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The Garlic Farm at Newchurch achieves Organic Certification from The Soil Association
The Garlic Farm at Newchurch has recently completed full organic certification by The Soil Association – for all its farmland and beef cattle rearing activities on the Island.
The family-owned business has been independently inspected to confirm they are, in the words of The Soil Association: "delivering the highest levels of animal welfare, protecting human and animal health, safeguarding the environment, and protecting the interests of organic consumers."
Organic farming is a holistic system governed by legal standards; it works with nature in a circular way rather than relying on synthetic inputs to obtain yields. Attaining organic certification is a rigorous and lengthy process – with the end goal of ensuring that the land and the farm function in an optimal way to benefit both people and planet.
Converting to organic farming is well known to have ecological benefits to the surrounding environment – the absence of synthetic inputs is a more sustainable way of farming, with far less stress and damage caused to the surrounding ecosystem.
The health benefits of consuming organic food are also well documented – with the improvements coming again from the natural approach – with less synthetic inputs causing less 'stress' on the body.
What is less publicised about organic farming is the requirement for the highest possible welfare standards – for farm animals and farm workers – when a farm converts to organic certification. For those working on the land, and the animals producing the output, an organic system can be radically less harmful to health and wellbeing, because of the absence of pesticides and exogenous inputs.
These multitude of benefits were a strong motivation for The Garlic Farm to adopt organic status.
Organically farmed land represents just 2.9% of landmass in the United Kingdom, but the sales of organic product are steadily growing. In 2021, organic sales broke the £3 billion mark – increasing by 5.2% – the tenth consecutive year of growth.
Sales by independent retailers are outstripping the general upwards growth rate – reaching 9% in 2021 – demonstrating the importance small independents have in developing the organic sector.
Barnaby Edwards, Director of The Garlic Farm offers their vision for organic growth: "The growth in sales of organic product will hopefully stimulate more UK land to be converted to organic certification. Germany saw a 25% increase in their organic market last year, driven by consumer concern for animal welfare and environment. Their coalition government has set a target for 30% of German farmland to be organic by 2030."
"Organic farming does not solve all the problems of our food and farming system, but when embraced alongside other regenerative and responsible practices it could deliver transformational benefits to people and the planet. In my view, we need swift, bold action to embrace these techniques and standards at scale."
Barnaby notes that whilst The Garlic Farm land and livestock is now 100% organic certified, it will take some time to convert their full retail product range to the organic standard. This though, is their long term ambition.
Better farming conditions, better products, better care for the environment, and better working conditions for farm workers – there is no denying that the switch to organic farming is a great positive change for The Garlic Farm and for other Island businesses.
