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11th
November 2008 |
Social at
‘The Scyppon’ Slack House Farm, Gilsland.
Dianne and Eric
Horn hosted a lovely warm supper, with contributions from the
Watermill. 19 people attended from CO and the Northumbria
Organic Producers. Thanks to Eric, Dianne, Ana and all who made
it an enjoyable evening. |
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25th
November 2008 |
Northumbria
Organic Producers, Hexham
Carlo Leifert
spoke about the world shortage of phosphate and how it will
probably run out completely in 40 years time, reducing yields of
conventional and organic crops. Catherine Phillips spoke about
the Organic Inform website and conference. Sam Jones spoke about
the RDPE programme in the Northeast and what kinds of projects
might be funded by it. NOP chairman will look into the
possibilities of RDPE for training events. The Biological
Farming group at Nafferton offered to assist with NOP
communications. |
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26th November 2008 |
Supplying NHS and Cumbria
County Council. Seminar organised by CREA. This was a useful
meeting to find out how to apply and how the system works. Look
on ‘The Chest’ procurement website for all the councils in the
NW.
www.thechest.nwce.gov.uk to see what contracts are
available. If you would like more information, contact Ian
Winchester at CREA,
ian@crea.co.uk. |
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7th January 2009 |
Organic
Inform Conference. The theme of
the conference ’for richer, for poorer’, was approached from
different angles. Producers and advisers spoke about their
experiences and to gave an overview of what was happening to the
market recently. Sales to the ‘dabbling’ organic consumers were
the first to be hit. Most businesses are relying on their
well-informed and committed customers. Where the price
differential between organic and non-organic is least, (e.g.
milk) markets are holding up. The weakness of the £ is helping
with exports of organic milk and conventional livestock. The
main messages boiled down to:
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Keep on educating the consumer and
constantly re-enforce the key messages on health,
environment and animal welfare.
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Know your own costs and aim for
self-reliance or links with other farms for feed, forage or
stock.
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Conventional farmers’ costs will be going
up more than organic over the next few years.
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Many new livestock producers in
conversion in Wales.
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The challenge is to stay in business
until the economy picks up again There are more interested
consumers out there than after the last recession.
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Are certifiers are going to propose to
DEFRA that livestock production be separated from the
organic status of land in certain circumstances whilst the
market is not growing and new producers are coming in? This
was discussed in one of the workshops. See the OF&G website
for comment.
http://www.organicfarmers.org.uk/news/news_more.php?id=185
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See the full report on the conference at
www.organicinform.co.uk
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