Sir, It is unfortunate that the Soil Association continues to exaggerate the impact on the environment of airfreighting organic fruit and vegetables (“Importing organic food by air ‘may not be ethical enough’,” Oct 25).

The Soil Association’s proposals to certify organic airfreighted produce only when the whole supply chain meets their new ethical standards or is accredited by the Fairtrade Foundation are laudable in theory but in practice such requirements are time-consuming, bureaucratic and expensive to achieve. The Department for International Development argues that the certification of new products can take from six months to several years, and can cost from tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

There is no question that emissions from society as a whole, and the food industry in general, need to be tackled. But it seems disproportionate to target policies at a sector which contributes a tiny amount to these emissions; 0.005 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions arise from airfreighting organic fresh produce from Africa and it is estimated that all imports of fresh fruit and vegetables by air amount to just 0.2 per cent of UK emissions. We believe that the focus should be on policies which have a greater environmental benefit — such as reducing emissions across supply chains as a whole — without the associated social and economic disadvantages to the world’s poorest farmers.

If organic imports become a pariah commodity, negative perceptions among consumers could develop which could have a far greater impact: the UK imports £200 million of fresh fruit and vegetables from sub-Saharan Africa annually, and this trade could be damaged. The 135,000 people in Kenya directly employed in the fresh fruit and vegetable export industry (91 per cent of such exports go to the UK) would be severely disadvantaged, as would the one million people supported indirectly by the industry.

Fairtrade standards have already been shown to be beneficial to farmers in developing countries; but how easy will it be for smallholders with limited resources to become accredited? The Soil Association has also failed to acknowledge that 60 per cent of fresh produce imports that come by air do so in the bellyholds of passenger aircraft which will continue to fly with or without fresh produce cargo. It is disappointing that such a fundamental aspect of this whole discussion has been ignored.

Nigel Jenney
Chief Executive
Fresh Produce Consortium

Sir, This proposal is going to hit some of the poorest people in the world, who have far smaller carbon footprints than those worthies who feel called upon to destroy their livelihoods.

It would be far more appropriate if the Soil Association stuck to its remit of certifying that food is organic rather than concerning itself with wholly extraneous matters and indulging in this grotesquely inappropriate victimisation of the powerless.

D. Martin
Bristol

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