Getting into bed with a garden centre undermines what Garden Organic is about

Being co-opted by big business threatens to undermine the ecologically desirable tenets of thrift, frugality and prudence that organic gardening actually epitomizes, says earth-friendly gardening writer John Walker.

Without knowing quite where it’s going, and with some reluctance, I recently parted with £28 of my hard-earned cash. The call-up for my twenty-eight quid was a subscription reminder from Garden Organic (GO), the UK’s national charity for organic growing, of which I have been a member for many years.

What caused me to waver were still-gnawing doubts following the announcement last autumn that GO was proposing to enter into a commercial partnership with Webbs Garden Centres Ltd (WGC), whose HQ is at Droitwich in Worcestershire. My conundrum is that for the first time ever I’m not sure whether my £28 is potentially going toward ‘researching and promoting organic gardening, farming and food’, or helping to expand the business interests of the ecologically indifferent gardening industry.

The reason for the partnership, in which WGC have recently taken over the running of the shop, cafe, restaurant and conference facilities at GO’s HQ at Ryton, near Coventry, seems to be, in a nutshell, that GO is in dire financial straits, and has been for some time, for a whole potting shed full of interlocking reasons. A sense of desperation was palpable in the way news of the proposal was broken; the 30,000-plus GO members first heard of it via an announcement, last autumn, in the members-only section of the GO website, while everyone else had to wait until the story ‘broke’ in the horticultural trade press.

From my perspective as a GO member, the whole ‘announcement’ phase was a shambles, and you can still only read about the details of the now done deal if you access the members-only section of the GO website. There will probably still be members who don’t know what is actually now underway, because no one saw fit to ask their opinion; no one saw fit to write to them, using paper, envelope and stamp, to even tell them about it, despite a membership magazine being sent to all GO members four times a year. That’s not the way to engage with a loyal membership, some of whom have supported the organisation since it first drew breath.

Judging by some of the comments on GO’s online forum, this total lack of consultation has gone down very badly. There have been stampings of feet, threats of resignation and calls for Extraordinary General Meetings – along with a few comments supportive of the proposed partnership and suggesting that GO members put their trust in ‘the management’. All of this appears to have cut little ice with said management. There has been next to no online interaction with concerned members, apart from a hastily prepared ‘Q&A’ document, in which the originators got to choose both the questions and the answers (it was described by one member as a ‘disgraceful set of managed questions’), and plenty of flannel from various members of GO’s council. Of course, it should have been the members of GO who were asking the questions, not some anonymous entity trying to quell a self-induced revolt.

One of the great things about the 21st century is the abundance of ways in which people can link up to discuss and debate matters of shared concern, whether they’re just around the corner or on the other side of the earth. Quite what stopped GO from being transparent and candid with its membership I don’t know, but I do know it would have involved relatively little effort to establish a widely publicised online forum dedicated to the discussion of a departure that could taint the credibility of organic gardening for a long time to come.

Announcing the proposed arrangement, GO said that the move is designed to ‘enable as many people as possible to enjoy organic and climate-friendly gardening’, while WGC chipped in with ‘we understand that many customers would prefer to garden chemical-free, especially those new to the activity’. Well, here’s to that, but there’s a whole heap more to climate-friendly organic gardening than just being ‘chemical-free’. It’s as much about adopting a philosophical, prudent approach to gardening as it is about not buying and using garden chemicals – or any of the other gardening paraphernalia that is relentlessly foisted upon us.

There’s surely a painful rub in the offing when the organisation dedicated to researching and demonstrating organic practice at the back garden level jumps into bed with a profit-driven company whose raison d’etre is to flog as much stuff as possible; frugality will, I guarantee, not be writ large in WGC’s business plan. I find it hard to believe that no one within GO saw this particular bit of screeching discord coming. We organic gardeners are, by our very nature, a thrifty lot. We just don’t buy much ‘stuff’, because earth-friendly gardening inherently requires a minimal ‘take’ from our planet’s finite and rapidly depleting resources. Indeed, it gives plenty back to our embattled biosphere, and just by going about gardening organically we cultivate something inside ourselves, which results in the blooming of a greener state of mind.

GO will retain responsibility for their demonstration gardens at Ryton, and hope to ‘inspire and educate’ the increased number of visitors which it’s assumed will follow from the establishment of ‘Webbs Ryton Gardens’. I wonder just how far these unlikely bedfellows are prepared to go in ensuring that the surge in visitors to Ryton doesn’t lead to ballooning carbon emissions from all the cars needed to get folk there. If you set yourself up as a visitor attraction, you need to shoulder at least some of the responsibility for the environmental impact of your fans – especially if you’re promoting ‘climate-friendly’ gardening.

But perhaps what’s most at risk of being lost is the very voice that GO can claim to speak with on matters organic – a voice of authority that’s still authentic and which carries clout. Once a line is crossed, and GO starts sending out the signal that organic gardening is just like all other gardening – something you increasingly buy rather than do – then its voice will grow weak and feeble. It will simply become part of a gardening industry that, despite what it professes publicly, sputters disdain at the very mention of anything to do with ‘the environment’.

GO likes to present itself as a ‘campaigning’ body, but its efforts on that front have been lamentable in recent years, despite it being regularly pilloried by certain sections of the gardening media. Now that it has done this deal, GO is going to find the job of shining the light of sustainability on the wider gardening industry a whole lot harder; ideas of bottom-up ‘greening’, although admirable, will always be pie in the profit-driven sky.

I can’t be the only one who’s stumped up their £28 in good faith, but with nagging doubts about whether GO can sustain their mandate to walk the organic gardening talk if creeping commercialisation takes root.

Although this move has been spun as a ‘fabulous opportunity’ to somehow ‘green’ the gardening industry by association, and to make it more sustainable from the checkouts up, I believe that so very much risks being lost. It could turn out to be an act of sheer folly; one that could severely curtail the potential of earth-friendly organic gardening to play a much greater part in the more balanced, less overconsuming, more planet-friendly lives that we must all urgently start living.

GO’s current trajectory looks, to me at least, like a desperate stumbling backwards, rather than a creative leap forward in a fast-changing and ecologically enlightened world.

This amended article was first published in Kitchen Garden magazine, March 2010. Words and images Copyright John Walker. Image of Garden Organic Ryton (top) courtesy of Garden Organic.

Comments

[Matthew]

Couldn't agree more. What a great shame. When the HDRA changed it's name (over quite a few dead, but later, quietly composted bodies) I thought that it signalled the beginning of the end for the organisation.
It felt as if limp-brained marketing people had got a foot in the door and were now going to show the fuddy duddy old guard just how to put Ryton on the map.

I felt from the off their aims were very different from the original founders and now it seems they have taken what was once a fascinating, approachable, academically based but most importantly, self-sustaining organisation and pursued ambitions that were overblown.

To learn, as I only just have, that Webbs have assumed responsibility for such a large part of GO is a shock. Where they were once prepared to consult the membership on much lesser matters, not to let us know this is more than just insulting. It's deceitful. I would have considered my membership renewal very seriously had I known of this merger and I am sure the management at GO were well aware that many would feel like this and didn't want to see their subscriptions nose dive. How else to explain it?
To me, GO has lost its integrity and authority with this move. Although it's a different kind of deal, it now feels like any other organic brand that cashes in and sells out to a non-organic partner. After so many years of absolutely brilliant work in such a vital area, this is a great,great pity.

[David]

Couldn't better your observations, Matthew, as long standing members of HDRA (GO) we too are very concerned by the direction it has taken and believe that to involve an organisation that is neither organic nor sympathetic to local traders (in their shops they sell everything to everyone thus undermining local economies) is a grave mistake. We too are considering our renewal options (in April) and will take some convincing to continue.
We are very sad that so much work and goodwill by so many could go down the drain in the quest for corporate profit.