What do the greens propose to do, if anything, about the exorbitant price of organic produce?
John Monaghan Hopefully the organic action plan that the Executive produced in a great hurry when they saw how popular my bill was going to be will begin to address that. If we ally that to what is inherent in our action plan – which is for supermarkets themselves to sell local produce – then the price of organics is going to come down. You’ll get a fair price for farmers and, because there is a guaranteed supply, the supermarkets themselves are not going to have an enormous mark-up. The reason that so much organic produce is sold at such high prices in the supermarkets is that they can sell it at those prices. It’s not because it costs more to produce, it’s just that’s the price they can get at the moment. It’s a premium not a price. I realise that there are higher outlays inherent in the production processes associated with organics but must we continue to pay, for instance, £1.96 for 8 strawberries as I did only today? The market will address it. As more organic food is produced the
