On the day I heard that organic farmers had asked to be let off some of the more stringent requirements for their organic certification, I was heading north on the M6. At my feet, in a hessian (note: not plastic) carrier, were five sandwiches lovingly composed of organic extra-strong cheddar, ham and cherry tomatoes on artisanally made bread, all bought from the Chegworth Farm Shop in west London for a not inconsiderable sum.

I am a fully paid-up organic junkie. When buying chicken, I do not look at the price but at the label in the hope that the protein once pecked or gambolled free in a sunlit field. I long ago banned any sort of nugget from my table and believe – in principle, at least – that you shouldn’t eat a sausage that you haven’t seen being made.

And yes, I admit I was counting the days till the new Daylesford Organic (that chain of stratospherically high-end organic farm and lifestyle shops run by Lady Bamford of JCB fame) opened down the road from me last month. In fact, I’m the sort of person who welcomed the advent of the organic foodie movement with all the fervour of a born-again Christian.

So my ears pricked up upon hearing someone on the car radio explaining that some farmers want to be let off certain “strictly organic” rules because organic feed costs three times as much as normal feed, because supermarkets are selling their produce without a premium, and because organic food sales in the three months to November have plummeted by 10%. Shoppers, it seems, are storming off in a Gadarene horde towards Lidl, Morrisons and Asda instead. Even children aren’t immune from the backlash: my three said “no thanks” to my beautiful sandwiches and chorused “Burger King!” whenever the RoadChef or Welcome Break signs flashed past. Anything to keep the peace on a long journey, so to the Home of the Whopper we went.

Is this the end of organic, then, and a return to industrially produced food?

It’s certainly plain that the organic sector – like the car industry, like the high street – will struggle to survive the downturn without drastic cost-cutting measures. So those who regulate organic produce are faced with a terrible choice: to let organic farmers go to the wall, or to give them a Welcome Break on the long hard road of having to do everything – right down to the feed their livestock nibbles – completely organically.

As Phil Stocker, director of farmer and grower relations at the Soil Association, explains: “Opportunistic buyers have drifted away, especially from beef, lamb, pork, eggs and poultry. We are also getting close to a point where there is not much difference in prices for organic and conventional produce . . . We are trying to find a solution acceptable to everyone.” This sounds eminently reasonable but the farming sector is in uproar. For diehards, no ground should be yielded. It’s like being pregnant: you’re either organic or you’re not.

“It is a matter of principle. You don’t have to be rich to be right,” says Paul Heiney, the broadcaster and former organic farmer, who admits that as a result “many good and committed farmers will go to the wall”. David Riddle, director of land use for a large charity, tells me that any lapses could risk “undermining the credentials of all organic farming built up over many years”: a complete nono, therefore.

Farmers’ blogs are in meltdown. Some are happily kicking those who they believe were only wanting to cash in on the organic movement and never mind principles: “They only chose to go organic because they thought there was something in it for them” is a typical post.

I can see the temptation, of course, but I do think it’s too easy to declare this little furore as the end of the good life and a return to real life. Because, actually, it’s not. It’s the reverse.

Look at it this way: a new row over organic certification should actually help suspicious consumers better to understand the difference between those who slave year-round to produce good food without damaging the environment and the wily producers who hijack the word (as they did “green”) to try to sell us some pretty borderline or questionable tat. (I myself have even been tempted by organic yoga retreats and organic mattresses.) As long as we have clear labelling – so we know whether organic corners have been cut and can make our choice accordingly – everyone knows where they stand.

The current debate is a sign of how well regulated and passionate the sector has become. Of course, everyone understands that in a recession people are going to want cheaper food: that’s why the organic lobby has acknowledged that conventional methods have their place.

One healthy byproduct of the doctrinal schism is that the conventional farmers’ lobby seems finally to be acknowledging that the organic movement has its place, too. With oil prices and climate change high on the agenda, there’s huge public interest in moving agriculture away from high-emission, fossil-fuel dependent methods into low-impact, local, ethical, sustainably sourced, low-emission production instead.

Patrick Holden, head of the Soil Association, last month called for a national campaign to develop a UK food plan based on sustainable production rather than industrial models based on rapidly depleting fossil fuels, and his message is being echoed across the land.

Some farmers were even last week talking of a “Christmas truce” between organic and conventional, which has to be far better than slagging each other off in their own agricultural version of Mommy Wars. “I don’t believe that the government has spent a fortune encouraging organic farming just for a group of women to totter round Waitrose,” admits one such Barleycorn in his blog. And who could disagree?

My teenage daughter keeps disappearing upstairs to devour the Twilight series of novels by Stephenie Meyer – about a high-school girl called Bella who’s in love with a vampire called Edward (now a movie, do keep up) – with the sort of passion that I once reserved for the Malory Towers books by Enid Blyton.

I opened one of her chunky tomes at random: “Edward pulled me into his arms at once, just like he had in the parking lot, and kissed me again. This kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed mine – like he was afraid we had only so much time left to us.”

The snogging goes on for book after book until, apparently, Bella and Edward consummate their love in the final volume. Adolescent boys might take note: this is the longest session of foreplay in literary history and girls apparently can’t get enough of it.

rachel.johnson@sunday-times.co.uk

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