Sir, In your recent issues there has been considerable enthusiasm for organic food, to the extent that as a farmer I think I should convert to organic farming. But the situation is more complex than many people realise. As a nation, we are only threequarters self- sufficient in temperate foods. When a farm becomes organic, it reduces food production by a quarter to a half of its conventional output. If all the farmers in Britain converted, two factors would occur. 1. Food miles, i.e. imports, would increase to supplement the shortfall in farming output. 2. The production of those imports would in many cases involve the destruction of natural habitat, e.g. Brazilian rainforest. An organic case can be made for some foods which are sprayed directly and eaten raw, but the assumption that we should all be eating organic food is fundamently flawed. Would the general public be quite so enthusiastic for all things organic if they realised the global consequences.
A. B. Thomas, St. Florence.