Only those farmers, who can prove they meet strict ethical standards, will be allowed to keep the organic status of the food they import into the UK. This decision follows a heated debate by the Soil Association about the merits of banning the import of organic produce in the UK.[urban sprout]

Following a public consultation by the Soil Association, more than half of respondents wanted to see an outright ban of all imported organic produce, in order to stop one of the main causes of carbon emissions - the Soil Association claims that air freight generates 177 times more greenhouse gases than shipping.

Essentially it’s a selective ban, designed to throw a financial lifeline to farmers of the developing world... but the decision to connect organic and 'ethical' values shifts the goal posts on already stringent standards for organic food. Many farmers may not be able to secure the ethical proof required by the Soil Association - farmers who have already spent years securing the standards required of them to produce organic food for the first world.

I’m all for action on air travel. But if you look closer it only accounts for 1% of organic imports into the UK at the moment. One can argue that air freighting is growing rapidly and that this is damaging to the environment, but what about the livelihood of thousands of third world farmers? What are the ethical implications for leaving African farmers without a livelihood?

"We think that about one million Africans are benefiting from being able to air-freight goods into the UK and the last thing we should be doing is penalising the very poorest people for climate change when they are the people who are the least responsible for it." – Gareth Thomas, a minister for international development said.

Thousands of farmers in Kenya make their money selling produce grown in plots as small as a quarter of a hectare. How are they to meet ethical standards that require investment in local communities, allowing their workers to form unions and the funding of local education schemes? And all of this by 2009, if they want to retain their organic status!

Is the concern for carbon emissions from importing organic food really the issue here? In this case, is local really better? Or is the UK throwing out the baby with the bathwater? [telegraph] [environmentindependent]