to land and money, doing so but what is important is that such an approach is being promoted by promoting ecological agriculture. and supported. Small-scale farms make a distinct contribution to rural economies. Providing local food, generating jobs and income, To find out more about the work of the ELC please visit: such farmers are moving from being ‘price takers’ (as dictated by http://ecologicalland.coop supermarkets) to ‘price makers’ (connecting with consumers). Phil Moore And this connection is likely to have farmers see themselves as Phil Moore is one half of the ELC communications teams. He tweets at @ ecolandcoop and also writes a blog Permaculture People UK essential to local communities — in terms of health, capital and

Page 17 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Ten years of The Organic Grower

The Summer 2007 No 1 The Autumn 2007 No 2 The Winter 2007/2008 No.3 The Spring 2008 No.4 The Summer 2008 No.5 The Autumn 2008 No.6 The Winter 2008/2009 No.7 The Spring 2009 No.8 The Summer 2009 No.9 The Autumn/Winter 2009 No.10 ORGANIC GROWER ORGANIC GROWER ORGANIC GROWER ORGANIC GROWER ORGANIC GROWER The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance ORGANIC GROWER ORGANIC GROWER The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance Welcome to the Organic In ThIs Issue In thIs Issue IN THIS ISSUE To the AGM . . . IN THIS ISSUE Local or organic? IN THIS ISSUE Read all about it! IN THIS ISSUE Not drowning IN THIS ISSUE A place we didn’t IN THIS ISSUE Vegetables with IN THIS ISSUE Food Scandal Anyone? IN THIS ISSUE Then and now Growers Alliance, and to the Weathering the 3. News – our first AGM and The Food Standards Agency (FSA) report is ammunition for those In this issue Peter Segger gives an account of the foundation and • News – what’s • News – what’s happening For old timers who went to any of the early Cirencester producer News ...... 2 Most growers just want to get on with their growing. It’s an engaging News ...... 2 News - our 2nd AGM and more ...... 2 • News – what’s happening in much more News ...... 2 News ...... 2 already on the look-out for it, and an irritation to those whose work or News...... 2 twelve-year existence of the Organic Growers Association. Formed out first issue of The Organic conferences in the first half of the 1980s, when they were still put together activity - to the extent that the non-grower might think that organic mean to be purpose happening in organic in and around organic and around organic horticulture Local and organic is the phrase of the moment. Shouldn’t that be organic Aminopyralid - a new threat to The ORC Producer Conference...... 10 house-keeping it seeks to devalue. For the in-betweens it is just another of a disaffected wing of the Soil Association, spawning British Organic by the Organic Growers Association, there could have been a feeling of 11. The Feast of Albion – what was growers take an overly obsessive interest in their craft. but bailing The organic market report ...... 9 Grower – its magazine. weather and local? Instead of the organic bit getting jettisoned altogether, so Another soggy season ...... 11 I had mixed feelings driving home from the ORC – Elm Farm conference Organic growers are a hard-working bunch, that’s obvious. When OGA conservation seminar ...... 14 food story, an overnight sensation which will soon be superseded and The.Soil.Association.AGM...... 11 Farmers, eventually subsumed by it and then, as BOF/OGA, absorbed horticulture horticulture vegetable growers everywhere ...... 10 • Cirencester – the Producer circularity about the one that took place in December. There we were that all about? that we keep hearing - “it’s not organic. But it is local!” It doesn’t leave much time for anything else. As a craft it is hedged It’s often said that banks give you an umbrella and then take it away How was it for me? Colette Haynes ...... 11 at Harper Adams College. On the one hand a chance to meet up with gathered together, besides the partying which happens now and again, The OGA came into being with the approval of the fifty or so It’s been a difficult season! Maybe there isn’t any other sort, but this one Unweaving the web ...... 11 forgotten. People who already buy organic produce know enough about back into the SA - this is history now, quite ancient history. You might once more, a down-to-earth gathering, mostly of producers. Once again about and pitfalled with all the obstacles that come with working in Machinery for the intensive again when it starts raining. At the fag end of this grisly season old friends and make some new ones, to be inspired by talk of principles they like to talk about growing. That should be obvious too, to anyone • Salad bags – a grower’s growers present at the Cirencester conference in December. Now, • Weather stories – has been more difficult than most. There can hardly be a grower or farmer Conference: Plant-raising and 12. The shape of things to come? This is not an equal and balanced relationship. The word “organic” OGA visit to Charles Wakelyns open day...... 16 what it is and why they are buying it to dismiss the report’s conclusions Rijk.Zwaan.trials.in.Germany.....12 wonder what, apart from some human interest, it has to offer us. Well, we were not so many that we couldn’t all sociably fit into the dining hall the natural world, so that when things are going well we can never be (during which the rain has hardly stopped falling) we have witnessed The workshops - crops...... 14 and systems, an opportunity to learn new approaches from my peers who reads this magazine. Perhaps because most have come to land work salvation after six months of detail and deliberation, it is ready to show itself Summer 2007 anywhere whose business has not suffered from the wettest and roughest Dutch innovations signifies an agricultural system that grows out of the natural system it producer ...... 12 The economics of growing by hand ...... 12 as so much more government (non-organic) rhubarb. The Soil Association for one thing, anybody involved in the UK organic scene lives in the substrates – the choice; Alan for the conference dinner instead of spilling over into side rooms, and we Dowdings’...... 12 sure that tomorrow will not bring some flood or drought or damaging the unedifying sight of panicking bankers, armed not so much with and that wonderful feeling of optimism fuelled by a gathering like from something else and appreciate its otherness, its difference to the June and July that anyone can remember. The Organic Grower makes succeeds, in distinction to the one that erects a manufactory in its place. was rapid and comprehensive in defence, and producers can be thankful, outwash resulting from those few years of extraordinary creativity. Not to the world. As well as this magazine there will be farm walks, an could fit too into the relative intimacy of the Parkinson Lecture Theatre umbrellas as publicly-subscribed parachutes, descending unscathed to Direct marketing...... 17 Sárpo update ...... 18 OGA.Riverford.event...... 14 Schofield’s Dutch tour; com- 13. Organic market special: your visitation. If we were to grow laurels it’s very unlikely that we would this. On the other I was stuck in what seems to be an age-old debate on Crop planning - nightmare or salvation ..14 dominant urban-centred culture, they generally seem to take a searching appreciative and, if need be, reassured that it acted effectively on their all the protagonists were growers but it was the OGA that provided a • The great cover-up - AGM and other opportunities for growers to get together, for our • Plant raising…a no apology for giving over several pages of this issue to OGA members’ It is best understood by those who practice it, but for the benefit of the ...... rather than having to struggle with the distance and coldness of the OGA visit to Tozer Seeds 13 be able to rest on them. We apply our intuition and intelligence and Your favourite tools ...... 13 somewhere approaching ground level from their fantasy-derived and certification and processed food with Debra, who was angry. She was view of their work and its responsibilities. And there is nowhere to hide accounts of how they have fared. The weather is many things to us that live views general public its practices are defined in law and its integrity assured behalf. In the national press the FSA findings were roundly condemned platform for change and acted as the catalyst for what was, in effect, a fleece, mesh and beyond enlightenment and our entertainment. There will also be (in time) practical approach for post; plastic and sustainability cavernous Boutflour Hall. There might have been a certain wistfulness cloud-puncturing towers. Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the rest Soil fertility...... 17 Pest in focus - thrips ...... 20 OGA.Coleshill.event...... 16 by it, and sometimes most of everything, but it is never boring. the skills that we learn to this unpredictable world, believing or hoping angry because she had been to the certification question time and heard Leeks - the co-op way ...... 16 when you are a grower, what you do is in the open. Producing foodstuffs an active website. Less immediately obvious, but certainly no less to the customer through certification. “Local” on the other hand is a ...... by many commentators, perhaps most notably in the Daily Mail under the revolutionary movement that brought organic agriculture out of the that the age profile of the participants hadn’t altogether kept up with the 20. Opportunities and challenges G’s and green manures 16 that the best of the good times will see us through the worst of the bad. New year, new reg...... 17 of us – probably the worst economic system of all. the representatives of the certification bodies indicate that, if asked, they growers • Soils special: Soil analysis – is it that go naked and unadorned from your land to the kitchen of their headline “A cancerous conspiracy to poison your faith in organic food”. obscurity to which rampant agribusiness had confined it and gave it • Weed profile – Fat Hen important, we have a growers’ organisation to keep watch on all The memory of this summer will fade as its crops are harvested, or not passing years, and with it some sense of déjà vu. But there was, as before, vague descriptive term that can mean pretty much what you want it The credit crunch...... 21 for Welsh growers The Organic Grower has to reflect all of these times, the good and the would certify Pot Noodles. Chickweed - in profile ...... 19 purchasers, you are in some sense presenting yourself to the world. The movable tunnel ...... 22 Welsh.producer.conference...... 17 matters affecting the business of organic growing. harvested. Organic horticulture is forever the triumph of hope over to mean. No questions need to be asked, no practices scrutinised. A For those who have always stayed on the ground there may have been Internationally the global wires hummed with indignation and disbelief at commercial and public credibility. • Talking compost…or worth it? OGA soil seminar the energy and inspiration that comes from shared purpose and belief, Green manures and nitrous not so good, it cannot avoid doing so – it’s there in the title. recent investigation of local beef on sale through catering outlets in the Protected cropping ...... 18 a short-lived glow resulting from the sight of these people apparently Facing the future - debate...... 22 Collette Haynes, one of the opening conference speakers, told us that she See those ranks of anonymous fruits and vegetables shivering in the the report’s partiality. All in all its credibility has been severely damaged • Scott’s Garden – a new experience, and by the spring our freshly turned earth will be expectant which is maybe the chief benefit of these events. 21. The origin of boxes ...... Flaming weeds ...... 22 oxides 18 small part of the supermarket set apart for nudity? Even they, scrubbed Gardeners and growers ...... 24 OGA.Blaencamel.event...... 18 We might also get a better idea of where we are and of how we can The OGA is about representation and about organic horticulture should that be substrate? with new possibilities. There may be a longer lasting legacy of leached • Fieldnotes and queries Southwest found that twenty percent of it, genetically speaking, had How much simpler our life would be if we could just concentrate on about to get their comeuppance. We could even briefly fantasise that feels we have ended up in a place where we do not mean to be. This and its impact blunted. holding in Derbyshire While the conference itself was comfortably familiar the context in 23. The box revolution Certification body question time...... 23 progress by comparing the situation of organic horticulture then and having the means to speak for itself, something it has not been nutrients, damage to soil structure, an excess of credit in the Bank of Weed to be South American. Even organic and local fresh produce, if on sale doing what we are here to do, and how great it would be if we got the Green waste potential ...... 21 £000 a head organic charity dinners might become a thing of the past. phrase struck a chord with many of the producers present and resonated and labelled, have something to say about themselves and those who Relay green manures ...... 21 Pastures new, fingers crossed ...... 26 The least surprising aspect of the case is that the report concluded that now. Growers can feel some vicarious pride that it was vegetables that led able to do since sometime back in the last century. Growers don’t • Energy and carbon Seeds and an excess of debt in the other one, but as ever it will feel like a • First organic vineyard which it took place has changed radically in twenty five years. Then at your local supermarket, will be well-travelled - for all its vaunted credit we feel we deserve. After all, even though it may not be enough However it soon became apparent that the people who really matter, throughout the conference. Much was made of the relationship between produced them – while most of the rest of the store, muffled in packaging, Costs comparison ...... 27 Compost:.undervalued.treasure....20 • Rickshaws and 24. Right on cue – cucumber tips Open Gate (non) certification...... 24 there are no nutritional benefits in consuming organic food. They would the way as the idea of “organic” became mainstream and the market for anybody could call anything “organic”. Now we have the protection of a local origins. in itself, as a statement of commitment to environmental sanity the is silent as a tomb. need persuading of the uniqueness of their craft – we know there footprint on your farm new start...... Sarpo potatoes ...... 22 who provide the essential foundation for life as we know it, are the principles and practice throughout the two days, and it featured largely Growing fruit trees on their own roots ....28 resolutions – a grower’s • Asparagus antics regulation. Supermarkets had barely been thought of in connection with Fruit, veg and trees 23 say that, wouldn’t they? Whatever degree of independence in research organic goods expanded from peripheral to universal. On the other hand is nothing else like it, and that it takes a grower to understand 26. Plastics: what the grower act of growing organically is worth a thousand lifestyle magazines very same as those responsible for the spectacularly misconceived and in the conference summing up. It was for me the statement of the Selling to pubs and restaurants ...28 Protected.crop.planning...... 22 So what have we learned from this soggy summer? Well, we now know It is reasonable that the two words have come together as an The derogation question...... 26 There is the soil too, the source of life. No one needs to understand it and authorship is claimed for the report and whatever independence of the widespread disquiet as to the current market for our goods and the response to the Cardiff growing, and growers. The OGA is about communication and the • Walnuts - a crop with organic food. To take your place on an organic stand at a horticultural should know and any amount of celebrity professions of “green consumerism”. conference. Collette is of course a grower. Postcard from Korea ...... 30 (if we needed reminding) that temperatures can go down as well as up. • Land's End to John o' Groats expression of an ideal and sometimes of a practice. It is unreasonable Planning and the organic mismanaged global financial system in the first place. You might have so well or has a closer relationship with it than a vegetable grower. So trade show, BGLA for instance, was to court hostility and derision. Now Technical lettuce ...... 24 status and composition the Foods Standards Agency proclaims for itself dissatisfaction with the status of producers within the wider organic world exchange of information, through which there is nothing really to But somehow there is always something in the way, some obstacle or though that it was the production of food, the staff of life, that really The finale - changing the future...... 27 Natural Agriculture ...... 29 The.original.OGA.-.a.history...... 24 conference organic potential The rest of it we probably knew already – that it isn’t an easy life being a 29. Fieldnotes and queries if taken to imply that not being local is somehow less than organic. It is grower ...... 26 As a young organic grower, 26 years ago, I joined the Soil Association one way and another organic growers take a profound interest in what as the commissioner of it, the FSA remains an agency of government. tells us that we cannot afford to rest on past achievements (ours or others’). – by bike! BGLA is no more, and the trade produces the crops the supermarkets tell other. There’s soil and plant and animal – fire, air and water too - the HDRA to Garden Organic ...... 32 be lost and much that can be gained. Beyond that it’s about support. grower, and that while we can only ever make money slowly we can lose it unfortunate, at the least, that “organic” has found itself in second place, mattered – but it’s the money men that get bailed out. So growers, if they do. Often this extends to appreciating the context within which they it to produce – organic among them. There was no government support, Growing in Guernsey ...... 26 and signed up to its certification scheme. We use this certification to For the government to say that organic food is nutritionally superior is The rise of the organic market was a great thing for growers. For a time we • Organic Reconstruction Or, as that word is now debased by overuse, let’s say fellowship. • Weed profile –Gallant in a hurry. One downpour will do! We can try to leave nothing to chance, 30. Winter cauli’s – the Riverford indissoluble and timeless circle within whose disinterested pattern you want to stay afloat keep bailing – because nobody is going to do Shiitake mushrooms...... 28 The four wheel hoe ...... 30 Your.favourite.bit.of.kit...... 28 • Stowey Rocks! so that the word with substance and meaning is subordinate to one that Two years in Indonesia ...... 28 explain to our customers how our farming system differs from chemical- work, the interaction between working the land and issues of equity, also to say that non-organic food is nutritionally inferior. It can’t say that rode that wave, up to and through the supermarket gates, and then, when We can preserve our differences, but there is a lot to be said for either for research or production (other than family credit), and Pat way and flow we live our working lives as it holds us in its sway. That we Self portrait - Fenella’s Garden ...... 37 in Bosnia Soldier live every dry day both as if it will never rain again and as if tomorrow it has little of either. It is disturbing that the recognised distinctiveness it on your behalf. based agriculture. How we produce fertility from legumes and deep- consumption, energy use and so on – all the various facets that make up and Tony Archer were still farming conventionally. Now DEFRA gives accept. And then there’s man . . . Organic farming in Moldova ...... 28 25 years of growing carrots...... 30 because its job is to preserve an even keel, rather than rocking the boat by that didn’t seem to be such a good idea after all, we found another one recognising common ground and for drawing strength from that will start raining and never stop. But still growing remains a gamble of • Organics Autearoa New Zea- of husbandry which has always underpinned whatever strength of Novel Solanaceae ...... 32 New.moves.in.machinery...... 30 33. Bridging the gap – training for Squash in storage ...... 30 There is an obvious comparison between mankind’s chaotically rooting plants and nurture pockets of land for wildlife in our quest for environmental responsibility in its widest sense. In short – they care not effectively condemning the greatest part of our food supply. that brought us to direct marketing. But the growth that the OGA did so earthly, you might say cosmic, proportions. In fact no other business has to farmers an extra £30 a hectare on the strength of their organic certification, Letters ...... 38 • Innovations in plant which we share. • Gaining a foothold on the market organic producers have been able to secure is now threatened The organic bureaucracy we can put up with – these people are our just about the practice but also the principle of the thing. land organic food is everyday and everywhere, and the vocal opposition is organic horticulture unwinding financial system and the one by which most of its food Biodegradable mulches...... 33 crops free from pest and disease. How our system of production works much to stimulate has inevitably led to the dominance of large commercial leave so much to chance, or is so much in the eye and hand of Nature. It has as the focus shifts to the local. Anybody can market produce as local fellow travellers, may even be our friends. Whether we find the HDRA-the early years ...... 31 You have to wonder why the study was commissioned in the first place, breeding and seed growing ladder mostly to be found in the camp of the climate change deniers. Wireworm in theory and is produced, distributed and consumed. There is perhaps some grim positively towards reducing inputs and our dependence on fossil fuels. Fieldnotes and queries ...... 40 Alsia cross profile ...... 35 The.saddle.chariot...... 31 operations, particularly those engaged in processing and distribution. In It has been suggested that the OGA is in some way a splinter group, its compensations - sometimes even the weather is one of these. Sleeping Unfortunately the organic market is now so wide and so diverse that if only one result was possible. It’s not as if organic food is a threat to • Catching water off a polytunnel 34. SA apprenticeship update so long as they don’t sell it too far from home, though it’s a moot point ...... contact a help or a hindrance the purpose, which is certification, is IOTA...... 34 How we are trading fairly with other growers and distributing all of even a divisive force. The organic movement is not and never has with a sound conscience after a day spent doing useful and creative work practice 32 satisfaction that the glaring failure of the first casts light on the dead- principle does not always get much of a look-in. Or it may be that the this the principle, the reason why we growers keep at it, has been overlaid systems in Cuba – are So far, so good. It is nice not to have to be prepared to constantly justify how far that is. What they do at home is their business. something few of us can do without. From the setting of standards Minimal care melons ...... 34 the well-being of the nation, in the way that (say) fast food might be. • Flower power end nature of the second. The idea that fortunes can be made out of our production locally. All of these points have been promoted recently, Nature notes ...... 41 Wholesome Food Association ...... 36 Grafted.plants...... 32 by the mere fact of consumption and the easy messages that accompany it. been in any way homogenous, so in that sense splintering doesn’t is another. Earning the statutory minimum hourly rate for that work is • Stockfree organic horticulture our position. It is even the case that if you tell someone that you grow 35. Organic Futures very width and universality of the market means that different principles they relevant for the UK? ...... to the inspection of their observance we are, or can be, participants. If Letters...... 35 as Soil Association conference topics and in SA campaign statements on You’d have thought that by now, when the trading and processing of come into it. Better that we should be celebrating its continuing probably not a third. Just as it is simple to be local, so it is also simple to promote the ...and as a current affliction 38 the debts of people who mostly never had much hope of keeping apply in different places within it. Most growers within the OGA will Meanwhile the status of the food producers within the edifice constructed vegetables for a living they tend to assume you do it organically. In every you’d care to participate – look inside these pages. Then there is Defra, organic food is a mainstream interest, organic and non-organic could live • Revolting peasants 36. Calculating an ecological foot- local. No deep understanding underlies the word – the concept is Leatherjacket management ...... 37 up with them, that these individual debts can be “securitised” by Peak Oil, Transition and CSAs, and rightly so considering the future that Cabbage comment ...... 42 What to plant now ...... 38 Climate.Friendly.Food.launch...... 34 diversity! Within it or abutting on it are many organisations, none of • Lebanon – the troubled garden corner of the media lip service is paid to the desirability of organic food. But Compost in orchards...... 36 have an understanding of what “organic” means, derived from their on the fruits of their production begins once more to resemble its historic • The Heart of the Grower print for veg crops Book reviews ...... 40 which probably doesn’t impinge much on most of us, horticulture lies ahead of us all. together quite comfortably, as they do on many a supermarket shelf. But which can be said to speak for growers, but any and all of which the immediately graspable without any need for even the most facile bundling them and bundling them again into huge agglomerations, experience of how the soil functions and how organic techniques work in destiny – that of the least considered part of it, the peasant. • Events – OGA farm • Recession challenges and oppor- while there is general acceptance of what we do, and no lack of demand for being eternally at the back of agricultural consciousness in the U.K. Events ...... 44 incomprehension, even animosity, has been a feature of the FSA’s attitude • Local Grower Group OGA will be glad to speak with. There are somewhere around 600 38. Working horses Letters ...... 41 that these bundled bundles can be then sold on and on and on until Book reviews...... 38 practice. This will owe something, directly or not, to the work of Howard Book reviews ...... 40 Nature.notes:.Holly...... 37 walks and more Field notes and queries ...... 41 News tunities 41. All Gas and Ashes? Biomass Fieldnotes and Queries ...... 42 Fieldnotes and queries...... 39 Fieldnotes and queries ...... 42 Protected.cropping.and.out.of.soil. Organic • Coleshill story comment The need for producerism ...... 42 • Events - OGA farm Organic Soil Association conference...... 41 production...... 38 Energy, organic agriculture Nature notes ...... 43 walks and more Growers • Events – OGA AGM and farm 43 Non-OGA events Goodbye cockleshell heroes ...... 43 Growers walks 44 OGA Events and veganism ...... 43 Events...... 44 Letters...... 41 Events ...... 44 Events ...... 44 Alliance Alliance Events ...... 44 Book.reviews...... 42

Page  - The Organic Grower - No 3 - Winter 2007/2008 Page  - The Organic Grower - No 4 - Spring 2008 Page  - The Organic Grower - No 5 - Summer 2008 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 1 - Summer 2007 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 2 - Autumn 2007 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 7 - Winter 2008/09 Page  - The Organic Grower - No 6 - Autumn 2008 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 8 - Spring 2009 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 9 - Summer 2009 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 10 - Autumn/Winter 2009 The voice of Organic Horticulture The voice of Organic Horticulture The Winter/Spring 2010 No.11 The Winter/Spring 2010 No.11 The Winter 2010 No.13 The Spring 2011 No.14 The Summer 2011 No.15 The Autumn 2011 No.16 The Winter 2011 No.17 The Spring 2012 No.18 The Summer 2012 No.19 The Autumn 2012 No.20 ORGANIC GROWER ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE Lighting the future IN THIS ISSUE Lighting the future Community spirit Challenging times... Cucumber sandwiches anyone? The Turning of the Year As hot as it got this AGROECOLOGY IN Schofield scribbles ...... 2 THE AGE OF Schofield scribbles ...... 2 THE AGE OF News...... 2 Protected cropping consultation ....3 News...... 3 As I walk around our modern food emporiums I am often horrified News...... 3 News...... 3 News...... 3 In the last two decades the population of the city of Detroit has shrunk In the last two decades the population of the city of Detroit has shrunk “2010 has been another landmark year for the growing CSA After very indifferent summers in the past three years, in 2010 I was With autumn just around the corner and the intense activity of the summer! News...... 2 News...... 2 by some of the food processing that many of us now take for granted News ...... 3 News ...... 3 from 2 million to 800,000. The remaining descendants of the folk who from 2 million to 800,000. The remaining descendants of the folk who movement. Eighteen new CSAs began trading bringing the total beginning to believe that we had turned a corner and although not growing season beginning to calm down, this is the time that most OGA SEED AND PRACTICE AGROECOLOGY? AGROECOLOGY? and when bagged salad leaf first appeared on the shelves, I could see a Schofield.scribbles...... 2 Access.to.the.land...... 8 flooded in from rural America to turn the wheels in the epicentre of early flooded in from rural America to turn the wheels in the epicentre of early Workwear...... 10 to over 50 in England alone with over 120 in development”. This Peat consultation ...... 4 brilliant, it was certainly better. We were looking at reasonable crops The.AGM.and.Naida.launch...... 6 Wakelyns.Agroforestry.open.day...9 growers start to reflect on the season so far. Here in the North West OGA research needs survey ...... 8 ORC.producer.conference...... 10 ORC.producer.conference...... 10 disaster waiting to happen. I have long thought that there are too many SUBSTRATE SURVEY OGA AGM report ...... 8 20th century industrialisation are now, in the 21st, beginning to farm 20th century industrialisation are now, in the 21st, beginning to farm according to the Soil Association’s latest community supported as we went into winter - so what happened? Snow fell in Lancashire we have had a far better growing season than the last four were, and Organic.horticulture.in.Wales...... 9 GM..Our.response?...... 9 Miguel Altieri at the unknowns in the equation of how it has been washed and processed, Growing salads for public procurement ...... 10 and grow vegetables where once there were factories and parking lots. and grow vegetables where once there were factories and parking lots. Organic.greenhouse.conference.... 12 agriculture and organic buying groups newsletter. Not wanting to be News ...... 6 before Christmas, unheard of in the last 30 years, but it wasn’t just the Helen.Browning.interview...... 8 Seasonal.reports...... 10 I remember the words of a local farmer to me when I first moved to Renewable energy incentives ...... 10 John.and.Ruth.Daltry.award...... 14 John.and.Ruth.Daltry.award...... 14 packaged and transported and whether or not the cold chain has been Producer Conference Growing garlic feature ...... 12 It was an American who, post-Suez, announced that “Britain has lost an It was an American who, post-Suez, announced that “Britain has lost an left behind we’ve dedicated several pages of this issue of The Organic snow. The following long cold period damaged all our cabbage and Pilling some 32 years ago now: as farmers, they expected “one good Selling.Organic...... 10 Heritage.squash.trials...... 10 broken. On display as a chilled product these salad packs are easy to pick To tweet or not to tweet? ...... 12 empire and has not yet found a role”. Now, ahead of the States, we’ve empire and has not yet found a role”. Now, ahead of the States, we’ve GRAB.French.research.station.....13 Grower to the CSA phenomenon, as reported by participants in it. Organic Producer Conference .....12 leek crops and slowed down all our other crops. Those who had more How’s.the.season.going?...... 11 Interview.with.Rob.Haward...... 12 year in five”. And so, true to form, we have just had a fairly good year Fruit Bowl visit ...... 14 up, put in the shopping basket and carried round the store. Once paid for, OGA.machinery.event...... 16. already lost most of our industry too, and seem as confused about our OGA.machinery.event...... 16. already lost most of our industry too, and seem as confused about our snow than us seemed to have fared slightly better, perhaps due to the and I hope this has been repeated around the country. A conversation RZ/Tuckers.open.days...... 11 Interview.with.Phil.Morley...... 12 Bee-friendly zones ...... 14 CSAs are very much a part of organic horticulture, given that most they are often in warm cars and submitted to the drive home. By the time Grower profile: Nathan Richards ...... 15 post-industrial role as we are (still) about our post-imperial one. post-industrial role as we are (still) about our post-imperial one. Nature’s.nitrogen...... 14 Passing on experience ...... 16 insulation effect. But many growers have told me that most of their Water,.weeds.and.consciousness.. 13 Sárvári.Research.Trust.open.day...... 14 with growers has highlighted the fact that we have all seen very erratic of them are wholly or partly about producing organic horticultural they get to the domestic fridge, these products could have been gently Horticultural.symposium...... 12 Nature.notes.-.Field.names...... 15 Lablab - crop with potential ...... 15 A.grower.travels.-.California...... 18 A.grower.travels.-.California...... 18 post Christmas crops were severely hit, with some losing tunnels and pollination through till mid July, and have put this down to cold weather Letter from East Africa ...... 16 What remains to us, for certain, is the land. This land has sustained its What remains to us, for certain, is the land. This land has sustained its crops for some sort of value exchange. The obvious difference warming up for over an hour and the cold chain is long broken. buildings due to the weight of the snow. and less insect activity than normal. We all saw poor yields of early broad population for all but the last two hundred years. In this its own role population for all but the last two hundred years. In this its own role Re-skilling.weekend...... 16 between them and most horticultural businesses is that output is Finding land ...... 16 Irrigation...... 14 Peat-free.growing.media...... 16 Fancy.a.slice.of.the.research.pie?...... 16 Organic.Producer.Conference...... 16 Soil Association conference ...... 16 Resilience of the no-dig system ...... 18 Lemongrass...... 19 Lemongrass...... 19 As I write this we are watching one of the worst E.coli outbreaks in the beans, courgettes and summer squash, as well as poor early pollination of was subverted in service to the industrial revolution - the need for cheap was subverted in service to the industrial revolution - the need for cheap shared among a defined group of people – the community, and And if this was not enough to contend with we have, since Christmas, western world. With 22 people tragically dead and over 2,000 ill, many of tomatoes and French beans inside polytunnels. This has improved a lot in Biological control of sclerotinia ...... 18 Weather, we like it or not ...... 19 food to sustain the industrial worker saw to that. As people left the land food to sustain the industrial worker saw to that. As people left the land Compost.or.green.manure?...... 17 that the community has some input into the process of production. Care farming ...... 18 seen escalating Middle East unrest and fuel prices. This was followed Anaerobic.digestion...... 18 Sciarid.flies...... 18 Building.your.own.home..Part.2...... 18 Eliot.Coleman:.Four.Seasons.Farm...... 22 A.future.for.organic.horticulture. 20 A.future.for.organic.horticulture. 20 those in a ‘serious’ condition, the culprit over the last week was originally the last five to six weeks, and as such we are now overrun with plagues of to fill the factories so agriculture’s means and ends were industrialised to fill the factories so agriculture’s means and ends were industrialised The whole concept is encapsulated in the phrase “community by one of the most haunting images I have ever seen, that of a large Urban organics ...... 20 Transform your food system ...... 21 salad crops. This is a new strain of E.coli not previously seen by the horse flies and wasps. It never rains but it pours. European.organic.seed.workshop...... 19 WWOOF!...... 24 too – factory food, factory prices, factory farms. You could say that too – factory food, factory prices, factory farms. You could say that CSA.feature...... 18 supported farms – farm supported communities”, the subtitle of Making a dibber peg board ...... 22 polytunnel complex, and no doubt many workers, swept away in Renewable.energy...... 22 Nature.notes:.Soil.Associations....20 World Health Organisation (WHO) on salad crops. A mutant strain with Organic growing in Jersey ...... 22 Stormy Hall Seeds ...... 22 Organic.apprenticeship.scheme.... 21 British agriculture forgot that it was feeding people and concentrated on Organic.apprenticeship.scheme.... 21 British agriculture forgot that it was feeding people and concentrated on Trauger Groh and Steve McFadden’s seminal ‘Farms of Tomorrow’ seconds by the tsunami that hit Japan following the earthquake. These Even our local markets are starting to show some increased activity, and very aggressive and often fatal consequences, they struggle to find the OGA.seed.and.substrate.survey...... 20 In.praise.of.the.nettle...... 26 De-hybridising - Sativa Rheinau ...... 24 producing commodities. Organic farming sees this view of husbandry producing commodities. Organic farming sees this view of husbandry ....Growing.well.event...... 26 (1990). The movement was slow to get going here, though there is Wesh growers’ meeting ...... 23 are certainly challenging times. Broccoli.and.calabrese.continuity.24 Johnny’s.six-row.seeder...... 21 although sales are at a level of at least 12 years ago, here in the North Grower/retailer relationship ...... 24 Growing.aubergines...... 26 Growing.aubergines...... 26 cause and try to prevent further fatalities. as a disjunction between the nature and purpose of the land and the as a disjunction between the nature and purpose of the land and the more than an echo of the idea in the relationship between a box A new team has put this edition of the Organic Grower (OG) together West we are beginning to get a little more confidence back that people Field.scale.potatoes.-.Devon...... 26 Messing.with.modules...... 28 GM Freeze ...... 26 As the news broke “dirty organic produce” was deemed to be the most John & Shirley Butler ...... 26 way in which it is being used. Its most visible public effects have been way in which it is being used. Its most visible public effects have been Composting.woodchips...... 28 scheme and its customers. It has gathered momentum since 2002 Organics in the Baltic Sea ...... 25 under the watchful eye of Phil Sumption as Tim Deane has stepped Profile:.Wendy.Seel...... 25 Docks.-.keeping.them.in.check...... 22 are ignoring the bad press and seeking out local suppliers. This is a Snow.patrol...... 28 Snow.patrol...... 28 likely source, and prompted by the myth that organic producers use raw Oakcroft Organic Gardens ...... 27 landscape/habitat loss and the alienation of the population from landscape/habitat loss and the alienation of the population from and the inception of Stroud Community Agriculture, which you aside after nearly four years of co-producing our journal. A big time we should all be promoting ourselves, since the big retailers have IOTA.study.tour.to.Germany...... 28 Peat-free.blocking...... 29 OF&G - Protecting organic ...... 28 manures to grow plants, this was the journalists’ logical answer when any involvement in or understanding of the countryside. Eventually, any involvement in or understanding of the countryside. Eventually, Bejo.-.Connecting.organic...... 30 can read a little about on pg 22. It’s now accompanied by the sort Soil Association conference ...... 26 personal thank you to Tim for all his wonderful writings and effort Apprenticeship.corner...... 26 Building.your.own.house...... 24 removed a lot of fresh organically grown produce from their shelves and Organic Farming in Romania ...... 28 Tomato.blight...... 31 seemingly as a misdirected punishment for a succession of food scandals, Tomato.blight...... 31 seemingly as a misdirected punishment for a succession of food scandals, of media buzz that once attended direct marketing and then, by looking for a cause. Then the German authorities pointed the finger at are thus reporting reduced sales (what did they expect?!). Therefore the Growers.and.the.financial.crisis...... 30 Woodchip.growing.media...... 30 Grower profile: Andy Dibben ...... 29 over that period. We took the decision to survey members about the Nature Notes: Eating disorder ...... 29 agriculture lost its government ministry and now occupies a side office agriculture lost its government ministry and now occupies a side office extension, local food in general. Spanish salad produce and a 20,000 ton per week export industry, worth opportunity exists for us to use our greatest asset, which is our holding, to Shallots.from.seed...... 32 Organic cut flowers...... 28 OG through the website and these results are highlighted overleaf. From.Germany.to.Scilly...... 27 Simple.inexpensive.storage...... 28 Take the flour back ...... 30 in a department of state which until very recently could not see that food in a department of state which until very recently could not see that food over 200 million euros, ground to a halt with over 70,000 jobs at risk. A show by example what we can achieve without the use of agrochemicals. Cutting.down.your.GHG...... 32 Gross.profit.analysis...... 31 Tools for the job ...... 30 Cdr.Robert.Stuart...... 32 Cdr.Robert.Stuart...... 32 What’s different now (and what truly sets CSAs apart from the Many thanks to all those who took part and to Phil for his ongoing security was any sort of issue. security was any sort of issue. few days later the same authorities said that it was unlikely that Spanish We have open days and a promotional campaign planned for September Potato.open.days...... 34 organic mainstream) is that whereas the original impetus came from Profile: Trill Farm Garden ...... 31 efforts in putting the magazine together. Raising.finance...... 28 Bees.on.your.holding...... 30 Growing broad beans ...... 32 Bioselect open day ...... 32 produce was to blame as no Spanish cases had been confirmed and they when people return from their holidays and settle down a bit in their Growing.glasshouse.fertility...... 34 Apprenticeship.corner...... 32 Data.protection...... 35 Against this confusion organic agriculture holds up its understanding of Data.protection...... 35 Against this confusion organic agriculture holds up its understanding of farmers, for whom CSAs can be both a refuge from the market and When we first took the decision to give the OGA new life, four years ago, were transferring their investigations to an area around Hamburg and eating habits as the kids go back to school. We have always seen a good Organic seed-saving seminar ...... 34 OGA 5th AGM at Sárvári Research Trust open day ...... 33 the nature of the land and a reaffirmation of its purpose. Through direct the nature of the land and a reaffirmation of its purpose. Through direct Carbon.footprinting...... 36 a more positive way of relating to society, in the UK at least it is Growing chicory ...... 32 it was decided that the existing growers would oversee the organisation Presentation.quality...... 32 Growing.for.caterers...... 32 Phil.Stocker.-.departing.words...... 36 Grower.profile:.Alex.Armstrong...... 33 Lamb’s.lettuce/corn.salad...... 36 Lamb’s.lettuce/corn.salad...... 36 Northern Germany. response from promotions at this time of year, when locally grown Shropshire sheep in orchards ...... 34 marketing growers, and farmers too, have formed a bridge between the marketing growers, and farmers too, have formed a bridge between the now coming increasingly from the community – which is to say from Just say N2O ...... 36 for the first three years or so, then step aside to allow a new generation produce is still in abundance. Abbey Home Farm rural and the urban-suburban worlds. For this reason and others many rural and the urban-suburban worlds. For this reason and others many Access.to.land...... 37 groups of people who form themselves into communities of shared Apprenticeship corner ...... 35 Seed.saving.for.growers...... 34 This morning the finger of suspicion is now pointing at a German bean Profile:.Glebelands.City.Growers.33 Apprenticeship.corner...... 38 Controlling.seedling.weeds...... 34 of growers to take it forward. To me it was important that the new Let’s liberate diversity ...... 37 Chickens on your holding ...... 37 Grower.profile:.Phil.Morley...... 39 Grower.profile:.Phil.Morley...... 39 sprout nursery and as the Germans are lovers of their bean sprouts people now take an intelligent interest in the way their food is produced. people now take an intelligent interest in the way their food is produced. aspiration and spirit as a means towards securing their food supply. organisation should be easily run at minimal cost so that we could We have had two committee meetings since the last OG, and the first in maybe this makes more sense. But, as more details are revealed, there is Grower.profile.-Kate.Collyns...... 39 Planning.review.thesis...... 37 Using pigs to combat couch grass ...... 38 A survey (reported inside) claims that the number of shoppers seeking A survey (reported inside) claims that the number of shoppers seeking Profile:.Mark.Stay...... 39 Growing in northern Germany ...36 concentrate on the issues affecting the growers. Participatory.certification...... 36 Growing.raspberries...... 34 early June saw the appointment of the officers of the OGA. I was re-elected Stockfree growing ...... 38 Letters/reviews...... 40 locally produced food has doubled since 2006. While this statistic may Letters/reviews...... 40 locally produced food has doubled since 2006. While this statistic may still a lot of scientific investigation to be done as E.coli is associated with as chairman and Debra, who became a full committee member at this ICBINO - I can’t believe it’s not organic.....40 Nature.notes:.Chicory.blues...... 40 Protected.early.beetroot...... 38 National planning framework ...... 40 The.price.of.success...... 40 Letters ...... 38 Farmer.participatory.research...... 38 Apprenticeship.corner...... 36 Apprenticeship corner ...... 41 Organic.-what.does.it.mean?...... 42 Organic.-what.does.it.mean?...... 42 CSA.conference...... 41 Allium.leaf.miner...... 40 Nature notes: The merry month ...... 41 Nature.notes:.The.hornet.drum....42 Nature notes: Pheasants ...... 40 Book.reviews...... 42 Agrokruh.-growing.in.circles...... 38 Book review ...... 42 Local growers groups ...... 42 More.hot.air...... 43 More.hot.air...... 43 Biochar...... 42 Letters...... 42 Polytunnel covering guide ...... 43 Book.review...... 43 Book reviews ...... 41 Letter...... 43 Corporate.organics...... 39 Book review ...... 43 Events...... 44 Events...... 44 Inputs.-.let.the.buyer.beware...... 43 Comment:.Whither.biofuels...... 43 Events ...... 44 Events ...... 44 Events...... 44 Events ...... 44 Events...... 44 Events...... 40 Events...... 44 Events...... 44

Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 20 Autumn 2012 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 11 - Winter/Spring 2010 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 11 - Winter/Spring 2010 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 13 Winter 2010 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 14 Spring 2011 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 15 Summer 2011 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 16 Autumn 2011 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 17 Winter 2011 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 18 Spring 2012 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 19 Summer 2012 The Winter 2012 No.21 The Spring 2013 No.22 The Summer 2013 No.23 The Autumn 2013 No.24 The Winter 2013 No.25 The Spring 2014 No.26 The Summer 2014 No.27 The Autumn 2014 No.28 The Winter 2014 No.29 The Spring 2015 No.30 ORGANIC GROWER ORGANIC GROWER ORGANIC GROWER The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance IN THIS ISSUE As hot as it got this IN THIS ISSUE As hot as it got this IN THIS ISSUE As hot as it got this IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE THE AGE OF THE AGE OF THE AGE OF Schofield scribbles...... 2 summer! Schofield scribbles...... 2 summer! Schofield scribbles...... 2 summer! Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 News ...... 3 AGROECOLOGY? OGA research ...... 3 AGROECOLOGY? News ...... 3 AGROECOLOGY? News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 National Soil Symposium ...... 10 OGA research update ...... 5 News ...... 5 OGA research conference...... 8 Tozers & Agrico open days ...... 6 Future foodscapes ...... 5 Wales shapes up for the new CAP ...... 10 Newcastle study finds differences between OGA website hacked ...... 7 organic and conventional crops ...... 7 Land Workers’ Alliance AGM ...... 7 Interview with Catherine Fookes ...... 14 In vino veritas ...... 6 LWA Defra demo ...... 11 Seed Co-operative ...... 8 Oxford Real Farming Conference ...... 9 OGA 6th AGM report ...... 10 Tim Deane’s last field vegetable ...... 8 The Winter’s Tale ...... 6 Prince of Wales’s Food & Farming National Soil Symposium ...... 8 Save our Seeds event ...... 8 Growing fennel ...... 16 ORC Producer Conference ...... 10 Biodynamic farm management ...... 13 OGA AGM - Cotesbach ...... 12 Summer School ...... 8 Seed and substrate survey 2015 ...... 9 Dutch potato breeding programme ...... 12 Nature notes – land and water ...... 9 Organic Greenhouse symposium ...... 12 Mobile polytunnels in France ...... 10 Study organic at SRUC ...... 17 CSA vouchers ...... 16 Interview 2 with Lawrence Woodward .14 Nature notes - Life chances ...... 14 The Rocoto pepper ...... 10 Willow tea for rooting cuttings ...... 10 Food from here conference ...... 14 OGA seed and substrate survey ...... 10 Nature notes: The night ...... 14 Grower profile: Metske Van der Laan ...18 Grower profile: Robert Tilsley ...... 15 OGA salad production survey ...... 12 Nature notes: Almost a vegetable ...... 17 Leek moth...... 16 Haloon - a new crop ...... 17 Nature note: Spiders from Mars? ...... 13 Small producers in Wales ...... 12 Sarvari research update ...... 15 Seeds and varieties field lab...... 11 SWARM hub ...... 19 Yields of veg from intensive beds ...... 16 Interview with Lawrence Woodward ....18 La Via Campesina UK ...... 19 Manifold green manures - part 3 ...... 18 School farmers’ markets ...... 14 Salad spotlight: Northdown Orchard ....16 Scotland/Ireland news...... 13 Starting from scratch ...... 16 CSA network launch ...... 12 Crossword ...... 22 English organic producer survey ...... 17 Interview with Christopher Stopes ...... 16 Land Army training ...... 21 Red radicchio of Treviso ...... 20 A Scandinavian perspective ...... 20 Edible Landscape Project ...... 18 National Soil Symposium ...... 14 The apple quiz ...... 18 Organic Producers Conference ...... 14 Rijk Zwaan & Tuckers open day ...... 23 Saving seed from leeks ...... 18 Mulching with wool ...... 22 Profitable crops to grow ...... 22 Review of new organic regulation ...... 19 Organic Producers’ Conference ...... 15 Nature notes: The swallow’s summer ...22 Rijk Zwaan /Tuckers open day ...... 19 OGA review of 2014 season ...... 20 Rijk Zwaan conference ...... 24 True Cost Accounting conference ...... 20 Open-source seed initiative ...... 19 Bats on your holding ...... 24 CSA - lessons from abroad ...... 24 Under-sowing kale field lab ...... 20 Purple sprouting broccoli ...... 19 Grower profile - Jason Horner ...... 23 Starting a farm shop ...... 20 Grower profile: Richard Plowright ...... 22 Beyond the veg box ...... 26 Growing sweet peppers ...... 22 Fermenting soils of Japan ...... 20 Shropshire sheep field lab ...... 22 Social and therapeutic horticulture ...... 20 Grower profile: Sam Eglington ...... 27 Grower profile - Laura Creen ...... 25 Extending the season ...... 24 Patrick Holden interview - part one ...... 22 Nature Notes: Pray you tread softly .....29 Boxing clever? Let’s talk IT...... 24 Groundspring Harvest Fire ...... 23 Social media for organic businesses ...... 22 Bioselect UK open day ...... 23 Pak choi at Pillars of Hercules ...... 22 Stanhay seed drill ...... 28 Nature notes: Bird business ...... 26 Foam weeding field lab ...... 27 Richard Jacobs (Jake) tribute ...... 25 Off-grid propagation bench...... 30 Couch: a snake of a grass ...... 24 Patrick Holden interview. Part 2 ...... 28 Under-sowing brassicas field lab ...... 24 Apprentice corner...... 24 Organic growers in Japan - part two ....24 Salad leaf growing ...... 30 Future growers ...... 27 Biodynamic apprenticeship ...... 28 Manifold green manures -part four ...... 26 Soil assisted modules ...... 31 Research for small producers ...... 31 French tunnels ...... 25 Growing micro-greens ...... 26 OGA picture quiz ...... 26 Nature notes: Light ...... 27 Apprentice corner...... 33 Manifold green manures - part 2 ...... 28 Sheffield Organic Growers...... 29 Tolly on growing strawberries ...... 28 Agroforestry - a new approach ...... 32 French serradella and sub. clover ...... 32 Strawberry trials at Hardwick ...... 26 Field horsetail ...... 28 Leeks, cabbage and chips ...... 28 Manifold green manures ...... 34 Powdery mildew control ...... 30 Access to land - Italian style ...... 31 Apprentice corner...... 28 OGA forum highlights 2012 ...... 36 Growing over-winter onions ...... 30 Growing runner beans ...... 28 Helen’s Bay farm walk ...... 30 Fenugreek / Methi ...... 32 H.J. Massingham’s Plot of Earth ...... 34 Nature note: where are the birds ...... 31 Growing veg in Andalusia ...... 30 Dr George Vivian Poore ...... 36 Greenhouse watering - low tech ...... 32 Organic Fresh Food Company ...... 32 Apprentice corner...... 40 Biodynamic herbs in the Netherlands ...32 Grower profile: Sharon Storey ...... 33 Newfields farm walk ...... 31 Grower profile: Mark Harrison ...... 31 Carbon footprint calculator ...... 38 Letter ...... 34 Grower profile: Laurence Hasson ...... 36 Soils: what holds us back? ...... 32 The big apple ...... 41 Shelter-belts on the farm ...... 34 Apprentice corner...... 35 Strawberries at Tolly’s: continued ...... 32 Future Growers ...... 34 Book reviews ...... 37 Oxford Real Farming Conference ...... 32 Hotbeds for propagation ...... 40 Organic Growers Ireland ...... 35 The ECOVOC project ...... 37 Organic growers in Japan: part one ...... 34 Book review ...... 41 Certification - more harm than good? ...37 Landworkers Alliance ...... 35 Shumei: Naturally different ...... 34 Book reviews ...... 36 Book reviews ...... 41 The view from the mountain ...... 36 Strawberry fields, forever? ...... 38 Letters ...... 42 Book review ...... 38 Book review ...... 38 Book reviews ...... 37 Biodynamic seed project ...... 36 Grower profile: Lisa Margreet Payne ....37 Comment: Reclaim the fields ...... 39 GM, flooding, friends & foes ...... 39 Events ...... 44 Comment: Dumped! ...... 43 Book reviews ...... 38 Letter ...... 39 Book reviews ...... 38 Organic San Francisco ...... 39 Professor Lindsay Robb ...... 38 Events ...... 40 Events ...... 40 Events ...... 44 Events ...... 40 Events ...... 40 Events ...... 40 Events ...... 40 Events ...... 40 Events ...... 40

Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 21 Winter 2012 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 22 Spring 2013 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 23 Summer 2013 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 24 Autumn 2013 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 25 Winter 2013 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 26 Spring 2014 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 27 Summer 2014 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 28 Autumn 2014 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 29 Winter 2014 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 30 Spring 2015

Summer 2017 No.39 The Summer 2015 No.31 The Autumn 2015 No.32 The Winter 2015 No.33 The Spring 2015 No.30 The Summer 2016 No.35 The Autumn 2016 No.36 The Winter 2016 No.37 The Spring 2017 No.38 The ORGANIC GROWER ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance ORGANICThe journal of the Organic GROWER Growers Alliance The journal of the Organic Growers Alliance IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE IN THIS ISSUE Schofield Scrbbles ...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Schofield scribbles...... 2 Editor’s notes ...... 2 10th Anniversary Editor’s notes ...... 2 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 News ...... 3 Edition 40 years of growing - part 2 ...... 8 OGA website hacked ...... 7 European Copper Conference ...... 5 8th OGA AGM - Stroud CSA ...... 8 40 years a growing ...... 6 Desert Island grower: Kate Collyns ...... 7 Desert Island grower: Phil Sumption ....7 Growing Apprentice: Sutton Community Seed Co-operative ...... 8 Nature note: Hip hip ...... 6 OGA AGM: Growing with Nature ...... 6 Rijk Zwaan/Soil Association open day ..10 Farm ...... 6 UK launch of Farm Hack ...... 10 Strawberry Fields farm walk ...... 11 Corporate volunteering ...... 8 Seed and substrate survey 2015 ...... 9 Agricology day at Daylesford ...... 8 Desert Island grower: Hugh Collins ...... 7 Seed sovereignty of UK & Ireland ...... 10 National Soil Symposium ...... 11 A growing family ...... 8 Nature notes: Two onion kind ...... 13 Philip Oyler: Feeding ourselves ...... 12 Willow tea for rooting cuttings ...... 10 Nature note - Summer stars ...... 10 Organic growers in 70s West Wales ...... 8 Researching the trading of organic food 11 Apprentice corner...... 12 Soils: are we looking at them right? ...... 10 Fresh Start Horticultural Academy ...... 14 Planning matters - Part 2 ...... 12 Creating a robust seed system ...... 14 Dutch no-plough organic caulis ...... 13 Small producers in Wales ...... 12 BioGreenhouse training school ...... 11 Big is now beautiful ...... 12 Charles Wacher Trust ...... 14 GREATsoils grower trials ...... 12 Seeds of inspiration in Germany ...... 14 Vlogging for growers ...... 15 Breton organic seed growers ...... 16 Beetle banks ...... 14 A Matter of Scale ...... 14 Scotland/Ireland news...... 13 Organic Greenhouse Symposium ...... 12 Irish Future Growers ...... 15 Seed Co-operative share launch ...... 15 ® FCCT farm walk - Tolhurst Organic ....14 Tolly and the Kalettes ...... 16 Small is beautiful… and bountiful! ...... 17 Roscoff caulis for the hungry gap ...... 18 Nature note: hardcore natural history ...16 National Soil Symposium ...... 14 Reflections of an intern ...... 16 Bringing in the bugs ...... 14 Managing soils using organic materials .. 16 Organic Producers’ Conference ...... 15 Nature notes - a sense of purpose ...... 17 Ten years of the OGA/Organic Grower 18 Agroforestry at Tolly’s ...... 20 Gold Hill Organic Farm ...... 17 Future Growers go to Devon ...... 16 How to construct a soil-blocking tool ....18 Obituary: Bill Mollison ...... 19 Assessing soil health ...... 17 The humble radish ...... 20 Purple sprouting broccoli ...... 19 Feeding the soil ...... 18 September sowings for winter salads ....22 Spinach/leaf beet/chard/New Zealand Garden Fit: coaching in garden fitness ..18 Sea buckthorn - a new organic crop? ....20 OGA Christmas quiz ...... 18 Letters ...... 21 Desert island grower: Patrick Noble .....23 spinach/amaranth special feature ...... 18 Social and therapeutic horticulture ...... 20 Book review: Back to Earth ...... 22 In search of wellbeing ...... 22 Building carbon in farm soils ...... 24 Nature notes - B is for Beaver ...... 19 Agroforestry research conference ...... 20 Pak choi at Pillars of Hercules ...... 22 Interview with Nic Lampkin ...... 22 ProSpecieRara ...... 24 Apprentice corner...... 24 Growing Dutch ...... 24 Desert island grower: Jason Horner ...... 25 2015 box scheme report ...... 26 Organic potatoes, reduced till & mulch 20 Organic growers in Japan - part two ....24 Joan Loraine 1929-2016 ...... 25 French agroforestry market garden ...... 22 Buckwheat for couch control ...... 26 Using mulches to protect from aphids ...26 Just farm labour ...... 26 Migrant veg ...... 26 Grower profile: Simon Duffy ...... 27 Parsnip feature ...... 23 Nature notes: Light ...... 27 Horticultural hindsight: Jonathan Smith 27 Vegetable succession for Summer ...... 26 Growing pea shoots ...... 28 OGA season update ...... 28 Planning matters ...... 24 German organic science conference ...... 28 Better Organic Business Links ...... 26 Oxford Real Farming Conference ...... 28 Eastbrook Farm agroforestry ...... 28 Apprentice corner...... 28 Letter: Onions direct ...... 29 Sir George Stapledon ...... 28 Grower experiences of planning ...... 26 Manchester: Sustainable food systems ..30 Sheep have devoured the people ...... 29 Apprentice corner...... 29 Botanigard - biological insecticide ...... 29 Growing veg in Andalusia ...... 30 Growing carrots in tunnels ...... 30 Organic Producers’ Conference ...... 32 CSA in Europe ...... 30 Producer-grown, open-pollinated seed ..33 Grower Profile: Waterland Organics and Crowdfunding for growers ...... 30 Grower profile: Mark Harrison ...... 31 The new GMOs: how to avoid them ...... 30 Book review: Organic Revolutionary ....31 Exit interview - Hankham staff ...... 30 Digging to save the World ...... 35 Cambridge CropShare ...... 30 Buying seed - the grower’s dilemma...... 32 Interview with Tarry Bolger ...... 34 Permaculture Convergence...... 32 Oxford Real Farming Conference ...... 32 Over-wintering onions ...... 32 2016 growing season review ...... 32 Horticultural costings ...... 32 ICM approach for organic ...... 36 Nature notes – place invaders...... 32 Interview with Moles Seeds ...... 33 Independent veg box survey ...... 36 Book review ...... 33 Book reviews ...... 36 Mental health and organic growing ...... 34 Welsh Spring Fair ...... 35 Nature Notes - Mind that tree ...... 34 Letters ...... 38 Book reviews ...... 33 Comment: Reclaim the fields ...... 39 From seed to seed - films ...... 34 Thrift Farm: Social & therapeutic ...... 36 Organic food and waste ...... 38 Yoga for growers ...... 34 Precariat or progression? ...... 35 Events ...... 36 Fancy growing organic seed potatoes? ..35 Events ...... 40 Events ...... 40 Juliette de Bairacli-Levy ...... 38 Events ...... 40 Jokes and Events ...... 36 Seed Co-operative new home ...... 35 Events ...... 36 Events ...... 36 Events ...... 40 Events ...... 36

Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 31 Summer 2015 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 32 Autumn 2015 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 33 Winter 2015 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 30 Spring 2015 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 35 Summer 2016 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 36 Autumn 2016 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 37 Winter 2016 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 38 Spring 2017 Page 1 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017

TheTen Organic years Grower of was The conceived Organic at an early Grower OGA committee a look at OG21 – an off-grid propagation bench (Dave Hastings) meeting at Ryton. Tim Deane and I volunteered to produce a on one page and Soil Assisted Modules (Brian Adair) on the one ‘newsletter’. I doubt either of us knew what we were letting facing it, both original and intriguing. Where else would you find Page 20 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Page 21 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 ourselves in for! such knowledge in print?

In the first issue, which came out in Summer 2007, we felt our way, The weather reports in OG2 (the wet summer of 2007) was the first unsure of length and formatting and with line drawings (mostly of several heartening examples of grower resilience in the face of out of copyright gleaned from old books in the Garden Organic/ adversity. ‘A growing family’ in OG38 is a useful and encouraging HDRA library, as was) for illustrations. It was well received (see response to the difficulties of raising both vegetables and children Collette’s comments, below). It was in OG2 that we harnessed for – a subject usually ignored or swept under the carpet. the first time the power of the OGA membership, precipitated Grower profiles are always fascinating, what a range of characters! (puns always intended) by a terrible summer, to articulate and Interviews, too – the one with Lawrence Woodward in OG22 share experiences. Suddenly, we had 40 pages and never since and OG23 is particularly stimulating. And not to overlook Philip have we been short of material. Conford – many interesting articles on historical byways, for Last year, we had around 80 contributors, mostly drawn from our instance Dr George Vivian Poore in OG22. This was a man who membership. So, thanks to all of you who have contributed, and if surely none of us had previously heard of, but whose ideas as you haven’t yet, we’d love to hear from you! to the proper use of human waste products (published 1893) are There have been many landmarks along the way; OG8 when we fundamental to the organic philosophy. took the design of the magazine in-house, OG17 when we first put Tim Deane a photo on the cover. What would you like to see next? Let us know. Phil Sumption I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. That first ever Organic Grower that came through the letter box Issue No. 1. Never was Over ten years the OG has printed an extraordinary amount a lifeline better timed. of useful, practical information – it seems unfair to single out As any grower knows - especially if you are running a box scheme particular articles, but good examples include ‘Seed Saving’ (Vicki too - time to think or communicate anything with anyone is a Cooke, OG15), ‘Leek Moth’ (Kate Dunn, OG23) and, as an example luxury. We had been growing and running our box scheme for of how helpful collaborative efforts can be, Spinach in OG32. I’m 13 years, and raising two kids! We had lost sight of where/why also still thinking of planting more walnuts (Peter Wignall, OG2) we were running so hard. We’d hit a spell of bad weather years if I can figure out how to keep the squirrels off them. Also – have

Page 18 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 and the organic backlash /market crash had just begun. We were Producers’ Conference) and also the technical articles within the surviving but....floundering slightly. So I remember the genuine Organic Grower allowing the inexperienced to have the confidence delight from reading that first OG mag - like a recognisable voice to grow a new crop.” when lost in a crowd - it reminded me of who I was and why I had Iain Tolhurst wrote that The Organic Grower is “probably the best chosen life as a grower. It spoke my language and defined our craft. magazine of its type in the English language.” That is praise indeed! And it reminded me that we weren’t in it for the market alone but Tim Deane wrote ten years ago: “Organic horticulture has long led the principles. The articles in OG1 were a great mix of growing info, organic practice in development and innovation and is indeed the the bigger picture and the philosophy of growing. Tim Deane’s wellspring of the whole phenomenon of the organic market today. ‘The Heart of the Grower’, Charles Dowding’s ‘Salad bags’ article. Its importance and influence far outweigh the small proportion Phil Sumption, Ian Tolhurst, Scott Sneddon. All names of people I of organic land that it occupies, while due to the diversity of its was yet to meet but now longed to know. They spoke my language practices it rests on a body of knowledge and experience hard and I wanted to be in their gang! for non-growers to appreciate. For all these reasons we believe This was before Facebook was used by us oldies and the LWA was that organic horticulture deserves its own organisation, and that yet to form, and it was new. That connection with other growers growers can only benefit from its existence.” has to be for me the reason the OGA works. All other issues have The OGA is, however, still relatively small in membership terms afforded useful and inspiring articles and I always look forward (hovering around the 200 growers mark), and hasn’t grown as to it but it was that first mag that connected me with others and much as many of us expected or hoped. Many growers dropped re-defined my sense of self and purpose… out of organic production in the recession. ‘Organic’ became out of Collette Haynes fashion, the butt of jokes as a synonym for elitism. All of that is slowly changing and the organic market is on the rise again. The OGA is still Ten years of the OGA needed and the small group of growers who run it on a voluntary Ben Raskin, Horticulture Manager at the Soil Association said: basis need your support. We also need new blood and new energy to ”For me, the OGA is the only organisation that provides targeted build an organisation fit for the next ten years and beyond. technical and policy support for small to medium scale growers. If it had existed when I was starting out there’s no question I would Phil Sumption have been a better grower.” Impressive achievement Wendy Seel, Vital Veg, Scotland said : “I think the OGA has done As a desk-bound Associate Member of the Organic Growers’ a great job over the last ten years doing what it says on the strap Alliance, I am genuinely in awe of the skills, knowledge and line - being the voice of organic horticulture. Alan especially long-term commitment of OGA members. One area of the OGA’s has made sure that the voice of small scale organic growers has work which I do feel able to assess, however, is the journal. Of been heard in the Soil Association, Defra, the Organic Research course, I have to declare an interest, as first Tim Deane and then Centre and other places where it has been important to make Phil Sumption have generously enabled me to write a twice- sure that the interests of small enterprises don’t get forgotten. yearly feature on historical topics and personalities of my choice. I have been trying to emulate this in Scotland. In the world of food I’m very grateful to them for providing me with this platform. and farming many OGA members are classed as ‘hobbyists’ by government, simply because we farm on less than 3 ha. We need This aside, though, I consider The Organic Grower to be a most the OGA to shout for us, and I think that given the paucity of our impressive achievement, reminiscent of the earlier years of New resources the OGA has done that well.” Farmer and Grower. Not only has it appeared regularly every quarter, but it is full of substance – which, for practical readers, Jason Horner, Leen Organics, Ireland; “I don’t think we should matters more than style and eye-catching, distracting design. The underestimate the impact of the OGA over the last ten years. articles are detailed and informative, covering a wide range of It has informed, educated, inspired, represented and initiated subjects. They must be very helpful and encouraging to growers who a community of organic growers. Things which on their own are separated from each other by long distances, enabling them to growers would have struggled to do. The focal point of this is the share experiences and learn of tested solutions to common problems. Organic Grower magazine, something we can be immensely proud of thanks to Phil Sumption and all those who put it together.” The journal also examines the broader context in which growing takes place, drawing attention to policy issues and legislation. Kate Collyns of Grown Green near Bath said that the OGA has been It is mercifully free of any corporatist ethos, being open to any able to “connect existing and new growers to share experience, knowledgeable writer with a story to tell. This strengthens a knowledge, advice and job/land/equipment information. It is a sense of active participation in the work of the Alliance. So hub for organic horticultural information and developments.” congratulations to all those who help produce The Organic Alan Schofield, OGA Chair said: “For me, (a key achievement) Grower, on ten years of informative publishing, and long may it would have to be the bursary places we have helped to fund for continue its valuable work. new entrants so they could attend an event (such as the Organic Philip Conford

Page 19 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 The humble radish The radish is a crop that many growers dabble with, but few take seriously. Yet, there is more to the humble radish than as an early catch crop for those spring veg boxes or market stalls, welcome though they are. We have been eating radishes in England for more than a thousand years and they were favourites of Roman, Greek and Egyptian civilisations. In Asia, there is also a rich tradition of radish growing and many different types have developed, with a ‘radish for every season’. So from French Breakfast to Mooli and Beauty Heart, taking in radishes for leaf, root, flowers and pods, we asked you ‘how do you grow yours?’

Radish relish Radish as catch crop At Hardwick we reserve the radish for the hungry gap with the At Stroud Community Agriculture we mainly grow radish as a first sowing in tunnels by mid-February to produce a saleable catch crop in the polytunnels early in the season. They bring some crop by the end of March or even before if it’s warm and sunny. colour, spice and freshness to all those late winter crops that make Then every 10-14 days another sowing, growing only enough for up the bulk of our CSA veg share in the spring. a two-weekly pick. If you were really dedicated you would sow The first radishes are sown in between the rows of first early every 5- 7 days for better quality. Sowing 30-40 seeds per metre in carrots in the polytunnel at the beginning of February. The carrots rows 200mm apart seems about right. A stale seedbed will ensure are sown at a 30cm row spacing and the radish is sown in between freedom from weeds and we never bother hoeing as the crop is up directly down the middle. Successive sowings are made when the and gone before you can begin to lose sleep over weeds. We drill previous seedlings emerge, usually about every two weeks in late using a Wolf rotary seeder which is ideal for small areas. Pest and winter, down to every 3-4 days in the spring, depending on the disease have not been an issue. weather. It is important to choose a short top variety to minimise We harvest into bunches of 6-10 depending on size. The real competition against the carrots. problem with radish is how quickly the foliage wilts and looks We have used the varieties Raxe and Rudolph, both small round really grotty within a couple of hours. For shop sales we place red radish with a short top. Sparkler is another nice variety with a the bunches into a tray of water which keeps them fresher. white tip but the tops are too tall and competitive. The carrots are Alternatively damp sacks underneath will help if it’s not too hot. set back a little with the earlier sown radish but usually recover. For indirect sales you would need to de-foliate, wash and pack Later sowings are less competitive as the carrots have had time to into units; they keep for ages like this. get established (and we have also had the opportunity to flame There are many varieties to choose from. Cherry Belle works for weed the beds before the carrots have emerged and the radish us, as it will stand a few days and is a lovely deep red round root. sown). White icicle is long and thin and a bit slower to harvest. China Rose We usually sow at a rate of approximately 40 seed/m, using an is really useful, as it will over-winter in tunnels from an October/ Earthway seeder with the radish plate (though the Earthway is November sowing to crop in late February. Out of the hungry gap not that accurate). After all of the carrots have been intersown we it’s worth growing mooli, if big and fast is your thing. Drill in rows usually sow radish in any space that becomes available between 300mm apart and 10 seeds per metre, thin with a hoe to 200-300mm crops such as tomatoes and beans. These will be sown at a row apart for large roots. Radish need plenty of water to prevent them spacing of 25cm. The last sowings are usually made in May. getting woody and over-hot. A good price can be had for mooli but the regular radish is a bit of a loss-leader at 50p a bunch. It fills a There are few pest and disease problems in the polytunnels, though gap and looks good but will never make you rich unless you have a the woodlice do seem to enjoy nibbling on the skin. We try to put spare few hectares of tunnels for all-year-round production. about 8-10 radish in the share at a time, though if we don’t have many we have on occasion just added a few to the mixed salad packs. Iain Tolhurst We don’t grow radish in the summer, too many more important crops to worry about, but we often sow a crop of the variety Rosa outside in the autumn. This variety produces long cylindrical red roots which maintain their crispness and flavour to a fairly large size. Our Cypriot apprentice encouraged us to let them grow to a large size as he knew them from his home country, but they are quite unfamiliar to most of our members and not so popular. The outdoor autumn crops are much more susceptible to slug damage and are not always successful and, as we found out to our cost last autumn, won’t survive an early hard frost. Mark Harrison Photo: Elsoms Seeds Radish Rolex, from Elsoms Seeds

Page 20 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Radish for hotel/restaurant use Over the years I have worked with several high level chefs in Oriental radish private hotels, where we tried to have a large selection of slightly Joy Larkcom in Oriental Vegetables describes the range of unusual items on the menus, which if requested by guests, could radishes available in Japan, where it is the most widely grown be cut quickly from the gardens and put straight on the plate. We vegetable, and its evolution. also packed and transferred crops to other hotels. White or ‘Mooli’ types Known as mooli (muli is the Hindi word for radish) or daikon (big root in Japanese), there are different types that have been selected over generations from the original Chinese radishes. Soil type has been a big influence, particularly on the extent the roots protrude from the ground. The Moriguchi radish, reputedly the world’s longest radish growing up to 1.2m (4’), developed on very deep sandy coastal soils. On heavy clay soils where it is more difficult for roots to swell below ground types (both round e.g. Shogoin and cylindrical e.g. Shirogari) have developed with roots largely pushed up above ground. There are intermediate types and also winter hardy types, which develop with the roots entirely underground and leaves Radish flowers as part of a n edible flower mixture which spread out horizontally providing protection from frost.

Radish is a very versatile crop for very little work. It is a good crop Sowings with appropriate varieties can be from early spring in both under polythene to protect from weather and bird damage polytunnels through summer sowings to autumn-sown crops and also in the open ground. I normally use Moles Seeds, generally (with protection) for early crops in the following year. organic, but I have had to use some non-organic seed in the past. Coloured-flesh types Flea beetle, pollen beetle and cabbage root fly can be a problem, but can be controlled by inter-planting between moss leaf parsley, Beauty Heart radishes originate from the Beijing area wild rocket and marigold on a small scale. I also use fleece and of Northern China. They have coloured flesh and were sometimes a battery-operated vacuum if the crop is grown under traditionally used for carving into ‘radish flowers’. There are cover. A garlic tea can also be used as a plant stimulant when both oval and round types with green shoulders and white grown non-organically. skin below, and pinky-red rays on a white background inside. They need several months of warm weather to grow and Joy Radish can be grown for leaves, roots, flowers and seed pods. The had best results from July/August sowings in a polytunnel. variety depends on how the crop will be used. Green-fleshed radishes are available, which are mostly long Cultivars used for cut leaf - Radish F1 Red Stemmed is useful and stump-rooted. They are said to be easier to grow than the mainly for its coloured stem, but I have also had good results with Beauty Heart as more cold-tolerant and faster maturing. Rambo for both red stems and leaves and China Rose. Daikon produces a more spicy leaf, which I also let mature. Red-skinned types These are medium sized (less than 500g), red-skinned, white- Cultivars for traditional radish depends on the menu and colour fleshed radishes, which can be round, oval or cylindrical. requirements. A mix of the following cultivars are useful for Varieties such as China Rose are sown in early summer for whole radish, flowers and seedpods: Celestra, Scarlet Globe, Pink autumn use, and best stored in the ground for winter use, Beauty (which keeps its colour when lightly steamed), Oriental protecting with straw or bracken. Rosa, Long White Icicle and Daikon. The last three are also useful in lagers with a few grains of rice added to restart fermentation. Leaf radish Radish flowers and seed pod - A good crop can be achieved European varieties tend to have smoother leaves. Oriental even when just a few radish are left in the rows as they produce types can get hairy as they mature. Varieties such as Bisai, hundreds of flowers over a few weeks, which, if picked inthe selected as a leaf crop, can be grown as a cut and come again early morning will last quite a while (some are better picked in the crop almost all year round. afternoon for different tastes e.g. Daikon). Plants may need to be supported to stop them flopping over and taking up more space. Useful cultivars are Oriental Rosa, White Icicle and Daikon as they have a good mix of flower colour from white to blue, and, like the wild rocket, some will taste different at different times of day.

Page 21 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 So, it is a good high value crop if chefs are prepared to work around the flavours of the flowers, plus a great talking point on tours and menu tasting, etc.

Seed pods - All radish can be used for seed pod production. The larger rooted cultivars used above for flower cultivation are preferred, as they carry on producing hundreds of seed pods over quite a few weeks. You can harvest baby leaf; some whole radish; flowers and finally seed pods off the one sowing, so not a lot of work involved. Seed pods needs to be protected from birds, who seem to love them. Pods can be eaten fresh as a salads or bar snacks, etc. At first, they have a watery crunch, but it’s quickly followed by full-blown radish flavour. They can also be wilted over steam for main courses, stir fried, mixed into ice creams, and have also been used for chocolate dipping! David Butt,Head Gardener Kiddington Hall A 100% biodegradable paper mulch that blocks weeds, promotes healthy growth and degrades at the end of the growing season.

• Conserves moisture during dry spells Radish at Goldhill Organic • Blocks light, eliminates weeds Enter Code • Moderates soil temperature Andrew Cross packs his vegetables in at Goldhill Organic, in • Can be worked into soil once decomposed Bio16 • Promotes strong, early growth for discount • Biodegrades at the end of the season Dorset, and never misses a trick to combine different vegetables • An environmentally friendly alternative to plastic Limited Offer into the same beds to make best use of space and time. Radishes fit well with this philosophy and radishes are drilled using an Earthway seeder on the sides of beds or between slower growing crops and removed before they compete.

Andrew uses a ‘rainbow mix’ of radish varieties from Nicky’s Nursery, for which he gets a derogation. This produces vibrant roots of purple, red, white and gold. These are bunched and bagged for sale in the farm shop, boxes and elsewhere. He used to use plastic radish cones, but can no longer find them, or at least without anyDutch writing on them! Phil Sumption

At Elsoms we have a superb selection of organic and non-chemically treated seed, backed up by an experienced team of specialists.

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Page 22 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Desert Island Market Garden Patrick Noble This issue it is the turn of Patrick Noble, from Bryn Cocyn Organic Farm, Denbigh, to be castaway on a desert island with the same climate as North Wales. He is, however, allowed to rescue a few items to establish a market garden. Due to limited space, he is allowed to bring five of his favourite varieties of seeds, one tool, one book and one luxury item.

Rescued Why? 1 Wheat: I know this is a market garden, but this gardener enjoys bread and what’s more - his stored Maris Wigeon grain will remain through hungry gaps. Also, the 6ft straw will make a proper thatch for his simple house.

2 Potato: I’ll need staples and Remarka has been a remarkably reliable staple, which seems to have Remarka fallen from seed growers’ lists. It’ll be an old (though not very old) friend to my solitude.

3 Carrot: It’s tasty – and aromatic – evocative of carrots everywhere as I recollect lost days, before the Rodelika ship-wreck.

4 Broad, I’d like the variety which Thoreau grew by Walden Pond – I’d chat and exchange notes with Common or him in my imagination. Otherwise, any variety will do – for drying and storing. Fava Bean

5 Onion: Any reliable open-pollinated variety will do. I’ll not need greens or salads, since my pleasure any open- will be to discover them growing naturally on the island. If I allow myself to be rescued, I pollinated may charitably introduce some new species to horticulture. Anyway, island cuisine could variety. do with an onion.

Tool: The The mattock occurs in every culture of every period – even as an antler pick. Nothing is mattock better for breaking rough ground. Although I’ll have lazy beds of seaweed (if the island provides), I must still prepare for my carrots, onions, wheat & beans. I can devise a rake or harrow from island materials and the mattock can double as a hoe. The mattock will also remind me of the far-off days of my youth, when it was a key tool for breaking successive strata on archaeological digs. The mattock breaks ground. It makes a mark. Because of it, I may never wish to leave my island. Book: Lean Since I must learn from my island’s soil and climate, I think a horticultural manual of any Logic – A kind would prove a distraction to more proper learning. There are so many good books. For Dictionary now, I may as well take the latest from my bed side – the great David Fleming’s Lean Logic for the Future and How to Survive it, by David Fleming Luxury: These‘ll be useful for writing some off-the-chest messages in flotsam bottles and also for Pencil and declaring the New Island Constitution, which I’ll stick here and there (by tree gum) to trees paper – for the rights, responsibilities, symbioses and sacrifices which together compose the greater happiness of the republic of species which inhabit the island.

Page 23 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 ProSpecieRara - Saving seeds, conserving diversity

We tend to think of the loss of biodiversity and a sixth era of massive global extinctions in terms of the destruction of the natural environment, the pollution of seas and watercourses, the effects of climate change and the associated loss of wildlife habitats; but the loss of diversity is also occurring among agricultural livestock species and crop plant varieties. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO), 75 percent of the world’s food now comes from just 12 plants and five animal species. The FAO says that the main cause of the global genetic erosion of crops is the replacement of local varieties by improved or exotic varieties and species.

For centuries, explorers, plant collectors and plant breeders added to the diversity of crop plants available to growers but this trend is now in reverse. The agricultural and retailing revolutions of the twentieth century saw many old open-pollinated cultivated crop varieties consigned to oblivion. The oligarchic concentration of commercial seed availability among a handful of companies and the patenting of varieties has merely added to the downward trend.

One organisation committed to the conservation of species diversity is the ProSpecieRara foundation established in 1982 and based at Meriangärten in Basel, Switzerland (it also has a presence in Germany with five show gardens). Meriangärten is part of a large estate with a 54ha farm that was developed and modernised in the nineteenth century by Christoph and Photo: ProSpecieRara Margaretha Merian. The Christoph Merian Stiftung (Foundation) Display gardens at Meriangärten was set up to continue their work following the couple’s death. They also made a financial bequest to the city of Basel, which 1,900 top fruit varieties and several hundred ornamental plant manages the estate at Meriangärten. varieties that they have identified as an important genetic reserve that needs to be preserved. I first became aware of ProSpecieRara when sent packets of seed from Switzerland in 2013/14. In March 2017, visiting with my Operationally, ProSpecieRara works as a seed-saving club with son and his family who live in Basel, we were shown around 4,100 active members plus around 10,000 supporting members. the display gardens and seed bank at Meriangärten by Mathias Active members grow ProSpecieRara crops for two to three years Bamert, the ProSpecieRara Product Researcher and Coordinator. and then re-sow to produce seed which is returned to the foundation for grading, storage and subsequent redistribution. The foundation The aim of the foundation is to rescue and conserve crop, fruit also works closely with Sativa Rheinau (see OG20) a biodynamic and ornamental plants as well as farm animals. ProSpecieRara seed company near the town of Schaffhausen, close to the border have drawn up criteria that must be fulfilled before they work to with Germany. The company is part of a biodynamic farm project conserve a livestock breed or crop variety. In the case of plants with dairy, meat, fruit, vineyard, cereals, as well as seed growing these include the age of the variety, its cultural and historical and processing enterprises. It is primarily Sativa that supplies significance in Switzerland, as well as current production volumes commercial organic growers with ProSpecieRara seed. and seed quality (F1 hybrids are excluded). Under the framework of the National Action Plan for the Conservation of Plant Genetic One of the key themes in ProSpecieRara conservation work is to Resources of the Federal Agency for Agriculture (www.bdn.ch) , maintain diversity through sustainable production because, as the varieties for which Switzerland takes particular responsibility they argue, if a crop is widely grown it does not disappear. To this are recorded on ‘positive lists’. The definition of ProSpecieRara end, ProSpecieRara has developed a seal of quality. This, when varieties, however, goes beyond the positive lists since the work used at the point of sale and on packaging, identifies ProSpecieRara of the foundation isn’t confined to Switzerland. varieties and guarantees to consumers that buying the produce will have a positive and lasting effect on the conservation of Collecting endangered and forgotten crop plants at ProSpecieRara endangered diversity. started in 1985, and over the ensuing years they’ve saved a considerable number of varieties from disappearing. Currently, When I asked how the foundation was funded Mathias explained there are some 1,400 garden and arable crops, 600 berry bushes, that ProSpecieRara has three main funding sources. First, they

Page 24 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 have those 14,000 members. The two other main funders are the grown very slowly (no doubt due to shortage of nutrients in the Swiss Government (project-related funding) and patrons and modules). This is not a planned trial that has compared like with sponsors, one of them being the cooperative supermarket ‘Coop’ like, but when they are all ready for harvest next month it will be which markets over 30 rare crop varieties. In March 2017, the wide very interesting to compare the market fraction of each variety. variety of produce lines displaying this seal of approval was very David Frost noticeable in the Basel Coop stores. The chain also sells its own- Further information: brand vegetable seeds bearing the ProSpecieRara seal of quality. Loss of agricultural diversity: http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5609e/y5609e02.htm March isn’t the ideal time to visit the Meriangärten and during our Descriptions (in German) of all of the varieties ProSpecieRara support can be visit the display gardens were mostly cleared ready for the new found on their website at: growing season with just a few kale plants and some spinach still https://www.prospecierara.ch/de/sortenfinder going strong. It’s always worth a visit though to see the gardens, More on Sativa Rheinau at: http://www.seedambassadors.org/sativa-rheinau-ag-part-one-a-swiss- the farm animals and the Villa Merian with its café/restaurant. biodynamic-seed-company/ Fortunately for ProSpeciaRara, and all those committed to the http://www.sativa-rheinau.ch conservation of endangered farm species, the Christoph Merian More on the Swiss Coop retail chain at Foundation, according to Mathias Bamert, remains well-funded. http://www.coop.ch/en/about-us/company/about-us/retail.html http://www.coop.ch/de/nachhaltigkeit.html Growing with ProSpecieRara When we first received ProSpecieRara seeds, I was particularly intrigued by the loose-leafed lettuce Cracoviensis, an old variety from Krakow, Poland which is very frost-resistant. I’ve grown it from spring and late summer sowings; and from August outdoor plantings we’ve picked it through the winter till late spring. Other ProSpecieRara varieties we’ve grown since 2014 include the lettuces Venezianer, Eichsalat and Gloire de Nantes; pea Blauschokker; climbing bean Klosterfrauen; and beetroot Chioggia. This year, after visiting their HQ in Basel, I’m also trying the Batavian lettuce Rouge Grenobloise and two cucumbers, Bono and Russian.

This spring has turned out to be cold and dry and it has forced a kind of unplanned trial upon us. On March 26, I sowed three varieties of lettuce – pelleted Novelski seed from Just Seeds; and two ProSpecieRara varieties, Gloire de Nantes and Eichsalat. There was a 100% even germination from the pelleted Novelski seed sown into modules, but the ProSpecieRara varieties sown into seed trays were much slower and very uneven. On March 17, I pricked out the Gloire de Nantes and Eichsalat from seed trays to modules. As the spring weather has been cold and dry, planting out has been very delayed and the result of this ‘trial’ is that the ProSpecieRara varieties have grown on well since pricking out and have now overtaken the Novelski which has sulked and

☎ 01775 840592 ✉ [email protected] Gosberton Bank Nursery, Gosberton, Spalding, Lincs, PE11 4PB Biodynamic and Organic Plant Breeding and Seeds Limited, trading as Seed Co-operative Registered under the Co-operative and Community BeneÞt Societies Act 2014 as a Community BeneÞt Society, registration number 7013. Photo: David Frost Eichsalat fromProSpecieRara on left and Novelski from JustSeeds on right

Page 25 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Bucking the trend: an alternative approach to couch control How can we manage pernicious perennial weeds without recourse to agrochemicals or cultivations that can damage soil structure and soil biology? For organic farmers, that has for long been a thorny dilemma. Annual weeds are relatively easy to control through stale seedbeds, brush-weeders and laser-guided hoes, but for perennial weeds the blunt instrument of the prosaically named ‘bastard fallow’ often seems to be the only option to keep weeds like couch grass in check. Replacing herbicides with diesel-powered cultivations is not a sustainable long-term solution. Pigs can be used and can be effective but may also cause soil structural damage if weather conditions are either too dry or too wet, particularly on heavier soil types. Exploring buckwheat as a cover crop For horticultural growers especially, rotations are key. Competitive crops such as potatoes and brassicas can keep couch in check, but if your customers demand alliums or root crops then the door is open for couch to run and run. So, what if you could introduce a cover crop into your rotation that would mobilise phosphorus in your soil and positively benefit soil health whilst also reducing couch grass to manageable proportions? That is the potential that buckwheat has - which is why many growers have come together

through an OGA/ Land Workers’ Alliance Innovative Farmers’ Photos: Phil Sumption field lab to try it out on their own holdings. The group pictured with Andy Dibben

Andy Dibben at Abbey Home Farm near Cirencester came forward The first year will be a proof of concept year. All the growers have with the idea for the field lab after observing how clean the land was different situations and space available for trials, different kit and from couch and other weeds following buckwheat being grown as rotations, so it is clear that we can’t standardise everything across a farm crop. Couch is well established in some areas of the rotation all farms. Participating growers will do a baseline sampling to at Abbey Home Farm and can have significant negative effects on determine the levels of couch before trials begin. They will then grow crop yields. Their current method of control is by bastard fallowing, a buckwheat crop, either on its own or as part of a mixture that they however, this has had varying levels of success and causes a lot of normally grow (e.g. instead of mustard in Cotswold’s Summer Quick damage to soil structure. It also needs dry weather conditions to be Fix). The control will be their normal farm practice, in most cases a effective, which can’t be guaranteed in our climate! summer bastard fallow. At Abbey Home Farm, the plan is to grow buckwheat with crimson/white clover after brassicas and before Field lab trials alliums in the rotation. Couch levels will be assessed again at the end A group of growers met in February at Abbey Home Farm, all of the trial and we will also look at yields of subsequent crops. having in common a problem with couch grass and the desire to One important factor in different strategies for couch control is, of find a better solution. course, cost. Buckwheat seed is expensive and growers We went out to see Andy’s asparagus will only be persuaded to adopt it if there are positive patch, still clean of weeds, three years benefits from weed control and/or soil health. We plan after buckwheat had been grown on to compare the costs of the different treatments. the field! Inspired by that, discussion Reports back from the growers suggest that they have turned to what trials could be carried found some good locations for the trials – i.e. some very out to verify the use of buckwheat for couchy fields! Which means sampling for couch roots has couch control. It was clear amongst been fun… A good development has been that Cotswold the group that the purpose of any Seeds have agreed to sponsor the trials and have supplied trials would be to establish whether seed for the trials. Ironically, the start of the season has growing buckwheat could be provided good opportunity for dealing with couch via effective in suppressing couch, and cultivations, and growers have taken advantage of that. not to determine the mechanism e.g. We will see what the rest of the summer brings! allelopathy (the inhibition of weeds by another plant through the production Phil Sumption of allelochemicals) or competition. If you are interested in being part of the field lab please contact Phil

Photo: Phil Sumption Sumption. The next meeting of the group will be in August. Buckwheat at Abbey Home Farm in 2013

Page 26 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Horticultural hindsight: Jonathan Smith

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and with its benefit you can see all the situations where you would have done it differently if starting all over again. So perhaps this feature may be useful to the younger growers, or merely a source of amusement to old hands! I started growing in 2002, so think I have a few reflections to make. Here are some that spring to mind after many years of successes and failures:

• Choose the best piece of ground that you can find and/or afford. If you can’t do that, choose a beautiful one. Having both is the Holy Grail! I have the latter but not the former...it doesn’t make much money but the view never ceases to give pleasure.

• Grow a few crops that make money e.g. salad, tomatoes, early spuds, cucumbers, etc. A wide range of crops is wonderful to have but difficult to manage. Concentrating first and foremost on reliable money-makers and producing a quality crop that will sell will make your financial footing more robust.

• Always experiment with different varieties, but choose your firm favourites and stick with them. Only make changes unless you’ve trialled them successfully, and never do too many at once!

• You can get very carried away with various soil tests, soil amendments, products, etc. Never forget that the most important thing you can do is feed your soil with plenty of organic matter and treat it as gently as possible. That is worth more than anything else.

• Use plastic mulches! They save so much time and effort. They Jonathan Smith, picking lettuces may not look great and they create an issue of waste, but choose the strongest stuff you can afford, look after it and it’ll last years. You won’t regret the lack of weeding.

• Enviromesh is a complete godsend. Is there anything it doesn’t protect against? Worth every penny.

• Never underestimate costs or overestimate sales. If you think you’ve costed everything then run over it again with a friend, colleague or mentor. Investing properly at the start saves money in the long run, though that’s easier said than done when you’re starting out with little. Make good Beach farming! choices and spend wisely.

• Set yourself work hours and be strict about sticking to them. If you allow yourself to work from dawn till dusk you’ll invariably find jobs to fill the time, but how effective will you be and what does it do to you? If/when you have family commitments you’ll soon learn that working all hours is not an option and you have to be both disciplined with hours, and be very effective when you are working. Quality not quantity.

• Take as much advice as you like, read books, magazines, go to conferences...but always fall back on your intuition. Read the land, never stop observing and don’t make rash decisions. Early potatoes Growing is an art, not a science. We would love this to be a regular feature in The Organic Jonathan Smith runs Scilly Organics on St. Martin’s, Isles of Scilly. Grower. If you would like to contribute your own www.scillyorganics.com Horticultural Hindsights, please contact the editor.

Page 27 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Eastbrook Farm agroforestry I’m writing this with some relief. The summer that will ripen them. The fruit from this orchard 800 plus fruit and nut trees we’ve will initially be sold through the restaurant businesses that planted so far at Eastbrook have had a Helen owns, but as the trees reach full production we will proper drink after too many weeks of be developing further markets. North Wiltshire drought. We’ve lost a We’ve also planted around 160 perry pears in another few trees, but most are now pushing field, at 27m spacing between tree rows. Initially, these out lush new shoots. will be grazed by sheep and then by young stock in It’s an ambitious project, 200 acres of the longer term. The spacing is deliberate and follows agroforestry to be planted up over the system set up by Stephen Briggs on his farm in four or five years. Helen Browning Cambridgeshire. It will allow arable cropping if the trees has been wanting to plant trees on improve and dry the soil a little as we hope. her 1500 acre farm for some time. Stage two of the project will include larger numbers of However, most of the farm is rented walnut and chestnuts, again planted at 27m row spacing. from the Church of England, and We also have one very wet field that we are planting as therefore the scope has been limited. grazed woodland with mixed fodder species. Once the trees Photo: Phil Sumption Recently however, she has taken ownership of 200 acres of heavy are well established in five to ten years’ time, the stock will be let in to Wiltshire clay and is now able to realise her dream. enjoy the shade, shelter and snacks.

The aims of the project are part visionary, part romantic but also Helen is keen that the site should be well used to both experiment and thoroughly commercial. We want to provide a diverse food supply demonstrate, so we’re doing lots of trials. For instance we’re involved for the future but are also interested in complex resilient farming in one of the Innovative Farmers Field Labs looking at different soil systems. We are experimenting with both species and system amendments. To make the most of these trials, we are recording data design. No doubt, not everything will work, though hopefully on a tree-by-tree basis and to this end, there is an electronic tag on most will. Helen wants to learn, but she also just loves trees. every tree (using Sectormentor software). It is taking a bit of time to log each tree to start with, but we’re really hoping it will save time Stage one of the project, which we finished planting in March, is recording information in the long term as well as allowing us a better over two fields. understanding of how the trees are performing. The first field is a ten acre extensive mixed orchard with chickens. Ben Raskin We’re pushing the boundaries for North Wiltshire, trialling You can follow the project on Twitter @Ben_Raskin #EastbrookAgroforestry at almonds and apricots, alongside more traditional pears, cherries, http://helenbrowningsorganic.co.uk/ and on the Innovative Farmers website – Soil quinces and others. I was particularly excited this week to see that Amendments for top fruit https://www.innovativefarmers.org/news we actually have some almonds on the trees, let’s see if we get a Ben Raskin is managing this agroforestry project independently from his role as Head of Horticulture at the Soil Association. Photo: Ben Raskin Almond tree, with fruit! Shows sectormentor tag Planting plan for Kitchen Forest Garden - Phase One planting at Eastbrook

Page 28 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Sheep have devoured the people

If firstly, we glance around us, and then secondly into history, we’ll not escape the problems of sheep. As far back as the Reformation, as Thomas More accurately said, sheep devoured the people. Today, environmental subsidy schemes and national parks protect semi-lifeless, treeless pastures and repel people, wind turbines, houses, forests, forestry and productive agriculture from the land.

Why so many are intent on preserving The depravity. They celebrate the sack of church and monastery, the anachronistic and unpleasant a new rentier economy, rising wealth of elites, a refugee crisis, historical landscape of violent starvation, city slums… enclosure by depraved aristocrats and Those ‘environmental’ organisations preserve an oil-powered yeoman farmers is a mystery to me. deserted lowland, complemented by ‘natural’ sheep-grazed Preserving landscapes in the form we equally deserted upland and the natural consequence of both – see in the Peaks, Dales, Downs and so over-populated Desolation Row, where even the community of on is a memorial to desperate rural corner shop, pub, baker, butcher has mutated into weary trolleys poverty, brutal dispossession and the of debt on Sainsbury Street... creation of the refugee encampments, which we’ve come to call city slums. I’ve heard sheep farmers boast of feeding the world by the sweat

Photo: Phil Sumption of their brows, while ignorance of town-life swans on… But they’ll National Parks, in repelling wind feed no worlds with sheep. I’ve heard friends of mine boast of turbines and (in some cases) solar panels have become the most ‘pasture-fed’ and of the carbon sequestered beneath their virtuous economically-retrograde and ecologically-destructive landscapes feet… How nice it is to have some fields. For myself, I’ll claim no of Britain. They are exclusively dependent on imported coal, gas, virtue for land enclosure. The landless settlers of Desolation Row oil and forest biomass. Where forest should be, we find desolate can claim no virtue – so the sequestration claim is the claim of grouse moor and purposeless sheep. Where blossoming, fruiting privilege. There’s no virtue in owning or controlling land – only in hedges should run through humming bees and birdsong, we find husbanding it well. the flail hedge cutter, very dry stone walls and wind bearing a lamb’s cry to its mother, through bleak silence. To be sure, feeding grass to ruminants is the proper and natural thing and feeding them arable crops is not. But, herding sheep and For myself, I am guilty – I’ve kept and lived by sheep for forty cattle on grass that would naturally be woodland cannot claim years. virtue for carbon sequestration, biodiversity, biomass, crop yield, It is ironic that wool, which now barely pays for the shearer’s economic integration, ecologic integration, balanced cuisine… gang, was the cause of all this – wealth for a very few and poverty To be sure again, mob grazing works, where we need grazing. It for the rest. Personally, I think wool will regain value as oil-fibres produces deeper soils and a more vivacious soil-life. That does not enter history and that sheep’s meat and sheep’s wool will again change the both economic and ecologic truth that much upland form an integral part of agricultural rotations. As in the Norfolk grass should be returned to trees. four-course rotation sheep and corn can work very well together. Much lowland grass from dairy regions can be turned to ley However, sheep cannot replace woodland. Those preserved farming with arable rotation and to horticulture, orchards and, of upland pastures are unnatural pastures. They’d be far, far more course, trees. productive (economically) in their natural state – that is as woodland. They’d be incomparably richer in both biodiversity Meanwhile those exclusively arable regions (and potential dust and biomass. With regards to climate change, reversion to bowls) could do with a lot more grass (sheep & dairy) in rotation, woodland could set economies on their way towards (I only say plus high hedges, copses… towards) a photosynthetic balance. As we focus more on the atmospheric effects of our terrestrial That is not to say that a new upland woodland culture cannot techniques, so an enthralling re-focusing of husbandry lies ahead. have some pasture among the trees – for meat, wool, hides, milk, Some possibilities emerging are perennial cereal varieties and lane butter and cheese! Of course it can also have cultivated varieties of cultivation amongst fruit, nut and timber trees. apples, pears, plums, nut trees and vines. It can have some wheat, As oil departs, so people must flood back to the countryside. That barley and oats. It can have intensive market gardens. What am is a delightful thing – the germ of a renewable agriculture and the I describing? A landscape which was sacked by the opportunist end of Desolation Row. depravity of the Reformation. What do the National Trust, Patrick Noble National Parks and environmental scheme managers preserve?

Page 29 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Grower Profile: Waterland Organics and Cambridge CropShare

Waterland Organics is a family-run, 65 acre fenland farm in Lode, Cambridgeshire which has been growing and selling organic fruit and vegetables since 1992. It runs a successful CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) scheme in and around Cambridge. Since 2011 they have hosted Cambridge CropShare, a simple and effective partnership between the community (initially the local Transition Town Food Group) and Waterland Organics.

Waterland Organics owners Paul and Doreen Robinson first joined the OGA (Organic Growers Association, as was then) in the early eighties but didn’t start converting land to organic until the early nineties. Their initial motivation to convert to organic was to slow down soil erosion on their fenland farm. In the early years, they were lucky to have Iain Tolhurst as a mentor. Paul remembers phoning him up after an attack of leatherjackets for advice. The suggestion was to scrape around the bottom of each plant and pick them off. After collecting the leatherjacket grubs from the soil of around 5000 plants, Paul had collected quite a lot to feed to his chickens! Waterland started their box scheme sometime in the mid nineties after seeing Jan Deane giving a talk at a Soil Association conference, at a time when all the conference delegates could fit in the Cirencester College bar. Paul remembers distinctly being Photo: Rosie Robinson described as ‘one of the new young ones’ at this time. Paul Robinson, Helen Holmes and Doreen Robinson

At Waterland, we have recently changed our box scheme to a CSA majority of our land follows the course of an ancient river bed. to differentiate ourselves from other ‘box schemes’ that operate in Weed pressure and labour costs are the limiting factors on how the area. We feel that the definition of a box scheme has become much we grow. To help address this, this year we imported an very woolly due to a lot of large companies with large marketing Eco-weeder from Denmark which has enabled us to crop more budgets now running boxed veg deliveries, whereas a CSA land than we have done for a long time. Wherever possible we reflected exactly what we have to offer. We supply only our own grow module raised transplants and have been experimenting organic produce, picked fresh and delivered for 34 weeks of the with using bare-root transplants. Rabbits have been a problem, year (July to February). Each year, we hope to close our hungry but the rise of badger and weasel numbers on the farm has seen gap with new crops, that we are establishing, such as rhubarb, to that. Slugs used to be a major problem in the polytunnels, but asparagus, globe artichoke and more polytunnel-grown salads. our common toad population has soared. We now need wolves to We found buying in produce to supplement our boxes expensive take out the roe deer and muntjac and for the pigeons to become and unsatisfactory. Now that we’ve changed to a CSA, this has allergic to brassicas, and we will be on Easy Street! Any crop sown helped define us as ‘farmers’ to our customers rather than ‘veg direct is extremely challenging; carrots are a particular challenge, suppliers’. Waterland CSA crop shares are delivered either by van which with them being synonymous with fenland veg is quite or in and around Cambridge city centre by Outspoken Cycles, a embarrassing. Weeding aside, the Cambridgeshire Fens benefit local bike delivery business. Any spare veg from CSA members from only one generation of carrot root fly - it starts in March and who don’t need a box delivering for a particular week goes straight ends in November! to Cambridge FoodCycle, who cook it up as part of their pay as The bread and butter for the farm business comes from the Waterland you feel meal in the city centre to help combat food poverty. CSA. We offer two sizes of share, one with six item s and one with One of our biggest challenges to production is the weed burden nine. We dedicate all the produce in the polytunnels to Waterland on our fertile farm. One main weed is redshank, which round here CSA and as rewards for Cambridge CropShare volunteers. The field is called willow-weed. According to Garden Organic, redshank crops are grown without differentiating between CSA and other produces over 5000 seeds per plant, seed can remain viable for customers, as to do so would be an organisational nightmare. We up to 45 years in the soil, and over half the seed is viable after also supply Cambridge wholefood shops, a local organic delivery 10 years. Even the herbicide users struggle with weeds round service, a vegan restaurant and a deli. As a consequence of this, we here. Organic matter content of the soil on our farm varies from grow a broad range of produce whilst concentrating on a few lines 8 to 25%. It’s very free draining over sand and gravel, as the like savoy cabbage and squash for the larger orders.

Page 30 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Working together, Waterland and CropShare have been growing open-pollinated flower and vegetable seed crops for the Seed Co- operative, and currently have yellow Calendula seed available in the recent catalogue. Parsnip and leek crops are in the ground for a seed harvest this year. Together we are growing and harvesting heritage grains for the British Isles Community Grains Association, namely Old Burwell, a variety thought to have been grown in one of the neighbouring villages of the farm. Both CSAs are members of the CSA Network UK, and Helen is a board member, helping to build community supported agriculture in the UK.

We feel that the farm has been re-energised by the two CSA

Photo: Ben Damet schemes and we’re now striding to a new dawn. The Cambridge CropShare crew Helen Holmes and Paul Robinson Cambridge CropShare came about after conversations between http://www.waterlandorganics.com/ http://cambridge.cropshare.org.uk/ Paul and Doreen and locals from the Transition Cambridge Food group, including Helen Holmes. The main motivation for the food group members was to get hands-on with growing organic veg locally for local consumption, and a lot of original members had no or limited room to grow veg at home, but wanted to grow their own. As a result of the banking collapse of 2008, Paul and Doreen felt they were too knackered to grow all that was needed for a viable business and too cash poor to take on any workers. The first shared crop we decided to grow was onions, as this was a crop which needed a lot of attention for weeding, producing a bulk harvest for volunteers to store at home. The farm and volunteers agreed to share the risk if the crop did fail. A core group of about 20 volunteers committed to about five group farm visits where we planted, hoed and harvested the onions together. Each volunteer then got a share of the crop (apart from one who didn’t tell us until the end of the season that he was allergic to onions - poor guy!) and the farm’s share was used in the box scheme and sold wholesale.

Since then CropShare has continued with many new and old faces through the years and volunteers get stuck in with all crops on the farm on up to 25 Saturdays organised throughout the year. Volunteer days are planned at the beginning of the year to try and match with peak labour demand in sowing, planting or weeding. CropShare volunteers and families cycle or liftshare to the farm, spend time doing seasonal growing jobs, receive fruit or veg from the farm on the day as a reward, as well as learning about farm-scale food production, getting a fen suntan where possible and sharing plenty of delicious ‘bring and share’ lunches and laughs. In 2016, there were over 100 different volunteers joining in on CropShare farm days, many coming back plenty of times. Helen feels that she underestimated the strength of community that would form at the farm and the benefits resulting from this, as she was mainly focused on veg growing when she helped setting up CropShare. Volunteers are dedicated to the farm, with one engineer volunteer this year planning and running a CrowdFunder for making a push-along, lay-down weeder to help CropSharers weed crops. A small group of volunteer co-ordinators organise emails and social media for CropShare. Since starting as a CropSharer, Helen is now also employed part-time at Waterland Organics as a grower.

Page 31 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Nature notes – place invaders

From the Birthday Gate, mentioned Another relatively recent arrival, at first close to the brook and in OG37, the pasture field slopes latterly in fairly moist and shady spots at some distance from it down to a roughly level space and (even including a rut well under the eaves of our cattle shed) is then dips away again into a sort of pink purslane, Claytonia sibirica. I first saw it in the early 1980s in the linear sump bounded on its further Tamar Valley, but both it and its salad-bag cousin, C.perfoliata, were edge by the bank, part earth, part recorded in the wild before 1850. Another North American native, drystone, that contains the brook. it turned up on this farm before the end of the 1980s, a few years The drainage water that emerges after we did. I can’t speak for its edibility or otherwise, presumably here from little springs and seepages you’d want to pick the leaves before flowering, but it’s a handsome Photo: Tim Deane can only find its way into the brook Skunk cabbage plant in a small way, with broadly ovoid leaves springing directly someway downstream, and so this area is permanently damp and from the stem and five-petalled flowers of a more or less pale pink in a wet year, unlike the one we’ve just had, becomes impenetrably marked with deeper veins. It would be impossible to extirpate, soggy. Sallows sprawl across it and alders totter from the bank. so thickly does it grow in masses intertwined among the herbage It’s a place of aquatic grasses and sedges with golden saxifrage in native to its habitat. It seems to have found a niche to fill where springtime and wild garlic and yellow archangel on the slightly it is not obviously over-competitive to the original vegetation, all drier spots, and - where less shaded - lady’s smock, ragged robin the same it must now occupy sites that formerly grew celandine, and spearwort, the buttercup of marshy ground. Looking down yellow pimpernel and the like. from the gateway in late March my eye was caught there across An altogether more aggressive species, but like the purslane the intervening hundred yards by a garish splash of yellow - the originally ill-advisedly introduced as a garden plant, is alkanet, emerging spathe of a skunk cabbage, Lysichiton americanus. It Pentaglottis sempervirens. This is probably the only plant with an first appeared last year but investigation now revealed two more English name derived from Arabic - ‘little henna’ from al-hennah, plants also soon to flower and seed. Obviously related to our the henna plant, through the Spanish alcanna – on account of the red native cuckoo pint, Arum maculatum, but true to its specific epithet dye obtainable from its roots. It grew here close to the old house but an altogether larger and more showy plant, it’s cultivated in bog lately has spread throughout the farm. The flowers are cheerful and gardens both for that striking yellow spathe and for the three attractive - five neat little royal blue petals springing from a bright feet-tall glossy and crinkled leaves that follow it. First recorded white eye – and much visited by bumble bees, but in other respects in the wild in 1947 it has since exhibited an alarming ability to the plant is a dull dog, with bristly nondescript leaves on two to take over the flora of damp woodland. Come Easter Monday and three foot long stems. It’s a bully too, overgrowing the familiar with this in mind we descended on the three visible plants with spring flora and continuing to occupy the ground for almost the shovel in hand and dug them out. As for its suggested skunky whole year (hence sempervirens, ever-living or evergreen), so that smell (I refer of course to the animal not the herb), we caught no once established, nothing else has much chance. There’s a quite whiff of it despite one of us being a native of Ontario who would frequent Maytime association here, a patriotic red, white and blue certainly have recognised it had it been there. Perhaps the odour of campion, stitchwort and bluebells. To my regret in places the of upturned deoxygenated mud and trampled water mint was alkanet is hustling out the campion and stitchwort and replacing sufficient to overlay it. the bluebells, so that for all the pretty but transient blueness of its It’s not hard to see how these plants arrived. Some upstream flowers the result is a dully homogenous uniformity. neighbours have it in their waterside garden and a not so distant Such changes are not solely the result of introduced species winter flood evidently carried its seeds downstream to lodge proliferating. I’ve heard dog’s mercury, a native, described as the and germinate here. At one time I used to see a lot of seedling world’s most boring plant, and, even if rare, it would be hard to Himalayan Balsam, Impatiens glandulifera, in similar habitats close work up much enthusiasm for it. For some years now, it has been to the brook and was assiduous in pulling it out. No plant that vegetatively expanding its dreary clonal drifts – usually all male I know of has a more tenuous connection with the ground or is or all female, the distinction is not exciting - both on the field banks easier to uproot. Even so you might think I’d have been better and in our small patches of hazel coppice, steadily supressing the employed cultivating our vegetable crops, but I’ve never liked primroses, wild garlic, violets and bluebells that one would rather Busy Lizzies and while this taller relative’s exotic form and colour see. Why individual plants grow exactly where they do is a matter may be welcome in areas of industrial dereliction I didn’t want that’s hard to elucidate – variations within soil nutrients, shade, it taking over the native flora of our pastoral valley. This is the drainage and trampling by livestock as well as subtle changes problem of introduced plants – it’s not what they bring to a scene between them are some of the factors that must come into it. To but what they subtract from it. It seems the source for this one has that partial list we now have to add changes in climate. diminished or disappeared, at any rate I seldom see it now. Tim Deane

Page 32 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Sustainable Diets: How Book reviews Ecological Nutrition Can Transform Consumption The Salad Garden by and the Food System; Joy Larkcom; Frances Pamela Mason and Tim Lang Lincoln (2017) £16.99 (2017) Well timed for the summer Routledge 368pp surge in salad eating comes a fully revised and updated What is a sustainable diet? Is it possible to edition of Joy Larkcom’s eat well for both health and environment? classic book The Salad Garden. Can this be done in a culturally acceptable Although aimed at gardeners manner? And if so, does this mean eating minimally? Does eating rather than commercial sustainably mean foregoing the fun and pleasurable aspects of growers, it is invaluable for its food? Is a sustainable diet affordable by all? Who makes decisions detailed, thoroughly reliable about sustainable diets and why? And how can we bring about information and, above all, for inspiration. It goes way beyond change away from currently unsustainable patterns? the traditional lettuce, radish and cucumber, covering over 200 Pamela Mason, a public health nutritionist, and Tim Lang, salad plants from spicy oriental greens, through crunchy salsola Professor of Food Policy, tackle these questions through a detailed and refreshing summer purslane to colourful edible flowers, and review of the evidence and challenges facing our food system, all the advice reflects Joy’s commitment to organic methods. set out using the six-part framework developed by the UK’s When The Salad Garden was first published in 1984, it was heralded Sustainable Development Commission: health, environment, as a game changer by gardeners, chefs and professional growers society, quality, economy, governance. The arguments they make who supplied shops and restaurants. Now many of the then ‘weird’ about the burden of disease related to over-consumption alongside salad plants have become mainstream – supermarkets sell pak choi under-consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and and rocket, and veg boxes and farmers’ markets have acquainted loss of biodiversity, as well as social injustice, both globally and consumers with even less familiar leaves; new improved varieties locally, are not new. But there are some nice illustrations of the have been introduced and seed has become much more readily issues at stake. For example, a cup of black coffee represents 140 available. The revised edition of the book reflects this change and litres of water to produce it on the farm, process it, pack it and gives up-to-date lists of varieties – decorative types of oriental deliver it to the customer. If milk is added, the embedded water mustards and mizuna, bolt-resistant coriander and pak choi, for rises to 200 litres. Their review is set amidst a much broader example, and a shortlist of lettuce chosen for taste. discussion of bigger questions about the nature of progress, global inequalities, gender roles within society, what land is for, Joy is undoubtedly a salad plant expert. In the mid 1970s, she and the role of corporate and State interests within the dominant travelled around Europe in a caravan with her husband and neoliberal model. their young family on what she calls her ‘Grand Vegetable Tour’ – finding out about local varieties of vegetables and different The picture they paint is a complex one involving difficult trade-offs. ways of growing them. She discovered many new salad plants, For example, while factory-produced food may be more efficient particularly ones that could be grown in the colder months of in terms of greenhouse gas emissions due to economies of scale, year – beautiful chicories and endives, for example – and she the social aspects of culinary culture and home cooking cannot introduced the now familiar concept of ‘cut-and-come-again’ be underestimated. Similarly, while eating locally and seasonally harvesting. Later research into oriental vegetables took her to may reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this may compromise on China, Japan and Taiwan, and she helped popularise the quick dietary diversity and health outcomes in some parts of the world -growing oriental leaves that have become so important in winter due to reduced availability of food. The environmental benefits of salads. In the revised edition of The Salad Garden, she has drawn organic production are also mentioned in terms of greenhouse gas upon additional knowledge built up in recent years and on that emissions, biodiversity protection, water conservation and lower of the many professionals with whom she worked, hence the energy use, yet the authors argue that greater land use for organic authority of its advice. foods may result in increased nitrogen loss and eutrophication. However, despite this complexity, Mason and Lang argue that Joy suggests we approach salad growing in a spirit of adventure there is growing agreement about the principles of a sustainable and inquiry but, unlike her, we don’t have to travel to far-flung diet, in particular reducing meat consumption (notably in places to do this – we just have to flick through the pages of developed countries) which has both health and environmental her book. benefits, and targeting food waste which represents an estimated Sue Stickland 30% of the world’s land area, energy and water.

Page 33 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 For me, the most interesting part of the book is the discussion of what should be done about our unsustainable dietary patterns and who should take responsibility for bringing about change. Mason and Lang argue that ‘soft’ interventions such as information and advice through food labelling are not working because labels do not convey the complexity that sovereign food consumers need to know. Instead they argue for coordination of multiple actions including tougher approaches such as taxation, legal enforcement and industry regulation driven by governments. They argue for a focus on consumption rather than production. As a first step they call for the development of sustainable dietary guidelines: these could be globally applied whilst leaving room for local cultural application. A number of positive examples are shared at the global, national and city levels. However, there is resistance. Sweden had to withdraw its carefully developed sustainable dietary guidelines because its advice to eat locally and seasonally infringed upon EU non-discrimination rules within the single market. Mason and Lang also recognise resistance from meat and dairy industries, and the controversial nature of a more restrictive and controlling approach which calls for consuming less (but better). Despite not having all the answers, it is good to see a call for more progressive change. This will require a concerted effort across the food system, yet one which represents opportunities for organic growers who have a key role to play in aiding this transition to mostly plant-based diets. Chloe Blackmore

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Page 34 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Precariat or progression?

The current trend of non-waged labour within agriculture is by no means a new phenomenon. Traditionally, family members have been a source of non-commodified labour that allowed farms to establish a niche within capitalist agriculture. Today, interns, apprentices and volunteers have become a familiar addition to the landscape, however, the growth of their use in organics is a result of market mechanisms and not just a shift in farm communities.

The neo-liberal economic structure has striven to maximise market precariat lacks all forms. Non-waged workers also lack many of competition and allow market principles to permeate all elements them such as paid leave, medical leave, access to pensions and of our lives. These principles have led to greater labour market national insurance contributions. However, some do have access flexibility, shifting risk and insecurity to workers. The production to community benefits, feel solidarity to the local community of a surplus workforce along with other mechanisms has reduced and are included within it. They are provided with housing the bargaining power of the working classes, thus allowing the (of variable quality) and food. Importantly, the support and the existence of exploitive conditions and wages. social income they receive enables them to build an occupational identity and transition toward a career that gives them meaning The precariat and purpose.

As a result of this process a new social class has formed called Informal arrangements can offer little real stability, security or the ‘precariat’. It is defined by an existence without predictability protection from exploitation - something which is routinely on or security, affecting a person’s material or psychological offer to those in jobs and education. We need to put barriers welfare. Although I’m not inferring that non-waged workers between what is education and what is a job. If it is education we within organics are precariats, they do hold similarities and are need to give better rights, support networks, structure, elements a reflection of the same economic process. They are dependent on of self-direction, limits on working hours, minimum teaching the will of another, bureaucratic benevolence and have limited hours, skill development, quality assurance, etc. If it is a job it rights. My problem does not lie with the existence of either of should be paid and just as for the precariat, we should be able to these, but with the fact that they are unrepresented and open establish a meaningful right to work. We need to provide work to exploitation. Addressing the issue should be one of building that is not labour. solidarity and equality. Progression or exploitation? Industrial citizenship The rise of non-waged labour as a learning environment can be Non-waged workers in organics fail to have access to all but two seen as a progressive step in removing the content, governance of seven forms of labour security under industrial citizenship - and objectives of education from market forces. However, it namely skill reproduction security and (weakly) representation opens the door to exploitation and bad practice. With the Soil security. Those they fail to access are labour market security, Association’s roll back of its two-year apprenticeship there is now employment security, job security, work security and income a gap within the long-term development of new entrants. This security. Some may not value all the seven forms of industrial needs to be filled. citizenship nor are they the panacea of the wage worker, but they provide a framework to start assessing the freedoms, As a new entrant, I worry about a regressive future of labour across support, protection, opportunities, security and rights of non- the economy including organics; low pay, low quality housing, waged workers. Many, if not all, non-waged labourers are also no security for later in life and the reduction of governmental or in informal education so it must be said those rights related to societal capacity to support the most vulnerable. Many have the wages should not be attached, since in many cases this would be capacity to become a precariat, being without rights, dependent a cost to an individual. But if the other rights were to be held, they on charity or bureaucratic benevolence. Those who buy organic would provide a better and more secure learning environment, and local food do so because they value the health of the planet, each deserving a discussion in their own right. their communities and their families, so they also need to consider the health of those who grow their food. There should not be any Social income guilt over the true cost of food. The utopian dream is that organics should rescue food production from economic reason. An Other vital forms of income that are associated with the important part of capitalism’s power is its control of imaginations, workplace come under the title of social income. Social income so imagining, discussing and creating alternatives to it is vital. is distinguished by a worker’s access to non-wage benefits; paid leave, medical leave, pensions, community benefits, family and Adam Keeves friend networks, state benefits, appropriate public services and Assistant Grower, Plowright Organics amenities as well as income from financial or other assets. The

Page 35 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017 Events 2017 Organic Farm Wednesday 12th July 2017: Wakelyns Agroforestry Open Day, Management Handbook Suffolk, IP21 5SD. A full and varied day at Wakelyns Agroforestry This is a ‘must have’ is planned, in conjunction with Hodmedod’s. publication for everyone

interested in the business Monday 17th July 2017: GREATsoils field day: Rotation Strategies of organic farming and Across Farms for Soil Health and Fertility. Holbeach, Lincs Nic Lampkin growing. The new edition Mark Measures How can businesses working in a shared rotation collaborate to Susanne Padel provides technical and (editors) assess and manage the health of their soils? Three businesses, on current support schemes, 11th Edition Jepco, Worth Farms and Loveden Estates, are working on a joint (Jan 2017) Brexitfinancial permitting, data, information as well strategy to improve soil health in the long term. The field lab aims Sponsored by as an update on organic

markets as growth returns. to increase soil fertility and organic matter through collaborative 2017 Organic rotation planning involving all parties who are using the land at Farm Management some stage in their rotation (horticulture and arable systems), by £20 plus postage (£2 UK, £4 for overseas). Handbook assessing effects of cover crops on cash crop yield and quality. Please e-mail [email protected] for Thursday August 3rd 2017: Wholecrop Marketing potato varieties discounted bulk/trade order prices. open day. Field trials of a range of varieties, including Agrico’s Available now from: blight and virus resistant range. Low Grange Farm, Market www.organicresearchcentre.com Weighton YO43 4LX Saturday 19th August 2017: Seed Co-operative AGM and get- Grower sought for veg box scheme in East Sussex together, including tour of Gosberton Bank Nursery, Lincs. We are looking for an experienced grower to take over the field Wednesday 6th September 2017: Rijk Zwaan Soil Association and glasshouse production of vegetables on 10 acres, for our well Organic Open Day. Huntstile Organic Farm, Bridgwater, Somerset, established 400 customer, organic, vegetable box scheme.

Thursday 7th September 2017: Agrico Potato Variety Open Day. Please look at www.barcombenurseries.co.uk for information Hundreds Farm, Crowland, Lincs PE6 0LG about us and contact [email protected] for further Saturday 23rd to Sunday 24th September 2017: Market Gardening details of the job. (Please use ‘Grower’ for subject line.) with Charles Dowding, Hugh Chapman and Ashley Wheeler. Seed Co-operative seek new team member LandBase course at Monkton Wyld, Dorset

. We are looking for a self-motivated grower, with good Biodynamic Agricultural College experience of organic and/or biodynamic vegetable production, or open to adopting these techniques. Knowledge of seed production an advantage but not essential; wide ranging role available with the potential to shape to individual talents. Contact [email protected] The SUSTAINABLE FARMING AND GARDENING

WORK BASED & DISTANCE LEARNING ORGANIC GROWER

The Organic Grower is edited by Phil Sumption, with help from www.bdacollege.org.uk Kate Collyns, Carolyn Wacher, Elysia Bartel, Chloe Blackmore and Olivia James. Additional proof-reading by Isabeau Meyer- OGA committee Graft. If you have any news, events or ideas for articles please get in touch. Alan Schofield, Lancs 01253 790046: Chair [email protected] Roger Hitchings, Carmarthen 07980 579444: Secretary/web news Debra Schofield, Lancs 01253 790046: Treasurer Thanks to all our contributors. Phil Sumption, Wilts, 07759 318942: OG editor Adverts: John Crocker [email protected] Ben Raskin, Wilts, 07990 592621 SA liaison/apprentices Jonathan Smith, Isles of Scilly, 07528 136678 Organic Futures Copy date for next issue: August 15th 2017 The Organic Grower is the membership magazine of the OGA. Views Wendy Seel, Aberdeenshire, 01330 833823: Research /Scotland expressed in The Organic Grower are not necessarily those of the OGA Tony Little, Wales, 01974 282813 Membership/events or its committee. Every effort is made to check the factual accuracy of James Smith, Cumbria, 015395 61777 statements made in the magazine, but no guarantees are expressed Jason Horner, Ireland, 0035 3876 454120 Ireland or implied. In particular, readers should satisfy themselves about the Kate Collyns, Wilts, 07957 615199 authenticity of products or inputs advertised. Material may not be www.organicgrowersalliance.co.uk reproduced without prior written permission.

Page 36 - The Organic Grower - No 39 Summer 2017