§ Mr. OatenTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the number of(a) organic farms, (b) farms currently in the process of converting into organic farms and (c) farms that have applied for the 253W organic farming scheme, in (i) England, (ii) Hampshire, (iii) each local authority in Hampshire and (iv) each constituency in Hampshire [116478]
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 27 March 2000]Information is currently available only for England. The number of applications to the Organic Farming Scheme that passed the initial validity checks is currently 1,185. A small number of these were either withdrawn or were not accepted onto the Scheme. As at November 1999 in England there were 34,534 hectares of land converted to organic farming and 94,144 hectares in conversion.