The numbers recording a profit of £10,000 or more fell from 56 per cent in 1979 to 38 per cent this year.The Government will announce a target today for UK producers to supply at least 70 per cent of the organic domestic market. This, farmers say, is in stark contrast to the current reality, where 75 per cent of organic food sold in Britain is imported.Ben Gill, the NFU president, said: “Farmers rightly fear that this, together with the falling returns on organic producers, is undermining future sustainability of the domestic market. The message is clear – organic production in Britain is at risk.”The Soil Association, Britain’s leading organic campaigning body, said the crisis comes despite soaring demand from consumers, which has seen sales increase by up to 40 per cent a year over the past three years.Farmers complain that despite facing some of the highest basic costs in Europe, such as land rental or purchase fees, British producers do not receive any subsidy beyond the first five years, unlike their EU counterparts. Farmers also criticised the lack of a distinct label to designate UK-produced organic food. If he did not, his farm would make a loss of at least £18,000 a year.Standing in one of the hay meadows he uses to make silage for his herd of 60 beef cattle, Mr Amos, 56, said: “When I first came to this farm eight years ago, and before we went organic, I would get £800 for one of my cattle.”Now, after two years of converting and three years as fully organic with all the extra cost that entails, I am getting £778.

That is not great business.”We pay the highest basic costs of anyone in Europe and yet the return for organic produce does not begin to make up the difference.”The lifelong farmer, who is also a trained teacher and environmental scientist, estimates that he pays 50 per cent more in rent for his holding than he would in France. To buy the same land would also be one third cheaper.Along with subsidised produce from abroad, the result is a market where UK organic producers, who face the high start-up costs of converting the land, have the odds stacked against them.Mr Amos said: “In order to overcome that, increased subsidies will put us on a level footing with the rest of Europe. But that is not a long-term solution – people have to be willing to pay a fair price.”Like many other organic producers, the Amos family have set up a butchery and vegetable sideline to enable them to sell their produce direct to the public through farmers’ markets.Mr Amos said: “One week, we had some organic broad beans Everyone said how wonderful and bought them. The next week, another stall with conventional broad beans that were 10p cheaper was beside us We sold virtually no beans that day It is that attitude which needs to change.”. Lennox Lewis, somewhere in Stockholm with friends, probably did not get to see the man who disputes his being the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world fight here on Saturday night.

Johnson was disqualified in the 10th round for repeated low blows in an artless exhibition of heavyweight boxing that would probably have made Lewis laugh.What may not be so funny for Lewis, though, is that he may now be locked into his mandatory International Boxing Federation defence against the elusive Chris Byrd. Or, and he certainly would perish the thought, a third meeting with Evander Holyfield.No question, Lewis would have been rooting for the previously undefeated Johnson, his successor as Canada’s Olympic heavyweight representative, to score a spectacular victory over the plodding, awkward eyesore named Ruiz However, Johnson beat himself. The fight was only moments old when he landed a border-line left hook and Ruiz complained to referee Joe Cortez. A few seconds after receiving a warning, Johnson lowered the boom again, sending Ruiz to the canvas with an unquestionably low blow.Ruiz had to wait five minutes before being able to carry on “I don’t know what he was thinking,” Ruiz said. “I came out fighting clean, and he hit me low and I had to catch my breath. It took me out of my game plan.”Johnson lost a point for the punch and was lucky when Cortez chose not to dock him another when Ruiz was sent sprawling again in the fourth round.

However, it prompted one of his co-managers, Chris Seeger, to yell up to him: “They’re going to take this from us, don’t throw any more body shots.” Johnson nodded in agreement and then went on to use his superior footspeed and jab to outbox Ruiz in the next two rounds. However, in the seventh, the Canadian went low again, this time landing on Ruiz’s right leg and lost a second point.He outboxed Ruiz again in the eighth round, but in the ninth the man who holds the WBA belt, finally showed some of his ability Ruiz hurt Johnson with a right hand. The challenger tried to hold on so Ruiz threw him to the canvas No knockdown, Cortez ruled. “I caught him with a good right and I was trying to let loose and I pushed him off me and he just fell down,” Ruiz said.Johnson was sent to the canvas again after a chopping right hand from Ruiz, but it came after the bell at the end of the ninth. No knockdown was the ruling once more.In the 10th, Ruiz started to go after his man when Johnson stopped and went low again.