Brussels, 05/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 5 May, the principal representatives of farmers and farm workers in the EU called on the countries of the EU to safeguard the future of organic farming in the EU and not introduce measures that could threaten the development of this burgeoning sector.
With the Agriculture Council of Monday 11 May preparing to adopt a general approach to the organic farming dossier, Copa-Cogeca, EFFAT (European Federation of Trade Unions in the Food, Agriculture and Tourism sectors) and IFOAM EU have written to the European ministers urging them not to introduce any measures which could threaten the development of the European organic farming sector.
These organisations call upon the ministers to harmonise procedures for pesticide contamination, instead of introducing a “decertification” threshold (upper limit above which holdings would no longer be considered 'organic') and to combine risk-based inspections whilst maintaining annual controls.
“Organic farmers must be rewarded for their services to society and the environment, not punished for pesticides they have not introduced into the system”, says the director of IFOAM EU, Marco Schlüter. “The decertification proposal is not only wrong-headed, it could also jeopardise organic farmers who could not bear the financial risks entailed. In our opinion, this would threaten the peaceful coexistence of organic and conventional farmers in rural areas. As long as there are no harmonised rules at European level on the facilities, methods and investigative parameters used by European laboratories, the implementation of such decertification thresholds would in practice not even be feasible”, Schlüter added.
“The new EU regulation should support the development of the EU organic farming sector, ensuring that 250,000 farmers could earn a living from their activities. The requirement to have yearly controls for organic farmers should be maintained, as it is a basis for consumer trust in organic farming. In the context of rapid changes to the EU regulation, the control bodies can also provide guidance to organic farmers that risk not being compliant with the legal requirements”, said Pekka Pesonen, secretary general of Copa-Cogeca.
“We therefore call on the Commission and member states to support the development of organic food and farming in Europe, not to put it at risk through unrealistic proposals”, commented Arnd Spahn of EFFAT. (Lionel Changeur)