Working for the Soil Association

SA Cert or Soil Association Certification Ltd is the commercial arm of the largest organic charity in the UK. established in the 40's by Lady Eve Balfour and other organic luminaries the charity has been lobbying for and promoting organic farming and food ever since. In the late 90s things were changing and the government had announced that they would look at financially supporting farmers in their conversion to organic production methods. The certification arm of the charity provided a verification service, a third-party check that the rigorous organic standards were being maintained and in order to do this they employed a number of inspectors. This dedicated team toured the country carrying out an annual inspection of every single licensed farm and submitted a report. Another team, smaller and much noisier checked the reports and completed compliance notices. Letters requiring farmers and processors to amend practices in order to ensure that they remained within the standards. The office team organised all the admin, helped plan the inspectors schedules and dealt with all the varied requests for "derogations". situations that may not be stipulated within the standards documents or that were open to debate or interpretation.  I spent 5 or more unbelievably happy years as part of, or leading the office team, working with an incredible group of people. A close-knit family of people who didn't just work for an organisation but lived and breathed what they did, who believed that what they were doing really mattered and that in a very small way they were helping change the world. And to be honest I still believe that. Believe that organic farming methods are the answer to many if not all of the worlds challenges, bridging the gap between population growth, competition for land and the need to protect this precious and fragile orb on which we spin.  We worked hard, we played harder, a team of like-minded and deeply committed individuals was built and every day was an adventure, the team was candid, sometime combative, deeply supportive and full of hilarity.

Sometime in 1998I met a wonderful man, someone who I still have massive respect for and deep fondness. He was the son of a biodynamic dairy farmer and a work colleague, Court Farm delivered unpasteurized organic milk to the offices weekly and our morning cup of organic filter coffee was topped with that unctuous almost yellow "cream off the milk"  James arrived as a technical officer and is now 10 years later is still embedded in the organic industry and general all round organic hero!  His family let me borrow an overgrown veg garden that had been used for teaching autistic children. A tangle of weeds and a tatty but perfectly serviceable polyunnel and the most beautiful soil you could imagine. Here, surrounded by streams and apple trees I learnt how to grow vegetables, not just for myself but for a good few friends and neighbours. 20 minutes out of central Bristol it was a blissful bolthole after the confinement of office life. 

I worked hard, had "more front than Sainsburys" (apparently) and due to the organic aid scheme causing the number of farmers converting to rocket, we were suddenly recruiting every week (or so it seemed) and as more and more people were employed I very quickly became an old hand and then manager and finally 5 years later Certification Director for the Agricultural team. Things changed enormously in those 5 years. structures were put in place, bureaucracy went through the roof and the organisation I left to have my family in 2001 was almost unrecognisable.