Organic man

By Michael Wale.

As the demand for organic food in our supermarkets rises by 40 per cent a
year those in at the start of the movement, all those years ago, like Peter
Segger are permitting themselves a smile.
Segger, now silver haired and 55 years old still lives on a 52 acre
organic farm in West Wales,where he escaped the business world of London in
the early 70's.Nowadays he is seen as a doyen of the organic movement, which
he really started to campaign for seriously in 1972, when he joined the Soil
Association.Two years later he set up the West Wales Soil Association These
Days the national body employs over 100 fully paid staff,in Bristol. And is
responsible for policing organic produce and the land that produces it. But
back in the early days it was just a band of organic enthusiasts. Farmers,
who met in farm kitchens or village pubs to discuss their dream of producing
organic gfood, and actually finding a market to sell it in.
He remembers :" They were interesting people, who had spent many years
struggling against the massively subsidised conventional farming lobby. But
with the evolution of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, people were
getting angry about the condition of the environment they lived in, and what
was being done to it. Then people said 'let's do something about it', and
organic farming followed in its wake.".
At first Segger , a warm, red-faced man, now controls the biggest organic
food company in Europe Organic Farm Foods,based in Lampeter, West Wales, who
collect , pack and provide fresh organic produce to processors,supermarkets,
small shops and anyone who wants it. But he is never happier than when he is
back home on his own farm, where his crusade all started..
By 1980 he had become the Soil Association's Vice President, and helped
drive it forward to the position it holds today, where it advises worldwide
on organic matters, and provides an army of qualified inspectors to guide and
then approve farms that want to switch to growing organically.
He says :" It didn't the wisdom of Solomon to discover that feeding all
sorts of dreadful things back to animals would lead to disaster such as BSE.
I remember Diana Williams, a very wise farmer from Aberystwith telling me
never ,ever, to buy cattle feed unless I knew what was in it. So we got BSE.
It's always seemed incredible to me that it took so .long.. If only the
population was a little more sensitive to each other and the environment. It'
s a normal concept of living.
" All that's happened to the world, people really should have known
better. It became possible through science to break bits of nature down. GM
food is the same. The fact that you could look at any pesticide or product
and say that it was safe and wouldn't affect anyone was amazing. Oh my God,
you ask yourself 'how is it possible that people can do such thing'.".
He surveys modern farming methods in Britain and sighs a sigh of
disbelief. As factory farming, encouraged by huge EU grants have seen hedges
grubbed out,rivers poisoned by residue of pesticides and nitrogen draining
off the land, and worst of all an end to the natural cycle of crop rotation.
Farmers are even paid not to farm as the EU grandly invented Set Aside to
combat the huge mountains of surplus grain, milk and other products its
subsidies have caused..
Segger says :" Set Aside is an obscenity.Fancy paying someone not to
produce food when people in other parts of the world need it. Despite Set
Aside there are still grain mountains, milk powder piles. Why should you pay
dsomeone not to prodiuce when you could pay them to farm organically ?
" Farming should be a challenge, tough, but enjoyable.The average organic
farmer does enjoy it, despite the hard work in all weather and seasons. But
conventional farmers you find these days suffer from a lot of depression,
they complain of being businessmen, not farmers. But farmers should be
looked upon just the same as an artist or a doctor. We have a privilege to
produce food for the people. But to the conventional farmer it seems to be a
business, therefore they are on a slippery slope.
" On my own farm it is a joy to walk around it.. Although it is only 52
acres we are able to employ four people full time all the year.We employ
another ten people for five to six months in the year.We produce a lot of
vegetables. There's nothing better than something grown organically, because
of the taste. We plough a lot of the profit back into woodlands and hedges,
providing nature with its share, and we are also always trying out new
things, like new ways of composting, and stopping predators without, of
course, using pesticides or any other poisons.".
Peter Segger looks to the future, and welcomes the huge growth in
supermarket organic food sales, although he sees some drawbacks. He admits :"
There will be difficulties and problems. The vested interests of suppliers of
seed and pesticide companies, globally.. They are very powerful people They
have an influence over the American Government who, again, have an influence
over the British Government.".
Isegger admits that when he has time to search the web he tends to try
and find more about his favourite subject: soil. This usually comes from
American sites. He excuses himself :" You need to be a soil freak, which I
like to be".

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