Air freight trade risk

The Soil Association (SA) looked increasingly isolated as it began considering calls for a ban on organic air-freighted produce from developing countries this week.

Import suppliers lined up alongside the government and international agencies to defend the trade and condemn what appeared to many to be a hypocrisy of affluence in denying third world farmers access to the UK market.

Oscar Wilson, manager at Lincolnshire-based fresh produce importer Davis Worldwide, said such a move would cause unnecessary disruption to the industry and threaten the livelihoods of growers who had invested in Soil Association standards.

"Winter tomatoes from Senegal probably represent 20% of the UK market. All of them are flown in. If the Soil Association were to say it won't accept them under the organic label, there would be a big hole in the market. Morocco and Algeria could probably turn the tap on, but it would take time," he said.

Rather than switch certification agencies, importers would be forced to abandon producers. "At the end of the day, the Soil Association is the label the supermarkets want. The certification is in place and I don't think that will change."

The association's standards setting commmittee must decide whether air-freighted produce is at odds with organic principles this month, when it will make recommendations to its council.

Its standards research officer Kenneth Hayes said: "Our close links with organic farmers in developing countries mean we have a responsibility to take full account of the implications our actions might have on their livelihoods."

Were a ban to be approved, the impact could be devestating, according to the United Nations' International Trade Centre, which said as many as 15,000 people in Kenya and Ghana - the UK's biggest suppliers after the Dominican Republic - would be adversely affected. It feared that other certification agencies could follow suit.

Wilson said the association's approach was too simplistic. "If Kenya doesn't grow beans, what would they grow and would the other product be more or less beneficial? If you grow under glass in the UK, you are going to spend more money and emit more carbon. At the end of the day if something is grown organically, it should be sold as organic."