The Organic Concept:

Although the marketing moguls would have you believe it, there is nothing new about Organic farming. In fact, it is all centred around the practise of old fashioned farming techniques before the advent of agro-chemicals - pesticides, artificial fertilisers, herbicides and such like. Pests are managed through such processes as crop rotation, soil fertility boosted by grazing animals, and animal health maintained not through indiscriminate use of anti-biotics, but through less intensive stocking rates.

By having more space to live a more natural life, animals are not confronted with the same levels of infection as intensively farmed animals and therefore do not need the same levels of medication. Essentially, organic farming is taking a step back through time to when agriculture did not scar the landscape but improved it. It is all about finding the balance between nature and viability so that a mutually benefiting arrangement can be made.

An easy example of this balance: By leaving uncultivated strips of grassland in his field (known as beetle banks) the farmer is encouraging beetles and insects. This increase in insect life leads to more birds to feed off the insects which, in turn leads to more pleasure for the public who get to see these once common now rapidly declining British natives such as lapwings and sparrows thriving once more.