Category: News and events

Comment from ORC on idea of organic holidays

Bulletin 92

New EU organic road map.

Some batches of organic oats being sold in the UK have been found to contain one or both of the pesticide ingredients chlormequat and glyphosate

The eighth edition of the Organic Farm Management Handbook comes out in challenging times

New calls for limits on livestock antibiotic use.

The QE2 Conference Centre in Westminster (November 12th 2008) saw over 130 delegates and speakers in hot debate about the failure of GM crop technology to deliver anything on the promises of twenty years ago. In stark contrast speaker after speaker pointed to agro-ecological approaches (including organic agriculture) as extremely attractive sustainable farming and food options, especially in a world fast running out of oil.

The introduction of biofuels into the UK transport and industry sectors should be slowed down, says a new report from the Government’s Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA).

ORC Organic Animal Health Colloquium

Brazilian farmers and traders launch non-GM crop body

Fears of serious, long distance contamination of organic farms by GM crops appear top be borne out by an incident in central France

Vaccination against the spread of the Bluetongue virus (BTV-8) appears to be working in England

While farmland bird populations in South East England are generally tumbling (Defra reports a 21 per cent fall from 1994 to 2006) a real bird conservation success has been logged at one leading organic farm.

A big, new push is under way from bioscience companies to promote their GM crops on the back of global worries about food shortage and high prices. To arms, to arms, a new approach is needed from the organic sector to fight this move.

The world needs a new “fair food” agreement and more reliance on sustainable farming systems to meet the twin challenges of starvation and climate change. That was the central message from Defra Secretary of State Hilary Benn in a speech to the Fabian Society in London.

Anti organic speech from Sir David King – let them eat GM.

The Center for Food Safety in the United States has sent letters to the top state law enforcement officials of 49 states, urging them to take action against the misleading practice of labeling seafood imports as “organic.”

Alarm about a possible human H5N1 flu pandemic has resurfaced on news wires and across the media after fresh evidence that avian flu, circulating in poultry in the Far East, can be transmitted from person to person.

Full proceedings from The Organic Research Centre’s December 2007 producer conference, hosted in collaboration with Organic Inform, are now available online.

European Food Safety Agency says cloning OK for food safety and the environment

New campaign from European Commission says organic is good for everyone.

ORC research team reports from IFOAM/ISOFAR in Modena, Italy.