Organic news archive: May 2005
NFU chief calls for probe into pesticide link to Parkinson's. Tim Bennet, NFU president has called on DEFRA to do more research into the possible links between pesticides and Parkinson's disease after an EU report strengthened suspicions of a link. (Farmer's Weekly � 27/5/05)
British Food Fortnight is being held from 24 September to 9 October. Event organisers hope to capitalise on 'Jamie's School Dinners' by encouraging 70% of primary schools and 50% of secondary schools to hold a food event during the fortnight. Event organiser, Alexia Robinson said: "One of the key aims of British Food Fortnight is to increase the amount of food education in schools by encouraging teachers to hold special events for children." Other key aims of the event are to encourage producers, retailers, restaurants and tourism outlets to take a lead role in educating the public about the food and drink their region produces.
The Dunnhumby Academy of Consumer Research (DACR) at the University of Kent has just opened. This academy is a collaboration between the university, the Food Chain Centre (a UK consumer research group) and the marketing insight business dunnhumby - the company behind the Tesco Clubcard. Together these three have created a centre of research and advice into what farm products Britain buys. The great advantage this research centre has, above all others, is access to the dunnhumby data. Dunnhumby own the rights to sell the (anonymised) Clubcard data they collect. Nearly 14 million people have Tesco clubcards and to dunnhumby, to Tesco and now to the DACR, these cards are eyes into the baskets of those 14 million customers. They are an invaluable tool for market research. Thanks to the DACR, farmers will now have access to this information for free. (The Independent)
Between 2001-04 Tesco opened more space in new stores than J Sainsbury, Asda and Morrison combined. As a result, about 60 per cent of the British public now enters a Tesco store at least once a month, according to TNS, the market researcher. (Financial Times)
The Soil Association has just co-published a new toolkit aimed at people who want to start up local food enterprises like farmers' markets, farm shops or local allotment groups. The kit is called "Cultivating Cooperatives" and is a detailed and easy to read guide produced by Greg Pilley. The toolkit was co-published by the Plunkett Foundation and CooperativesUK, with funding from Cooperative Action. It covers working examples of local food enterprises, including profiles of a box scheme in Kent, a community food project in East London, and a farmers' cooperative in Lancashire. You can download "Cultivating Cooperatives" for free at http://www.soilassociation.org/localfood
The first register of GM contamination incidents across the world, which includes eight in Britain, is being published today as governments meet to discuss how to protect the environment from unauthorised releases. Details of all known contamination of food, feed for animals, seed and wild plants since GM crops were introduced in 1996 are available on a website launched by GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace. More than 60 incidents of illegal or unlabelled GM contamination have been documented in 27 countries. Cases of illegal releases of GM organisms and damaging side-effects such as the development of super-weeds are also included. Governments are meeting in Montreal, Canada, to try to develop rules to allow all GM products to be traced so that if they were accidentally or deliberately released into the environment the extent of the contamination among non-GM plants or animals could be tracked. The second thorny issue governments are dealing with is liability - who pays when either the natural environment is damaged by the spread of GM genes or organic and conventional farmers lose markets through contamination. This is an issue on which the British government has so far failed to develop a policy. (The Guardian)
Farming Today continued its look at organic food and farming this morning. Geoffrey Hollis, formerly in charge of pesticide safety for the ministry of agriculture, presented an anti-organic viewpoint. He said that virtually no claims made by the organic lobby are true, that organic farming created animal welfare problems, and that organic eggs can contain high levels of dioxins. Amongst his claims was that organic broiler chickens are made to live for 81 days by which time they are fat, heavy, van't walk and can't get outdoors. He did concede that the use of fewer pest
NFU chief calls for probe into pesticide link to Parkinson's. Tim Bennet, NFU president has called on DEFRA to do more research into the possible links between pesticides and Parkinson's disease after an EU report strengthened suspicions of a link. (Farmer's Weekly � 27/5/05)
British Food Fortnight is being held from 24 September to 9 October. Event organisers hope to capitalise on 'Jamie's School Dinners' by encouraging 70% of primary schools and 50% of secondary schools to hold a food event during the fortnight. Event organiser, Alexia Robinson said: "One of the key aims of British Food Fortnight is to increase the amount of food education in schools by encouraging teachers to hold special events for children." Other key aims of the event are to encourage producers, retailers, restaurants and tourism outlets to take a lead role in educating the public about the food and drink their region produces.
The Dunnhumby Academy of Consumer Research (DACR) at the University of Kent has just opened. This academy is a collaboration between the university, the Food Chain Centre (a UK consumer research group) and the marketing insight business dunnhumby - the company behind the Tesco Clubcard. Together these three have created a centre of research and advice into what farm products Britain buys. The great advantage this research centre has, above all others, is access to the dunnhumby data. Dunnhumby own the rights to sell the (anonymised) Clubcard data they collect. Nearly 14 million people have Tesco clubcards and to dunnhumby, to Tesco and now to the DACR, these cards are eyes into the baskets of those 14 million customers. They are an invaluable tool for market research. Thanks to the DACR, farmers will now have access to this information for free. (The Independent)
Between 2001-04 Tesco opened more space in new stores than J Sainsbury, Asda and Morrison combined. As a result, about 60 per cent of the British public now enters a Tesco store at least once a month, according to TNS, the market researcher. (Financial Times)
The Soil Association has just co-published a new toolkit aimed at people who want to start up local food enterprises like farmers' markets, farm shops or local allotment groups. The kit is called "Cultivating Cooperatives" and is a detailed and easy to read guide produced by Greg Pilley. The toolkit was co-published by the Plunkett Foundation and CooperativesUK, with funding from Cooperative Action. It covers working examples of local food enterprises, including profiles of a box scheme in Kent, a community food project in East London, and a farmers' cooperative in Lancashire. You can download "Cultivating Cooperatives" for free at http://www.soilassociation.org/localfood
The first register of GM contamination incidents across the world, which includes eight in Britain, is being published today as governments meet to discuss how to protect the environment from unauthorised releases. Details of all known contamination of food, feed for animals, seed and wild plants since GM crops were introduced in 1996 are available on a website launched by GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace. More than 60 incidents of illegal or unlabelled GM contamination have been documented in 27 countries. Cases of illegal releases of GM organisms and damaging side-effects such as the development of super-weeds are also included. Governments are meeting in Montreal, Canada, to try to develop rules to allow all GM products to be traced so that if they were accidentally or deliberately released into the environment the extent of the contamination among non-GM plants or animals could be tracked. The second thorny issue governments are dealing with is liability - who pays when either the natural environment is damaged by the spread of GM genes or organic and conventional farmers lose markets through contamination. This is an issue on which the British government has so far failed to develop a policy. (The Guardian)
Farming Today continued its look at organic food and farming this morning. Geoffrey Hollis, formerly in charge of pesticide safety for the ministry of agriculture, presented an anti-organic viewpoint. He said that virtually no claims made by the organic lobby are true, that organic farming created animal welfare problems, and that organic eggs can contain high levels of dioxins. Amongst his claims was that organic broiler chickens are made to live for 81 days by which time they are fat, heavy, van't walk and can't get outdoors. He did concede that the use of fewer pest