Sir John Krebs heads the new Food Standards Agency. One of his first
pronouncements is a denunciation of the benefits of organic food on today's
BBC Countryfile programme. His views were extensively previewed on the front
page of yesterday's Independent and can be found at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Environment/2000-09/carrots020900.shtml
. Along with promoting better standards in food, it also seems that Sir John
is going tell us foolish subjective consumers that we should be objective in
our habits. His attack on organic food certainly caused me some trouble in
the public understanding bunker.
Yesterday, as I sat at the bar of my delightfully rural bunker quietly
reading the Independent, the hawks were circling. Two young farmers,
Stocking and Treadsure (not quite their real names), edged closer. They had
pints in their grimy hands and grins on their dusty faces. Bawlings, the
landlord tucked his shirt into his trousers and leered toothlessly over the
bar muttering "Gotcha, gotcha!"
I was unconcerned "This lot should be happy," I thought, "The wheat is in
and it's a near record harvest.
But slowly, I realised that they were not engaging in a post-harvest binge
rather than sizing up to a bout of ritual Boddington-bashing. Usually, it is
about fox hunting and I fight my corner believing God is on my side. This
Saturday, the battle is be about organic foods and they have Sir John Krebs
on their side.
Treadsure, one of those poverty stricken young farmers who drives to the pub
in his new 4x4 to keep his nearly new Mercedes clean, poked his filthy
fingernail at the Independent headline: "Organic food is a waste of money."
And, I sulked, he could be right. According to Sir John the organic food
market is booming because people are being "seduced" by an image of organic
food as healthy and nutritious. But in these respects, it is no different
from the "ordinary" food on the supermarket shelves.
Now if our debate was taking place at a dinner party, the topic would not be
a problem for me. On those occasions, everyone competes to demonstrate that
they are more organic than their neighbours, "have you tried those wonderful
vegetable boxes that deliver in season and by the phase of the moon?" Then
they discuss how they received toilet rolls from Tesco's Internet service
when they had actually ordered profiteroles. But this was the public
understanding bunker and these people grow the food most of us eat.
My confidence shattered, we argued for hours (or rather pints). "Ordinary
food has no more pesticides, the same nutrients and less bacteria," they
chortled. "But organic is natural," I meekly replied.
I could see the cracks in Krebs' arguments. He believes that value for money
is the same as price; try telling that to someone trying to buy a house in
this village. Objectivity must rule over subjectivity. And I recalled Lord
Jenkins' wise words: "Some issues currently treated by decision-makers as
scientific issues in fact involve many other factors besides science.
Framing the problem wrongly by excluding moral, social, ethical and other
concerns invites hostility."
Kerb's has fallen into this trap. He has apparently said: "we don't have the
evidence to support these claims" [that organic food is healthier and more
nutritious.] Echoes of the BSE and GM debate here. He sounds like Bob May
did at the beginning of the recent GM debate (before he was converted to
listening to the public.) But in my public understanding bunker, people are
becoming suspicious of "no evidence." They do not know whether scientists
have not looked or done the research. Many find it difficult to understand
that science sometimes cannot answer the questions that matter.
Where did our organic debate end? Stocking, a man who knows an ewe from a
theave, moved in to secure defeat. I had been arguing that it was worth the
"organic premium" to preserve the fields and countryside (regrettably the
same augments Stocking and Treadsure use to support fox hunting). "Why
then," breathed Stocking, "is half the organic food you eat flown in from
overseas on those so eco-friendly airplanes?"
Bawlings leered and leant over the bar. "Another beer?" he spluttered. "Only
if it's not organic I muttered."
Andy Boddington
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