Lynne and I have been in the ‘tron for the weekend at the organics sector conference. The conference theme “Innovate: Go Organic”, aligned well with our motives; we were looking for clues that might help us down on the farm.
There was an impressive line-up of speakers: lots of senior bureaucrats and academics from Europe, and Sir Colin (Pine Tree) Meads (left) as after-dinner speaker. Col said his son had converted to organics a while back and while initially sceptical he’d been very impressed with the results.
Its true that locks are not usually selected for their brains, but neither are NZ sheep farmers noted for their gullibility or willingness to break ranks. So it is surely significant that Colin Meads fronted up to speak at an organic sector conference.
Other bits from the event:
- The organic market in the USA has been experiencing double digit growth (18% in 2008) but it looks like 2009 will break this trend and come in at around 7 – 9%. Still damn good in a market where “flat is the new growth“.
- Compared with conventional methods, organic agriculture sequesters much more carbon in the soil, but the science for measuring it is still deficient
- On average, Swiss farmers get 43,000 Euros/year from the state to provide public goods such as a nice landscape, soil conservation, animal welfare etc
- NZ’s organics industry organisation OANZ was lucky to score 3 years of government funding, which has now been cut.