I’ve consistently described the Soil Association as a trade union for organic farmers. Some obviously disagree, but when it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.…
We don’t dispute that the organic sector faces unhelpful moves from
some supermarkets – pushing sales by offering customers organic food as
"cheaply" as possible, and potentially forcing organic farmers on to
the same treadmill as their non-organic counterparts. Our food culture
needs changing so that "cheap" generally means "nasty", and definitely
inferior, as with any other product. Good quality organic food is
within everyone’s price range if people eat a diet based on
unprocessed, seasonal and local food with less (but better-quality)
meat.
That is, without a doubt, a trade union leader making the case that we’d all better pay more for his members output, that for some moral reason his people are more worthy of your money than their competitors outside his union. Even, as he says, that you should limit your consumption and the variety of it so as to give his members higher incomes.
Change a few words and it could be the UAW telling people they should buy American cars.
The Soil Association is a trade union and we should regard it as such.
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