Posted on

Proposed EU Regulation on Organic Production

I’ve mention this before.  If passed, this measure will regulate organic agriculture in Europe starting in the year 2020.  This measure is the result of a 2+ year trialog process between the EU Commission, Council and Parliament, and several people and organizations I know have been involved in it.  It’s been heavily influenced by the food industry, and lots of compromises have been made on all sides.  Probably everyone is a little unhappy with it, and it’s not perfect.  It is however set to significantly change the way organic food is produced for the European market.

The first vote on this measure is expected in the council on 20 November 2017.

The most contentious element concerns the use of organic seeds, or more broadly Plant Reproductive Material (PRM), in organic production.   That is, the food industry wants the use of organic seeds to be mandatory, because they are the ones who control most of the production and distribution of organic seeds.  This has really no added benefit to consumers, because they are still industrially bred and produced seeds, and it’s unlikely any incidental agricultural chemicals present in seeds could impact the quality of the final product.  In a broad sense, the food industry seems to have won on this point, and organic seeds will be required more frequently in organic production.

On the other hand, the rules concerning biodiversity have been relaxed.  There is now a new class of PRM called ‘heterogeneous material’, which is more suited to use in organic production and more likely to result in higher quality products and more diversity being available to the consumer.  Technically speaking, pretty much any organic seed will be legal to use, which is a big change from the present situation.

The main losers in the new regulation will be small farmers in the developing world, who now have to comply with EU organic rules, and will find it difficult to source reasonably priced organic PRM suited for their local climates.  This also means European consumers will also lose out, because fewer high quality products will be legal to import under the label of ‘organic’.

Some important points of the new regulation:

  • Organic farmers will be allowed to exchange, use and sell their own ‘organic heterogeneous material’ without prior registration.  The current rigorous system of prior registration will be replaced with a highly simplified system of notification.
  • Farmers will now have access to ‘organic varieties suitable for organic production’, initially on the basis of a 7 year marketing test, later to be incorporated permanently into EU legislation.  This will allow organic farmers access to better quality seeds than are currently available.
  • An EU-wide database will be created, containing all available organic seeds.  This will be available to all EU users free of charge.
  • Many products not covered by the current organic framework, or presently sold as organic, will be in the future.  For example rabbits, deer, traditional herbal preparations, beeswax, cork, wool, salt, etc.
  • Reinforcement of the soil-bound principle for plants.  In the future, plants not grown on soil would not be considered organic.  There will be a minor 10-year exemption for some pre-existing Nordic producers.
  • Limited ‘group certification’ of organic producers would be allowed.  For very low income farmers, it will now be possible to apply and maintain organic certification with a group of other farmers.
  • Measurement of contamination is to be addressed, and smarter enforcement of violations.
  • European standards are to be imposed on all imported goods.  Currently about 50% of organic goods are imported, covered by about 60 different organic standards.

Responsibility of Consumers

While this regulation may be a little more credible, and under some circumstances ‘make legal’ some biodiversity that’s not currently available, no benefits are guaranteed for the consumer.

Now more than ever, it’s important to uphold the principle of buying locally, from farmers and sellers you trust.  This is far more important than buying certified organic.  It’s important to share your experiences and conclusions on social media, and to promote sensible products over low quality mass marketed ones.

More than ever, it’s important for consumers to be aware of what seeds are used in the production of our food.  This new regulation provides a small crack, through which the sale of non-industrial seeds are to be legalized.  It’s important consumers find ways of buying food grown from these seeds, and clawing back control of the food system from multinationals.

This new regulation will introduce many changes, and no doubt some surprises are in store for all of us.

Posted on

European Farming in 2020

Last month the EU Council issued a press release announcing agreement on a new EU organic farming EU organic farming regulation.  This is actually a big deal, and I know a number of people who have been involved in the negotiations.  It still has to be formally passed as a legislative package, but since the important parties have all agreed, this is likely just a formality.  It will come into effect 1 July 2020, meaning it won’t fully be in force until the 2021 planting season, and consumers won’t fully see the changes until later that year after the harvest.

Not Perfect, and Lots of Compromises

This is not a perfect piece of legislation, and there’s still a long way to go towards reforming agriculture in Europe.  Putting so much emphasis on organic food is flawed.  Organic is a legally defined term, and is subject to different interpretations.

What we need in Europe is normal food, based on biodiversity, agroecology and grown and sold by small and local producers.  This regulation goes some way towards these goals, but is not enough.  This regulation gives too much control to large agricultural interests.  In particular it doesn’t do enough to control pesticide use overall, doesn’t do enough to reduce and sequester greenhouse gas emissions and doesn’t really promote agroecology.

What it does do is make agroecology theoretically possible, as well as provide a few loopholes to the strict EU seed laws.  It might mean fewer dangerous pesticides are used on food consumed in Europe.  It will mean consumers have access to more biodiversity in their food, and there are potentially big gains to be had in the quality of food available.

These small gains have been fought fiercely by the food industry, who have pretty much guaranteed market dominance for themselves.  The food industry is prepared in almost all ways to wait until a small farmer has a clever idea, then steal it and destroy the business model of the small farmer in the process.

Agroecology

This is a somewhat unfortunate term.  It’s a bit like organic, in that it’s being co-opted by industrial agriculture.  Like the term organic, it refers to what used to be normal agriculture.  Different people have given it different names along the way, like permaculture or ecological.  For some reason we’ve needed to invent yet another name for it, so different people can claim ownership over the idea and define it according to their own purposes.  I use the term reluctantly, because it is what a lot of people are saying at the moment.

This is a term that describes a system of ‘normal’ agriculture, without chemical or unnatural inputs, generally operating in a closed system without any inputs.  It’s principle is building soil over time — over centuries.  It has very little to do with the 3 years without chemicals need to produce certified organic food.  The consequence of building up soil is the sequestering of greenhouse gasses.  The system is very fragile, and any contamination with chemicals at all generally causes very long term damage.  It depends on large tracts of adjoining land, also based on agroecology, in order to maintain biodiversity and habitats for beneficial organisms.

This new organic regulation envisages patches of certified organic land, side by side conventional farms, where the classification of the land changes back and forth over time, and has little to do with agroecology or maintaining ecosystems and building soils.

The relationship between conventional and organic producers is somewhat like public smoking.  The use of pesticides damages the public health and environment.  A short term solution is isolating conventional farmers in their own regions, but in the long term no one will be happy with that solution, so eventually it will be necessary to phase out the use of pesticides.  The pesticide industry is however very powerful and deceptive, and difficult to deal with.

Pesticide Industry

What this organic regulation really does is significantly strengthen the position of the pesticide industry.  The pesticide manufacturers are already facing competition from old unpatented products like glyphosate.  Using very deceptive public campaigns, designed to look like some sort of activists’ issue, they are using organizations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to promote their products — even to the extent of staging fake European Citizens’ Initiatives.

Not only is this likely to continue, but as the older products are removed from the market, new ones will take their place.  Since the definition of organic is subject to formal and strict interpretation, they are very likely to find ways of including their products in the food chain.  For example, they may develop new products based on GMOs, used in food packaging or that can be used on perimeters of organic land without actually contaminating the food grown on them, but possibly causing a great deal of damage to the ecosystem.

There are likely to be a lot more grey lines in the use of pesticides in organic agriculture, and still a lot more battles to be fought.  It’s going to be more important than ever to buy food from local producers that you know personally, trust and don’t have enough money to spend it on pesticides.