We welcomed Roger Kerr to our Council of Management in June. Roger is the Chief Executive at Organic Farmers & Growers CIC, the second largest UK organic control body, certifying just over half the UK organic land area and about a third of the sector overall. On top of his CEO duties at OF&G he is currently also Chairman of the UK certifiers group, the UK representative on the IFOAM EU Council and a Director of the Organic Trade Board.
He is from a farming family and spent much of his formative years working on various relations’ farms. He holds an HND in Agriculture from Harper Adams and has worked on various farms over a number of years. He spent ten years working within the agricultural supply industry before moving full time into the organic sector in the late 1990’s. He helped establish Calon Wen, a Welsh organic dairy farmers co-operative, in 2000, which secured the first ever branded organic milk listing in a UK major retailer amongst a number of other innovative projects. In 2007 he was instrumental in establishing a brand new liquid milk processing plant in South Wales seeking to supply local Welsh milk (both organic and non-organic) to Welsh consumers.
He has been a supporter and proponent of organic production since his days at Harper Adams in the 1980’s and is keen to see organic food and farming become the natural choice for farmers, growers and consumers.
He says: “I see ORC as the keystone to the delivering of organic and agroecological research and development in its myriad of forms within the UK and in partnership with equivalent organisations worldwide. Consequently, I am keen to help shape and guide its future role as a centre of excellence”.
Margaret Wagner stood down from our Council of Management recently, due to workload pressures in her senior role in a large US-based marketing agency. A strong advocate of organic and local farming, Margaret brought a wealth of expertise and insight to the Council of Management that will be missed.
See news item on the sad loss of our treasurer Vikas Agrawal
