Peter Melchett has been Policy Director of the Soil Association, the UK’s main organic food and farming organisation, working on campaigns, standards and policy, since 2001. He runs an 890-acre organic farm in Norfolk, with pigs, beef cattle and arable crops. He is a member of the BBC’s Rural Affairs Committee, and was a member of the Government’s Rural Climate Change Forum and Organic Action Plan Group, and the Department of Education’s School Lunches Review Panel.
He was a Special Lecturer in Biological Sciences, Nottingham University 1984-2002, and on the Board of the EU’s £12m Research Project ‘Quality Low Input Food’. He does some environmental consulting, for example with IKEA and ASDA. As a former member of the House of Lords, he was a Labour Government Minister 1974-79, at the Departments of Environment, Industry, and Northern Ireland (covering education and health). He has been President or Chair of several conservation ngos, including the Ramblers and Wildfige Link, and was Director of Greenpeace UK (1985-2000), and chaired Greenpeace Japan (1995-2001).