The Soil Association could become one of the most influential organisations in British agriculture. But it is facing fury over directors' interests and the suppression of new research. Andy Rowell reports. When the government-appointed Policy Commission On The Future Of Farming And Food gave its damning indictment of British farming last month, it brought smiles to the faces of executives at the Bristol-based Soil Association, the leading certification body for organic food. The report, says the SA, could be "the biggest breakthrough in the organic movement's history".

The Commission found that traditional farming is both economically and environmentally unsustainable, something the SA has said for years. The body's director, Patrick Holden, called the report "groundbreaking" and said: "We agree with the majority of the recommendations in this report which could set British agriculture on a new and sustainable course." The traditional farming community reacted angrily to the commission's findings and it remains to be seen if the recommendations will be implemented. But if they are agriculture will radically change. "As a new era of sustainability beckons the organic movement is poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the policies and practices that will determine the future of food and farming," said the brochure for the SA's annual general meeting in Harrogate in January.

On the surface all is rosy in the organic garden and business is booming. Last December an SA and South West Regional Development Agency report highlighted how organic food production in the South West is set to double by 2005. "The organic sector is expanding fast and is obviously a success story in the region," said David Richards from the SWRDA.

But just as the SA looks forward to an influential future, it is facing severe criticism and questions over its future role.

In January, Peter Melchett, the ex-head of Greenpeace UK, who has recently been appointed as the Soil Association's policy director, became a consultant to controversial PR company Burson-Marsteller.

Melchett resigned his position on the board of Greenpeace International but he remains in an influential position at the SA. Burson-Marsteller is no ordinary PR company and has a history of working for despotic regimes and heavily polluting companies. It was employed by the Argentine junta during the time that 35,000 people Odisappeared' in the 1970s. It was contracted to Babcock and Wilson, whose nuclear reactor failed at Three Mile Island, and to Union Carbide, the chemical company that killed 16,000 people when cyanide leaked from its plant in Bhopal in India.

BM has also been at the forefront of trying to push biotechnology which undermines organic agriculture. It works for Monsanto, the global biotech firm, and worked with cigarette company Philip Morris to set up a front group called Scientists for Sound Public Policy, which was later renamed the European Science and Environment Forum. One of ESEF's main players is Roger Bate, a central character in the anti-organic backlash in Europe. Bate is closely aligned to Dennis Avery, from the Hudson Institute in the US, and both are seen as "peddlars of organic myths" by the SA. But the SA sees no conflict of interest in Melchett's PR work. "He has strong integrity," says spokeswoman Sue Flook.

Also in January the SA ordered a leading economist not to publish a critical article about organic foods. Dr Anna Ross of the University of the West of England had written a report which concluded that "supermarkets are the most expensive of all organic food retailers and they have the smallest range of fresh produce." Her report found that vegetables were 78 per cent more expensive in supermarkets than a box of veg from Riverford Farm, award-winning organic producers from Devon.

Ross was asked by the editor of the SA's magazine, Living Earth, to write an article on the report but it was pulled at the last minute. "They didn't want to upset the supermarkets," says Ross, still bemused by the affair. "What else makes sense?" The SA maintain that the emphasis of Ross's arguments "weren't helpful" at this time, but add the accusation that "we are cozying up to supermarkets does not tie up. Supermarkets must do more to protect producers' prices."

A few weeks before, Richard Aylard from Burson-Marsteller ran a workshop at the SA's AGM in Harrogate which was sponsored by Sainsbury's, as it has for the last five years. "All of the farmers I spoke to were very annoyed about how much time had been given over to Sainsbury's and their sales pitches," says one delegate.

The SA finally published Ross' article on their website the day after speaking to The Big Issue South West, alongside a letter telling her "you should compensate the SA for using copyrighted material without permission in your report or cease to sell the publication".

"They have completely over-reacted and gone mad," says Ross. Farms like Riverford have seen a healthy growth over the last few years, supplying vegetables to supermarkets and direct to consumers. But on a national basis 75 per cent of the supply of organic food is being met by foreign imports "as a consequence of supply limitations in the UK" according to the Policy Commission.

Farmers are increasingly complaining about the costs of organic certification. It takes three years to get the SA's organic mark and the annual certification fee is £475 plus vat. "The calls I get usually complain about the cost of SA certification," says Phil Chandler, director of the Wholesome Food Association which has been set up to offer an alternative to the organic kitemark. "It is not feasible for the smaller grower to cough up nearly £500 for the privilege of using the SA logo. There is also a lot of unrest about its association with supermarkets. People don't like the fact that they are so intertwined".

The WFA hopes to attract small growers who sell locally and already has a mailing list of several hundred. "We are supporting the local and smaller grower," says Chandler. "We insist that our members don't use synthetic fertilisers, herbicides or pesticides and we are offering the logo to farmers and smallholders who want to sell in their area. It is local and traceable".

The National Beef Association agrees that alternatives must be made available. "At present, you get the impression that something is either mainstream or organic," argues Robert Foster, of the NBA. "There is an awful lot of beef that is produced on principles that would be attractive to consumers, looking for a Onatural product'. Organics have unfortunately appeared to corner the delivery of that. The monopoly has to be challenged," he says.

"There is room to develop a number of other labels, which will appeal to other consumers. The credentials that would go behind those labels ­ grazing extensively on hills and grass and pastures and being housed in non-industrial management systems ­ would not be dissimilar to organic."

Another serious problem for the SA and organic movement is the development of GM crops. In December, DEFRA minister Elliot Morley, announced details of the consultations on the future of the UK Register of Organic Food Standards, the body which controls organic food production in the UK. The report recommended that UKROFS' role in approving the organic certifying bodies should be taken over by the UK Accreditation Service, a move vehemently opposed by the SA. The consultation is also looking at "the scope for new technologies", which has been interpreted by some as the government looking to sell GMOs to consumers under the organic label. This is something the biotech industry has long been trying to do. "We would be very keen to see organic farming take on some of the GM crops that are beginning to become available and to use them within their regime," says Professor Howard Slater, from CropGen, a pro-biotech umbrella group. But another tactic of the biotech companies might be the organic movement's biggest threat ­ that of contamination of food and crops by GMOs. The SA sees GMOs and the trial sites programme in the UK as "two of the greatest threats to the integrity of organic food, which does not allow the use of any GM ingredients".

"We want a ban on GM food," says Sue Flook, "and we are lobbying to stop commercialisation of GM in this country".

But one ex-Soil Association board member believes that contamination is inevitable and the organic movement has not addressed the central issue ­ that the EU signed up in 1990 to the exploitation of biotechnology. "The organic movement has backed itself into a dead-end on biotechnology. If in a few years time the government decides to allow commercial production of GMOs, what is the organic movement going to do? Put up big fences? It is not going to work."