Soil Association

🛒🥕The 2025 Organic Market Report is here!   The UK organic market has bounced back from the cost-of-living crisis with growth exceeding non-organic.   Some highlights include:   💡7.3% growth of the organic market in 2024, rising to £3.7 billion   💡Organic unit sales grew 4x more than non-organic in major retail   💡Major retailers, independents, non-food and hospitality enjoy a particularly strong year   Georgia Phillips talks us through why its been a great year for the organic market, now in its 13th year of growth and gives a whistle stop tour of some key insights.   Read more in our Organic Market Report: https://lnkd.in/e_SF9_Ms   #OMR25 #Organic

Healthy, sustainable food should be affordable to everyone. But what we often get instead is cheap food, produced unsustainably, that doesn’t support the people who produce it or the people who buy it. The push for cheaper food at all costs isn’t working. The Government needs to reward sustainable production - and that means making radical changes.

💚🚜 We urge the Government to reopen the Sustainable Farming Incentive for new applications. Thousands of excellent farmers who are delivering for nature, the environment, soil health and animal welfare are depending on it.

Scotland has seen a strong increase in organic land managed under the Scottish government’s Agri-Environment Climate Scheme since 2021 🐄 Mairi Gougeon, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs said: “The significant increase in organic land managed under the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme is a testament to Scotland's commitment to sustainable farming and environmental stewardship. As at the end of 2024, we’ve seen over 49,000 additional hectares of converted and maintained organic land under AECS management, representing a remarkable 69% increase since 2021" ⚠️However, there's a widening gap between the organic market and organic farmland in the UK. Our Organic Market Report highlights that organic farmland has remained static for another year, with organic farmland representing just 3% of the country’s farmed area. This also contrasts the organic market in the European Union, where 11% of agricultural land is organically farmed and grew by 3.6% in 2023 - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture FiBL >> https://lnkd.in/d5GTkK5v Download our Organic Market Report for more insights about the UK market and opportunities for businesses >> https://lnkd.in/e_SF9_Ms #Organic #OMR25 #Farming

📣Arable farmers📣 Join Nick Padwick, Estate Director at Wild Ken Hill, and our panel of experts for a crucial discussion about organic arable farming 📆This free webinar takes place on Weds 19th March, register below 👇 Nick has managed large arable-based estates worldwide. Wild Ken Hill in Norfolk gained national fame by hosting the BBC Springwatch programme. In 2024, it announced it was converting to organic. He will be sharing his experience of the conversion process during our webinar and what the key changes to the system were. We will delve into market opportunities, organic conversion, and the latest update on Sustainable Farming Incentives. This is a must-attend webinar for farmers interested in organic arable farming. There will also be an update on the suspension of the Sustainable Farming Incentive for new applications in 2025 and an opportunity to provide feedback on how that is affecting your farming system. Register free: https://lnkd.in/epRXzSRc #ArableFarming #Agriculture #Sustainable #SFI

The Soil Association Certification team had a ball at last night's #EdieAwards, celebrating the best of sustainability in business💚🎉

Interested in producing winter forage crops using a non-plough-based system? 👉 https://lnkd.in/eTMpBDpu 👈 Join this farm walk to hear practical insights from Tregooden Farm, who’ve been using strip till and direct drilling to reduce their cultivation. You’ll learn about producing maize and arable silage or wholecrops without the use of tillage and explore the associated impacts on soil health. The event is free to attend, and a pasty lunch and refreshments are included. 📍 Tregooden Farm, Bodmin 📆 Wednesday 9 April 🎟 Register your free space now! https://lnkd.in/eTMpBDpu

📢 It's back and it's bigger than ever!   🌳🚜 We are thrilled to be hosting #AgroforestryShow 2025 at Woodoaks Farm this September with our friends at Soil Association: https://lnkd.in/eut3TXfm   We're on the look out for show sponsors. Is your business ready be part of the movement to get more trees on farms?   If you want to get your brand in front of farmers, foresters, growers, businesses, advisors, policymakers and the public, get in touch 👇 The Woodland Trust

💚 We are on the hunt for the Nation’s Favourite Organic Product - as part of the #BOOMAwards in partnership with Ocado Retail Nominations are open until Monday 14th April for the UK's most loved organic product, including any food and drink, beauty and wellbeing or fashion and textiles product. Last year's well-deserved winners Clearspring shared how excited they were to receive the award. Want this to be you? Ask your followers to nominate you for the award 📣 The top favourites will be shortlisted and go to a public vote in May, with the overall winner being crowned the Nation’s Favourite Organic Product at the BOOM Awards ceremony in July. 👑 Nominate your favourite here: https://lnkd.in/eSFxc_4v Clearspring #Organic #Products

📢 ICYMI: Yesterday, the Government abruptly paused the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) in England. No new applications are being accepted. Although farmers with submitted applications will be honoured, those that had applications in draft will not be. The SFI scheme, which provided payments to farmers for the delivery of public goods, such as planting hedgerows and nature recovery, was a vital tool in the toolkit for farmers as they embarked on the post-Brexit transition away from the Basic Payment Scheme. WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? There are too many to list in detail here, including the utter lack of transparency in comms around this announcement. Non-exhaustively: 🧑🌾Disproportionate impact on organic farmers: For years, farmers received support in the 2 year conversion to organic where they are farming to full organic standards but can't yet market their products as such. The Government recently announced that farmers converting to organic should use the SFI options - which are now not available. 🥕 Disproportionate impact on smaller farms: Small, family farms and fruit and veg producers are unlikely to have access to the same resources that larger counterparts do. Some of these farms will not have accessed the schemes yet and may now have unfulfilled applications. Similarly, upland farmers have long faced difficulties in accessing fair payments and will be impacted by this decision. 🐝 Gambling with nature and climate: The 25 Year Environment Plan outlines a target for '65-80% of farmers to adopt nature-friendly farming on at least 10-15% of land by 2030'. SFI was designed to reward farmers for their delivery of public money for public goods for the taxpayer. Without these incentives, farmers who are delivering the most for nature (and the Government's climate and nature targets) are at risk of being left behind. Nature-friendly farming is integral to climate resilience too. THE BOTTOM LINE: If farmers cannot grow nutritious, affordable and sustainable food, all of society will hurt from this decision. NOW WHAT? The Soil Association is calling for: 💷 Payments for organic conversion and maintenance to be maintained ✅ Farmers who started but had not yet finished their SFI applications to have those honoured 👉 Priority to be given to smaller producers who need these payments most 🌲 Payments for agroforestry, which had only just become available, to be retained. We will continue to advocate for these changes amongst continually moving goalposts. Decisions by the previous administration may have contributed to the situation today, but creating more uncertainty for farming communities is not the way to build trust or a just transition to a sustainable food system