Darren and Julia Quenault are handing back the organic status of their Jersey farm after nine years. Photograph: Stuart Abraham

Darren and Julia Quenault took their first delivery of non-organic cattle feed a few weeks ago. After nine years of organic dairy farming, they decided to convert back to conventional, and give up their organic status, at the end of last year.

The reason was simple. Cattle feed costs were excruciatingly expensive and we just couldnt absorb them, says Julia. Were saving 1,800 a month. We couldnt have continued, we would have had to put up prices significantly, and we didnt feel we could burden consumers with an extra 12% on the price of milk.

The Quenaults are not alone. Even as demand for organic food remains high, the farmers producing it are falling by the wayside. And the results of their transition might cause anyone else considering it to think hard. Since they made the switch almost eight weeks ago, sales of the milk, cheese, cream and ice cream produced by the couple, their 60 Jersey cows and 10 staff (including their son) have held up.

And yet organic remains a powerful brand. So what are farmers like the Quenaults to conclude? Julia says how important their organic status was to their customers remains an open question, but that many local people are aware of problems with conventional farms. Chief among these is the high level of nitrates in the water supply, which has been linked to the intensive use of fertilisers on potatoes.

There have been surveys about what matters to consumers. Is it food produced locally, animal welfare, the environment or price? she says. Organic standards mean farmers are forbidden from using chemical herbicides, pesticides and fertilisers, and the use of medicines such as antibiotics on animals is controlled. Lower yields and higher costs are offset by a combination of the produces retail price premium, and subsidies paid to farmers to reward their environmental stewardship and protection of wildlife.

Organic was an extra selling point for us, but now that were established, we hope it wont matter too much. Organic is a really hard thing to explain. It means a lot of things, and you cant sum it up in a few soundbites. We believe in the organic ethos, but it was an extra niche aspect for us. There are lots of reasons why people buy our milk.

The Quenaults farm was certified by one of the main British certification bodies, Organic Farmers and Growers, but differences in Jerseys subsidy regime mean their situation is different from that on English, Welsh and Scottish farms. After a period when they were threatened with the prospect of no subsidies whatsoever, the Jersey government offered an amount equivalent to that paid in England. We asked for more because Jersey is one of the most expensive places to produce food, Julia says. It was frustrating more than anything I think they have been short-sighted. There is now just one organic milk producer left in Jersey.

Although the Quenaults decision was specific to conditions in Jersey, they represent a wider trend. UK government figures show that while organic food sales have bounced back from the low that followed the 2008/9 financial crash, the amount of land being farmed organically in Britain continues to shrink. In 2013, the last year for which data are available, land in the process of being converted to organic fell by 24%, with fully organic land falling by 3.9%. The number of producers and processors of organic food fell for the fifth year in a row, by 6.4%, and the number of organic sheep, pigs and cattle also fell.

At the end of last year, four trustees resigned from the Soil Association, the campaigning charity and biggest certification body, and launched a public attack on the organisations direction, accusing it of failing to champion the producers and growers it is meant to represent. Last month a report by the European Environment Agency highlighted huge disparities between countries and the fact that British organic farming has stalled: while 3.3% of land is farmed organically in the UK, the same figure as in 2000, countries such as Austria and Spain have seen sharp rises (to 18.5% and 7.5%), while the number of UK farmers and certified processors making organic food products stands at 6,072, down from 7,567 in 2009.

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Why are organic farmers across Britain giving up?