News archive: June 2007

A major British supermarket has dropped Prince Charles as a vegetable suppliers because it says his produce did not meet the right standards. They also dropped fresh produce from Patrick Holden's farm, the Director of the Soil Association, the UK's main organic food and farming organization. The move has prompted Patrick Holden to accuse leading supermarkets of being so centralized and industrialized that they cannot deliver the local organic food their customers want. Mr Holden said he believes that he and Prince Charles have become victims of the supermarket system's industrial processes and imposed food miles. They were sacked as suppliers of carrots to Sainsbury's at the end of January, 2007. He and the Prince had been forced to truck their vegetables hundreds of miles from their farms to a centralized packing house in East Anglia before they were sent back to be sold in Sainsbury's stores local to their area. Mr Holden believes his vegetables were of the highest quality when harvested, but the combined effects of long-distance transport, handling to create large enough batches for the machines that wash and polish the vegetables and further storing after processing to create large enough batches for packing left the vegetables damaged and prone to rot. The system also resulted in a crop that had been grown for low environmental impact acquiring a greater carbon footprint than conventional carrots grown on an industrial scale, according to Mr Holden. Up to half the crop from the two farms was being rejected in the grading for cosmetic appearance and quality. Mr Holden said he had decided to speak out because his case was typical. "Everyone who has supplied a supermarket own label will have a story similar to mine to tell but most daren't tell it for fear of being delisted. This is not confined to one supermarket. It is the unintentional consequence of the centralised supermarket distribution system." Sainsbury's acknowledges that dealing with small suppliers is difficult for big supermarkets, but says it works successfully with others and is willing to try to find a solution to the problems of its highest profile organic farmers. It said its overriding concern had to be the quality of the food it sold. by Felicity Lawrence for The Guardian, UK.

EU acceptance of GE contamination in all crops, gives New Zealand a real opportunity and point of difference in the world as a GE Free crop producer, according to The Soil & Health Association, New Zealand. In Brussels on Tuesday, EU Ministers at the Agriculture Council decided to allow contamination of organic food with genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The Ministers adopted a new law, which allows organic food containing up to 0.9 percent 'adventitious or technically unavoidable' GMO content to be classed and labeled as organic. "New Zealand has zero tolerance to genetically engineered (GE) contamination and with organic food the worlds fastest food sector growth area, there are fantastic opportunities here for both genuine GE Free organic and conventional growers", said Soil & Health spokesperson Steffan Browning. "BioGro organic certification standards for example would not tolerate GE contamination, and some British supermarkets are already demanding BioGro. EU consumers do not want GE either." "The European Parliament and environmental groups had called for the threshold of contamination of organic food to be 0.1 percent, which is the lowest level at which genetically modified organisms can be technically detected, but due to our increasingly stringent biosecurity and unique geographical isolation, New Zealand's zero tolerance need not be altered", said spokesperson Browning. "Our special position with only limited field trials, that can quickly be eradicated, has to be one of the best opportunities yet for sustainable economic development, with the added bonus of addressing food miles and other environmental trade barriers. Nuclear Free, GE Free & Zero Tolerance, Clean & Green, 100% Pure, BioGro, are winners, not contamination" "Crop and Food are likely to apply for a further field trial including onions, garlic and leeks this year, but with a likely legal challenge to the recent ERMA decision allowing a GE Brassica field trial, that may be in doubt, leaving just one pathetic GE onion trial to be ripped out, for New Zealand horticulture to be genuinely GE Free." "With the onions gone, removing the equally pathetic field trial of GE trees and 200 GE cattle, would allow New Zealand primary producers to walk a very tall GE Free in the world, just as the community has wanted in survey after survey," said spokesperson Browning. "A GE Free and Organic 2020, with economic and sustainability benefits, is a far better picture than the contaminated environment that is being hoisted on Europe, and already exists across many parts of the globe."