Category: News and events

Vaccination against the spread of the Bluetongue virus (BTV-8) appears to be working in England

While farmland bird populations in South East England are generally tumbling (Defra reports a 21 per cent fall from 1994 to 2006) a real bird conservation success has been logged at one leading organic farm.

A big, new push is under way from bioscience companies to promote their GM crops on the back of global worries about food shortage and high prices. To arms, to arms, a new approach is needed from the organic sector to fight this move.

The world needs a new “fair food” agreement and more reliance on sustainable farming systems to meet the twin challenges of starvation and climate change. That was the central message from Defra Secretary of State Hilary Benn in a speech to the Fabian Society in London.

Anti organic speech from Sir David King – let them eat GM.

The Center for Food Safety in the United States has sent letters to the top state law enforcement officials of 49 states, urging them to take action against the misleading practice of labeling seafood imports as “organic.”

Alarm about a possible human H5N1 flu pandemic has resurfaced on news wires and across the media after fresh evidence that avian flu, circulating in poultry in the Far East, can be transmitted from person to person.

Full proceedings from The Organic Research Centre’s December 2007 producer conference, hosted in collaboration with Organic Inform, are now available online.

European Food Safety Agency says cloning OK for food safety and the environment

New campaign from European Commission says organic is good for everyone.

ORC research team reports from IFOAM/ISOFAR in Modena, Italy.

Organic agriculture and other forms of ecological agriculture have received a boost in a new report from the House of Commons All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil.

Demand for land to grow food, fuel crops and wood is set to outstrip supply, leading to the further destruction of forests and other valuable habitat.

Defra not to cull badgers – will use vaccination for TB when available

BBOP details

Initial results from test baking of the composite cross populations show that the populations perform consistently between organic and conventional systems, unlike a mixture and a conventionally-bred variety which do well in non-organic but not organic systems

Defra study illustrates problems of locking up soil organic carbon

Cabinet Office report says proper food policy could save 70,000 lives a year

Dysfunctional technology of GM is no answer to world hunger

Is the UK organic sector defying food industry and media sceptics who’ve predicted that the organics and fair trade sectors will be the first to be hit by the credit crunch? And whose figures on the size of the UK organic retail market should we believe anyway?

UK risk of BSE downgraded

Land area under organic management in Wales increased by 15% in 2007 and now amounts to some 90,000 ha on 800 holdings, that’s 6.3% of Welsh agricultural area.

The sorry saga of UK incompetence in the administration of farm subsidy continues. The Farmers Guardian reports that a large number of payments made to farmers under Organic Entry Level Stewardship (OELS) are being reviewed after Natural England found that some had been overpaid by up to £25,000.