FARMER Helen Browning today welcomed Government plans to divert subsidies worth hundreds of millions of pounds into organic farming.

Mrs Browning, who is chairwoman of the Soil Association, runs Eastbrook Farm in Bishopstone. She forecasts that by 2005 at least 10 per cent of European farmland will be organic. She said: "In Britain the market is expanding by 40 per cent a year."

Under the scheme, farmers will be paid up to £243 an acre for growing crops organically. At present Britain imports 75 per cent of its organic produce. Through the scheme the Government hopes it can produce 70 per cent of its organic food.

Much of the money needed for the programme will be stripped out of the £3.5 billion in European subsidy for British farmers who are paid by how much they grow, a system criticised for encouraging intensive farming with maximum use of pesticides and other chemicals.