Category: News and events

Calling all foodies! On Saturday 17 July from 10am to 5pm the Organic Research Centre at Elm Farm, Hamstead Marshall (near Newbury), will throw open its gates to all lovers of great food.

The Organic Research Centre at Elm Farm, in Hamstead Marshall near Newbury, is holding a technical Open Day …

Visit Elm Farm for a day of fun, food and drink!

Compost – it’s an evocative word and if it isn’t it should be. Put more mundanely compost is…

The soil beneath our feet is something many of us take for granted yet it is a precious resource that is absolutely crucial for…

Squash provide an exotic touch to boxes and market displays and when grown with the other crops in the family they can provide a useful contribution to the bottom line…

In June 2008 a number of gardeners and allotment holders noticed some unusual symptoms in their vegetable crops. It quickly became clear that…

When vetch is grown as a winter green manure it is common practice to break the crop down and mix it into the topsoil. As it decomposes vetch releases toxic compounds…

We have done it, will you?

The series of IOTA Technical Leaflets provides a summary of the key practical farming recommendations arising from organic research…

Good news at last for hard pressed egg producers – organic or otherwise. A University of Surrey team has declared that most people can eat as many eggs as they want without damaging their health. The researchers analysed…

This summer at The Organic Research Centre we are very pleased to announce…

ORW secures funds to provide better Organic Business Links

The Welsh Assembly Government has announced the opening of an Organic Farming Conversion Scheme. Farmers will be able to apply to join the scheme between 15 September 2009 and 30 September 2009.

There have been warnings this week from business leaders against complacency about swine flu. Although the UK’s Chief Medical Officer has …

Shop local – save the planet. That’s the retail mantra of many greens and environmentalists. But is it true? It’s a question that researchers at Exeter University set out to answer. Their results, just published …

Reports of soil-less production in organic glasshouses in Scandinavia and the EU’s seemingly tolerant position have raised a number of questions…

The five-year, €18 million research programme, part-funded by the EU, on the quality of organic and low input foods has come to a close…

The Government has accepted all 26 of the main recommendations made by Sir Iain Anderson on the response to the Surrey 2007 outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), says the Environment Secretary Hilary Benn. Sadly, there still remains a dismal lack of focus by Government and Ministers on the use of preventative vaccination for …

EU Farm Commissioner Marian Fischer Boel has made clear her own enthusiasm for organic farming and organic regulation at the 20th anniversary Biofach exhibition in Nuremberg, Germany…

Cash for farmers to leave land uncultivated as wildlife habitat (set-aside) is on its way back into UK farm policy. Farmers themselves are to be asked to…

At last…a boost in funding from Defra to help safeguard the nation’s bees…

Following the quite heated discussions just prior to Christmas over the floated notion of “Organic Holidays” or “Organic Lay-bys” some clarification of the Organic Research Centre stance on the issue is perhaps necessary.

An impressive gathering of farmers, producers and advisers (over 180 in total) assembled at the Organic Research Centre Producer Conference 2009 at Harper Adams University in Shropshire – January 6th and 7th – to discuss a range of technical and policy matters. Where are …