EDINBURGH - UK annual retail sales of organic foodstuffs have soared tenfold to top one billion pounds ($1.83 billion) in the past decade, spurring more growers to get involved, officials at the Soil Association say.
Scotland leads the way with the amount of land devoted to organic farming or being converted to it, figures from the group, which also acts as a certifier of organically-grown food, show.
Scotland accounts for 54.2 percent of the total, amounting to 373,249 hectares in April 2004, or 6.8 percent of total agricultural land in Scotland.
England had 36.5 percent, or 2.7 percent of total agricultural land, Wales 8.3 percent, or 3.9 percent of total, and Northern Ireland 0.9 percent, or 0.6 percent.
"We've got more licences than three years ago. Year-on-year, there are more applicants in this year, more farmers are interested," Lyn Matheson, agricultural development officer with the Soil Association in Scotland, said in a weekend interview. "We will have about 130 additional producers in Scotland," she added.
Marketing of organic food has been boosted by direct selling through farmers' markets, box sales in which a selection of fruit and vegetables is delivered to homes on a regular basis, supermarkets and through government health initiatives aimed at schools.
Matheson said farm size went from a couple of hectares to 2,500 ha, with an average of around 250 acres.
Hugh Grierson, who farms more than 405 hectares near Perth, said he began converting to organic farming in 2000 from an environmental point of view. Now, he said, there was more wildlife on the farm.
"I enjoy working to a high set of standards, and as to profit, on balance I'm better off organically," he said at the Royal Highland Show.
($US1=0.5471 British Pounds))
Story by Ian MacKenzie
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
