Excellent report Chris.
I was there and like you was impressed by how much the organic movement now rates the low energy, sustainable agriculture part of their message relative to the health benefits of organic food. I am sure they have been talking about the former for a long time but I suspect, at least until recently, the general public buying organic food have mainly thought of the latter.

This emphasis on energy and sustainability is underlined by the Soil Association considering removing certification of food that has been air freighted. A fair part of American organic food production is now carried out on almost the same huge industrial scale at conventional agriculture. In may not use pesticides and oil derived fertiliser but it has massive energy inputs for machinery, processing and transport. The Soil Association is certainly fighting to ensure that the organic movement here does not go the same way.

I was also impressed by how many of the large number of growers there, so often caricatured as romantic rustics up to their knees in manure, were vitally aware of energy matters and had detailed figures of how much they used and were making great efforts to reduce it. Still there must be something that marks them apart. I do not wear a cast mark on my forehead like Dr. Vandana Shiva but when I stood up in the question time session, Anna Ford who chaired it, immediately asked "Are you an engineer?"

I also found widespread knowledge and concern about the use of biofuels as it is now being implemented, both from the point of view of removal of agricultural land and wild life habitat and the input of fossil fuel. Several growers were carefully considering how much of the material grown could be used locally for energy and how much this would detract from the return of nutrients and fibre to the soil.

The energy and sustainability theme was further emphasised by the organic fashion show and the session on low energy architecture. I had thought that that organic clothes were a pushing the organic theme a bit too far. However on learning about the damage done by industrial scale cotton farming I see the point of it. Besides the fashion show allowed us to see the food writer and broadcaster Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall racing across the catwalk clad only in organic underpants. The architectural session made clear that in new buildings you can get far greater fossil energy savings for your money by concentrating on lowering the energy consumption of the building than you can by adding renewable energy generators to the outside of a less energy efficient building. Unfortunately the very low rate of replacement of the housing stock in the UK, due to the widespread use of very durable materials like brick and stone, mean that a lot of the savings that can be made starting from scratch cannot be obtained here in the short term.

The sessions on transition towns brought me the news that Lewes in Sussex very near were I live was about to try and emulate Kinsale in Ireland, Totnes in England and a number of American towns in a local community effort to lower energy use. I shall be involving myself in these efforts.

In all, a welcome positive note in a world with too many negative ones.
In Dr. Vandana Shiva's words "The uncertainty of our times is no reason to be certain about hopelessness”.