The Soil Association, which is celebrating its 65th year, has launched 'Organic September' in the UK. This month, the organisation has planned a variety of initiatives and activities at farm shops and on organic farms across the UK to promote organic principles and encourage policy makers to embrace organic's contribution to sustainable food production.

Director Helen Browning said Organic September, which the Soil Association has made interactive through the use of social media site such as Twitter and Facebook, to enable followers to promote their own events, is "the perfect opportunity to indulge in great food and conversations about some of the big issues that will shape our future."

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September will also see the launch of the new Soil Association strategy and the Good Food for All programme, which aims to counter the perception that organic food is the preserve of the rich and famous. As part of the campaign, regional teams will promote the benefits of local, seasonal and organic food.

The overarching aim is to improve food in schools, hospitals, prisons and even businesses by sharing organic beliefs. Ms Browning said, "We love rock stars but perhaps people think organic food it is all about the rich and famous. It is not! The Soil Association is the opposite. It is about tackling deprivation and creating healthy communities."

US study shows Organic 'more profitable'

Coinciding serendipitously with the launch of Organic September in the UK, a research programme from Wisconsin, USA has revealed that, over 18 years of analysis, crop yield and farm management data from a long-term trial showed organic crop rotation to be consistently more profitable and carry less risk of low returns than conventional corn and soybean production, even when organic price premiums were cut by half.

The study, which is published in the September’s Agronomy Journal, shows organic price premiums and reduced input costs, rather than higher yields, gave the organic system the edge. According to Timothy Delbridge of the University of Minnesota, who led the research, previous studies have almost universally yielded the same results, although until now conclusions were mostly based on findings from short-term trials in small plots.

He said, "Doing an economic study like this, it's important to get as complete a picture of the yield variability as we can. So the length of this trial is a big asset. We're pretty confident that the full extent of the yield variability came through in the results."