DEMAND for organic food is greater than ever.

Marks and Spencer has doubled its sales of organic poultry and fish and cannot get enough organic beef and lamb. The company is also increasing the amount of organic vegetables and fruit and is looking at the best ways of displaying it.

Mr Hugh Mowat, M&S food technologist specialising in organic food and crops, told a North Yorkshire meeting that they wanted to obtain as much as possible from the UK.

"We feel M&S has a good opportunity to tap into the growing market but it does take a lot of work," he said. "We do have a programme to expand the amount so that when you walk into an M&S store, you will be able to buy an organic alternative to the basic conventional fresh food.

The company already sells only UK strawberries during the growing season and has managed to sell only UK-produced carrots for eight months of the year.

"Our aim is to get round-the-year supplies eventually," said Mr Mowat.

New, brighter packaging is planned for the organic products and a special panel on the packaging will give details of the UK producer.

"We have done this with our UK strawberries and have had letters thanking the growers for their wonderful strawberries," said Mr Mowat. "There is real potential here; people like to know who produced their food."

M&S is still looking at the best way of selling organics. Some stores display it in one identified place, while others have tried selling it alongside conventional products - "but one person complained that way took her much longer than normal to find the organic food," said Mr Mowat.

The other main problem was finding sufficient quantities of organic products for a regular supply.

Mr Mowat said those customers who bought organic food did so for a number of reasons, including environmental benefits, their worries over pesticides and animal welfare issues.

Mr Mowat was one of the speakers at an information day held at the Stonechair organic farm at ADAS High Mowthorpe, near Malton, on Thursday of last week.

Mr Neil Pickard, head of ADAS Farms and chairman of the Stone-chair group, appealed for other organic growers in the region, or those in conversion, to get in touch.

He believed an organic producers' group could go a long way to solving the problems of keeping up a regular supply.

The event marked the first 12 months of a project run by ADAS and M&S to convert the typical Wolds mixed farm to organic production.

ADAS is to provide answers to the technical and practical problems associated with conversion while M&S can provide the expertise in the marketing and supply sector.

Mr Pickard explained that 100 hectares (250 acres) was being converted at Stonechair. High Mowthorpe is one of ten ADAS farms totalling 4,500 hectares, of which 750ha are organic.

Mr David Turley of ADAS gave an update on the arable and vegetable crops. In the main, they showed the organic economic returns were at least equal to the conventional.

Organic winter wheat gave a yield of 6.45t/ha at £61 a tonne, compared with the conventional yield of 10.6 t/ha at £61 a tonne. However, with IACS payments of £204, the big differences occured in the costs, which showed output to be £589/ha for organic and £850/ha conventional while variable costs were £76/ha organic and £247/ha conventional.

The organic gross margin was £523, compared with the conventional £602, but machinery costs were only £192/ha organic compared with £292/ha conventional. However, when the organic aid payment of £225/ha was included, the organic crop's estimated margin was £555/ha compared with the conventional crop's £310/ha.

Organic spring beans had yielded 3.98 t/ha, compared with the conventional 4.24 t/ha at £103/t. The gross margins were £567 and £531 respectively and the estimated margins, including the organic payment, were £594/ha organic and £359/ha conventional.

Mr Turley concluded that the in-conversion yields were better than expected and those crops were more profitable than the conventional.

No new equipment had been bought and, this season, one benefit had been good pest control by natural predators.

The organic beef enterprise at Stonechair involves 25 spring calving Hereford x Friesian suckler cows, which are compared with 25 conventionally-reared cows.

At housing in October, the organically-reared spring 2000-born calves were 16kg lighter than the conventional, which had a higher level of nutrition available to them through the availability of more grazing.

The calves were stored throughout the winter and turned out to grass for a second summer weighing an average weight of 270kg.

Mr Pickard said the organic calves had been wormed in January when their weight gain then matched that of the conventional calves.

Before calving this spring, both groups of cows were in similar condition with the organically reared weighing 489kg in February compared with the conventional 480kg.

Of the 25 cows in conversion 24 had calved this year and, with the organic aid payment, brought in £10,342 from which costs of £3,343 were deducted, giving a gross margin of £6,999.

Another information day will be held in October, when the first crops will become fully converted.