The demand for organic food is growing at a remarkable rate. Consumers have made it clear that they want organic produce and every sector of the food chain is responding, with the kind of results we have just seen.

We don't, in a sensible world, want to hand on an increasingly dysfunctional world to our grandchildren.

Some recent occurrences such as the BSE disaster and even perhaps - dare I mention it - the present severe weather conditions in our country are, I have no doubt, the consequences of mankind's arrogant disregard of the delicate balance of nature. We have to find a way of ensuring that our remarkable and seemingly beneficial advances in technology do not just become the agents of our own destruction.

Organic farming has been shown to provide major benefits for wildlife and the wider environment. The best that can be said about genetically engineered crops is that they will now be monitored to see how much damage they cause.

All the time I feel I must justify my existence.

My Rainforests Project ... has three main elements. Firstly, to determine how much funding the rainforest countries need to re-orientate their economies so that the trees are worth more alive than dead.

It is now 14 years since I first suggested that organic farming might have some benefits and ought to be taken seriously. I shall never forget the vehemence of the reaction.. much of it coming from the sort of people who regard agriculture as an industrial process, with production as the sole yardstick of success.