An Organic Action Plan for England can achieve something more valuable than simply increasing the country’s organic land area, says Steve Clarkson, chief executive at OF&G. It has to potential to re-energise the whole organic sector and place resilience at the heart of England’s farming future, he says in this article for Natural Newsdesk.
After more than two decades without a dedicated organic strategy for England, the Organic Action Plan for England (OAPE) offers an opportunity to strengthen organic’s role in building a resilient food and farming system with formal political backing.
OF&G (Organic Farmers & Growers) has long pushed for a clear organic strategy and after years of political stalling, the issue was successfully pushed back up the agenda. Since 2024 we have worked through the English Organic Forum with Defra to co-design the new plan. This summer, the government’s Farming Roadmap 2050 set out a formal commitment to the plan, which we are expecting to be formally published in the coming weeks.
For me, publication of the OAPE is only the starting point. Whether we can turn the plan into practical action across the organic supply chain is what matters most.
The plan’s three core themes are closely connected.
The first is about increasing and better managing organic supply, through targeted support for both existing and new organic producers and processors.
The second is about better aligning domestic supply with demand. We have a growing organic market, but too much of that demand is currently being met from outside the UK. Increasing domestic production only works if farmers and growers have confidence that processors, retailers and foodservice businesses are ready to buy what they produce.
And the third is about growing demand itself – increasing public understanding of organic and unlocking greater demand from the public sector with its mighty annual purchasing budget of £4.9 billion.
These elements cannot operate in isolation. More hectares without processing capacity or routes to market risk creating imbalance. Equally, stimulating consumer and public-sector demand without first building domestic supply simply creates more opportunity for imports.
This is why I increasingly see the OAPE not as an end point, but as a framework around which industry itself needs to organise.
Government can provide policy direction and encourage conditions for growth, but it cannot build commercial relationships on the sector’s behalf. Producers, processors, retailers, foodservice businesses, certifiers and other organisations all have a role in making the connections required to turn ambition into trade.
One practical proposal we are now exploring is a UK Organic Food & Drink Trade Forum.
A collective, non-partisan trade voice capable of bringing different parts of the organic supply chain together around shared commercial priorities.
“One practical proposal we are now exploring is a UK Organic Food & Drink Trade Forum. A collective, non-partisan trade voice capable of bringing different parts of the organic supply chain together around shared commercial priorities”
It could provide a single point of contact between organic businesses, government, devolved administrations, control bodies, trade organisations and NGOs, while helping coordinate initiatives emerging from the different national organic action plans.
Just as importantly, sector-specific discussion could identify where the real opportunities and bottlenecks lie. The challenges facing organic dairy, horticulture or cereals are not necessarily the same as those facing manufacturers or foodservice businesses. A national forum, supported by more focused sector conversations, could help turn broad ambitions around supply and demand into practical commercial activity.
We’ve seen useful lessons elsewhere.
The Netherlands has set an ambition for 15% of its agricultural land to be organic by 2030, compared with 4.8% in 2025. Its approach explicitly combines production with the adoption of clear market signals, including setting up a market-development team working across supermarkets, hospitality, catering and specialist retail.
Its government has also recently committed a further €30.5 million to stimulating organic demand, supply-chain collaboration and market-development projects.
England does not need to replicate the Dutch model wholesale, but there are clear lessons in its joined-up approach. With no dedicated new funding attached to OAPE, delivery will rely heavily on industry coordinating supply, demand and market development. To increase organic production and develop the market the organic sector needs to make that happen.
Resilience comes into the argument too. Professor Tim Lang recently called for the UK to ‘think the unthinkable’ about potential shocks to food production and supply, including our exposure to fertiliser availability and cost. His wider point – that food-system resilience requires us to examine dependence on external inputs – deserves serious consideration.
Organic systems cannot eliminate risk, but they are deliberately structured around lower dependence on synthetic nitrogen fertilisers and pesticides, using rotations, legumes, manures and biological processes to build fertility.
That makes organic relevant not only to environmental policy, but to a much wider conversation about resilience.
OAPE therefore has the potential to do something more valuable than simply increase England’s organic land area. It can provide a framework for connecting producers with processors, buyers and consumers; identifying gaps in domestic supply; and giving businesses greater confidence to invest.
A framework only becomes meaningful when people use it.
For the organic sector, the next phase is therefore as much about organisation and collaboration as policy. If we can develop stronger trade relationships, align supply more closely with demand and speak with a more coordinated commercial voice, OAPE could become the catalyst for a stronger and more resilient domestic organic sector.
Main image : Steve Clarkson, chief executive, OF&G (Organic Farmers & Growers)
