"...reversing priorities - by making organic farming the standard procedure, and chemical farming the certifiable exception. At the moment it is the other way round: organic farmers have to prove they are organic, a process which involves considerable bureaucracy and expense, while chemical farmers can just get on the phone and order a tonne of NPK or a drum of weed killer. Penalising good practice with bureaucracy and certification fees is a bizarre way to encourage it. We don't, for example, make bicyclists and pedestrians prove that they don't drive and then award them a certificate - we make motorists buy a license.

If farmers had to apply for a license to use chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and if food in supermarkets was assumed to be organic unless it had a label on it saying 'produced with the aid of artificial fertilisers and pesticides', then the tables would quickly be turned. Without in any way restricting the public's right to choose, organically produced food would become the norm, once again..."

From MEAT - a Benign Extravagance by Simon Fairlie.