EC launches from audits

IT IS time for European farmers to clean up their backyards: the European Community has launched in London its first environmental audit for farms. The brainchild of Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF), a British organisation promoting profitable but environment-friendly farming, the audit has won support from the government, conservationists, supermarkets, banks and even agrochemical manufacturers.

"Care and concern for the environment does not necessarily add cost, but lack of quality certainly does," says Don Phillips, sales marketing director of Dalgety Agriculture, the UK grain trading company that helped sponsor the audit. The audit is initially being targeted at larger farmers and only those with 100 hectares or more will be invited to buy the L20 questionnaire.