VeganOrganic.net

Welcome to the Vegan Organic Network Website

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Founded in 1996, the Vegan-Organic Network, VON, is an ambitious UK registered charity with an international network of active supporters. Our aims are to research and promote vegan-organic (also known as stockfree organic) methods of agriculture and horticulture throughout the world so that green, clean and cruelty-free food becomes widely available.

Vegan-organic/stockfree organic broadly means any system of cultivation that excludes artificial chemicals, livestock manures, animal remains from slaughterhouses, genetically modified material and indeed anything of animal origin such as fishmeal.

From large farms to window boxes, we show farmers and home growers how to use vegan-organic methods. Our supporters include people of many viewpoints, some involved in growing food, some not, but all united in recognising the need for a fundamental restructuring of food production methods and land use and their importance for human well-being, for animal welfare and biodiversity and in the battle for environmental sustainability.

We publish a magazine “Growing Green International”. There is also a free advice service for members of the public, home growers, smallholders and farmers. Through our Stockfree Organic Services wing, farms can be certified as Stockfree Organic; our Stockfree Organic Standards are inspected by the Soil Association in the UK and QCS in North America. We organise farm walks, allotment and garden visits and volunteer placements on stockfree organic holdings, publish guides for farmers and home growers, support higher education in our methods and as they say, much more.

Please explore our work via the links available! We hope you will become a supporter and thus become part of the VON community.

Press Release: VON Scoops Award

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The Vegan Society has announced the winners of its 2009 awards, decided as always by ballot of the Society’s members. The award for Best Vegan Project or Campaign goes to the Vegan-Organic Network, voted to be outstanding amongst a growing number of contenders.

In announcing the award, Amanda Baker, Vegan Society Media Officer, said ‘Congratulations – it’s great to see VON getting the wider recognition which you deserve.’

VON is doubly pleased because this is the second time they have received the award, suggesting that their message of ‘clean, green and cruelty free’ food is really spreading. VON exists to promote organic stockfree methods of growing food, which means avoiding manufactured chemicals, animal manures and slaughterhouse by-products. Since VON published the Stockfree Organic Standards in 2004, 40 stockfree farms have been added to VON’s directory, all successful and some very highly respected in the organic fraternity.

Press Release: New Database for Animal Free Agriculture - Over 1700 References

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The Vegan-Organic Network, in collaboration with Vegatopia, are pleased to announce a new database of over 1700 scholarly references related to the science, practice and benefits of animal free agriculture:

http://www.vegatopia.org/bibliography.html

The database will be immensely useful for those with a research or practitioner interest in animal free agriculture, including growers, government, NGOs, academics and students. The database includes full academic references for every entry. Most entries are also annotated with summary notes and key quotations.

Press Release: 5th Grower Awarded Stockfree Organic Certification

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Tim Carey, a former student at the Welsh College of Horticulture, funded through VON’s bursary scheme, has recently become the fifth UK grower to be awarded Stockfree Organic Certification.

With co-worker Lloyd English,Tim is busy bringing Oakcroft Organic Gardens, one of the UK’s longest standing organic market gardens, back into production and plans to grow vegetables, salads, herbs, fruit and flowers for sale in the Malpas area of South Cheshire, with a view to possibly setting up a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project in the future.

Press Release: VON Handbook Success

Sally Ford

After selling out the first edition, the Vegan-Organic Network has now revised and reprinted the highly praised Stockfree Organic handbook Growing Green: Organic Techniques for a Sustainable Future by Jenny Hall and Iain Tolhurst. The book is an essential guide to stockfree-organic growing and is perfect for absolute beginners as well as experienced professionals. It introduces the concept of stockfree-organic food production and shows, through case studies, that when growers abandon the use of slaughterhouse by-products and animal manures they can be rewarded with healthier crops and fewer weeds, pests and diseases.

In an age where dreams of self-sufficiency seem unattainable, Growing Green shows that making a living from growing organic vegetables can be achieved by anyone who is willing to rent land. Until the publication of Growing Green there were no comprehensive guidelines on how to follow the stockfree organic standards at the different scales of vegetable production using tractors, small machinery and hand tools.

Press Release: Farmed Animal Population Expanding

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With Sir David Attenborough becoming a patron of the Optimum Population Trust, attention is finally being focussed on the previously taboo subject of over-population. Alongside human population, politicians should also be looking at the population of farmed animals which is growing at an alarming rate.

World meat production has quadrupled in the past 50 years and livestock now outnumber people by more than 3 to 1.1 The UN’s 2006 report “Livestock’s Long Shadow” recommended an immediate halving of the world's livestock numbers, in order to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. A typical European omnivorous diet requires 5 times the amount of land required for a varied vegan diet.2

Press Release: New Course at Glyndwr University

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Foundation Degree Organic Horticulture - Opportunity to be part of the animal free horticulture initiative

This course aims to develop competent managers capable of driving forward the horticultural business. The course is ideal for those who are aiming to manage or work within the conventional organic or vegan-organic systems. It will provide a sound understanding of crop production under the Stockfree and Soil Association standards which will allow individuals to go on to develop their knowledge and management skills in this “growing” area of production.

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