Way back in the sixties the organic movement was firmly underground, led by eco warriors and barely heard of by your average consumer. But over the decades it has undergone a quiet revolution, evolving from 'fad' status to becoming an essential way of life for much of the population

Where once upon a time you were thought of as a bit of a nutter for buying organic food and embracing green issues, in the new millennium it is de-rigueur to buy your organic peanut butter and think about your carbon foot print.

Something that was a bit fringe is now so mainstream that the majority of people now knowingly buy organic food. It's grown beyond buying organic fruit, vegetables and meat so that consumers now buy organic store cupboard staples such as cereals, teas, spreads, jams, ketchup and even sparkling drinks.

And the most impressive thing about this turnaround is that it has been largely a grass-roots movement pushing against the might of much larger food and farming industries. The bottom line is that people have voted, with their purses, to say that they have had enough.

What started life as an instinctive protest by a few people to the industrialisation of farming and food production, has come full circle with the formalisation of this disparate movement. In essence, the organic hippies of yesteryear have grown up, got wise and got organised.

Earth matters

The organic movement started life as a precise concern about the soil with the idea that fertilisers and pesticides made from artificial chemicals, and the cycle of not putting back into the soil what was being taken out, would lead to the soil being denuded and unable to support healthy plants. The visionary book The Living Soil, written by Lady Balfour, led directly to the establishment in the UK of the Soil Association, named for this concern about the soil.

The sixties came with a freeing of the shackles of conventional expectations. It was at this time that more modern pioneers such as Craig Sams and his brother Gregory started Seed, the first organic macrobiotic restaurant in London's Notting Hill.

In true 1960s rebellion style, when offered a 600-acre intensive cattle-rearing facility by his uncle in the US, Sams went to the other extreme by embracing wholefoods, veganism and an organic lifestyle.

But such an approach was still rare, and potential investors in his burgeoning organic empire would regularly ask, over the decades: 'How long is this organic fad going to last?' Sams calmly answered those doubtful 'grey suits' by going on to set up big-name brands Whole Earth and, with his wife Josephine Fairley, Green & Blacks.

From fad to fact

Spurred on by simple facts that appeal to people's common sense, the organic 'fad' has not only lasted, but gathered pace at the most remarkable rate. A market that was worth £100 million in 1993 is worth £2 billion annually now.

You no longer have to restrict yourself to a floppy organic lettuce or pay triple for your organic steak. You can now have a huge choice of just about everything and can eat organic from your morning bowl of breakfast cereal to your evening baked beans on toast.

Why is organic food so popular?

It is more than just a fashion trend for the well-off, and people have real issues that concern them. Perhaps it is because no case of BSE has ever been found in an organic herd. Perhaps it is because commonly used farming chemicals that were eventually banned after being found to be dangerous, such as DDT and Lindane, were never for even a moment used in organic food production.

Perhaps it is because there is a five-fold lower rate of salmonella in organic chicken flocks compared to intensively reared flocks. Perhaps it is because GM has never been permitted in organic production. Perhaps people are sickened by the intensive farming of animals (as so ably demonstrated by Messrs Fernley-Whittingstall and Oliver on TV recently).

Or perhaps it is because the flavour of organic food is just better, or that recent research shows that organic food has higher nutrient levels than non-organic. The hope is that people are just realising how impoverished the fast and convenience-food experience is.

So, finally, the message is that quality food is on the agenda, and the organic industry is, as ever, the trend-setter: The Government, spearheaded by the Soil Association-backed Food for Life programme, has just announced that school children are going to learn to cook, aiming to put a halt to the cycle of ignorance about food which is costing the NHS £10 billion a year in diet-related illness.

What of the future of organics?

How long will the 'fad' last? Sams has an interesting take on the future. He says that no single country with intensive industrialised farming has been profitable without massive Government tax subsidies. In essence, the tax payer is funding an inefficient system, and that without this the economics simply don't hold up.

But, and this is the critical thing, the economics are now fast changing with the threat of climate change. His thesis is that organic farms are so carbon-viable that they are in a position to sell carbon offsets, while 'conventional' farms will have to be taxed.

Of course, the large agro-business interests will fight, scream and kick all the way but the logic will be indisputable. It seems obvious the 'fad' will continue and thrive.

Commissioned by Whole Earth to celebrate 40 years as organic pioneers.