Ra 4 Food - Health and Nutritional Tips

The Soil Association - watchdog for organic food - have given in to pressure from major supermarkets to include food that has travelled by air to display the organic label.

Last year The Soil Association put forward a proposal to stop supermarkets from using their certification label on food that had been air freighted into the UK, due to the fact in produced 177 times more greenhouse gas than the same food if it had arrived by sea.

However, the association had to back down after Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and Asda lobbied them to allow a continuance of organic air-freighted food. The decision is sure to cause outrage amongst other organic campaigners, as the association published a small announcement of it on their website.

It is a wide belief of many people living an organic lifestyle, that it is not just about organic production, but eco-friendly consumption as well.

However Sainsbury’s argument was that it was up to the consumer to decide whether they wanted organic air-freighted food. They also commented that a lot of African farmers had no other means of getting their produce to the UK in prime condition.

Waitrose said, “We believe that air freight should only be used when road, rail and sea options have been fully considered and discounted. Research shows that . . . air-freighted produce can have a lower carbon footprint than produce grown in Northern Europe because of the additional heating required when growing crops in a cooler climate.”

Tesco also took the viewpoint that air freighted food aided farmers in developing countries.

Abel & Cole, known as one of the biggest suppliers of organic food, are unhappy with the ruling, and said it would refuse to supply allow any produce transported by air.

Keith Abel, founder of the company, said, “To say we must sustain these livelihoods is like saying we should sustain the livelihoods of easyJet pilots and take £15 flights to Barcelona every Friday.

“Being in the organic movement involves some sacrifices and means eating with the seasons.”

Guy Watson, owner of Riverford, which supplies 45,000 households with organic food, said, “The social benefits of organic growing in Africa have been grossly overestimated. The biggest beneficiaries are the expats who control the trading.”

The Soil Association said, “Requiring a plan to reduce air freight would be costly to implement and unlikely to contribute to a reduction.”

They denied that their decision had been swayed by supermarket lobbying. However, they did admit to getting certification fees from organic product suppliers that also carried supermarket brand names.

OUT OF AFRICA

— Over 20,000 African farmers rely on sales to Britain of air-freighted organic food, like baby sweetcorn from Zambia, asparagus from South Africa and pineapples from Ghana

— British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, which transport food in the holds of passenger aircraft, donated tickets last year to representatives of African farmers to travel to London to argue the case for allowing organic food to be air-freighted

— Abel & Cole is one of the largest suppliers of organic food, with 35,000 households receiving weekly deliveries