Organic Action Plan launch

Government's lack of organic strategy hampers UK farmers – Organic Action Plan launched The Government's failure to develop policies to meet the enormous increase in demand for organic produce has prevented UK farmers from exploiting new market opportunities. Today, the Organic Targets Campaign [1] is launching its own outline Organic Action Plan [2] in order to kick-start the Government into action. The campaign is calling on the Government to produce an Organic Action Plan in order to improve its performance on organic farming and ensure that UK farmers benefit from the same levels of support that their European neighbours enjoy. Commenting on the need for an action plan, Catherine Fookes, Organic Targets Campaign Co-ordinator says: “It is no coincidence that countries with the highest percentage of organic land in the EU have taken a more strategic approach to organic farming by putting an action plan, with targets, in place for organics. The UK must now do the same or our farmers will miss the boat. Many of the measures we recommend are common sense and do not involve spending more money. They are about giving farmers the confidence to convert, by, for example, ensuring farmers have thought about where they will sell their organic produce when they have converted. The Government needs to act swiftly to enable the organic sector to reach its potential in the next decade.” The outline Organic Action Plan recommends many measures the Government could instigate immediately to help farmers to go organic. It also tackles some of the bottlenecks in the sector that result in around 75% of our organic produce being imported. The outline Organic Action Plan calls for policies in six areas to ensure that the risk is taken out of organic conversion: · Information · Supply Chain · Market Development · Financial Support · Standards Development · Social and Institutional. NOTES TO EDITORS 1. In the last parliament, the Organic Targets Bill (OTB) was the second most supported Private Members' Bill in Parliament, with 268 supporting MPs. The OTB will be reintroduced to Parliament in Autumn. The OTB also has the support of over 100 organisations including retailers, trade unions and environmental groups. For more information see www.sustainweb.org 2. See attached briefing paper for summary of measures suggested in the outline Organic Action Plan and for EU league tables showing the UK's position vis-a-vis funding on organics. 3. The outline Organic Action Plan is available from Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming by emailing otb@sustainweb.org

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