IFOAM Organics Europe believes cementing support for organic farming in the CAP budget is key to resilience
IFOAM Organics Europe has called on EU Member States to protect a “strong and shared commitment to organic farming” in the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), as concerns grow over the suggested text.
“While the Commission’s proposal established a provision for mandatory support for organic farming, the revised Article 10 in the Council’s text no longer contains any reference to organic farming,” IFOAM pointed out. “This risks making support increasingly unpredictable and uneven across Member States, despite organic farmers operating under common EU rules and contributing to strategic European objectives, including the competitiveness and resilience of the EU agricultural sector.”
The organisation warned that the Presidency’s suggested text for a Council partial general approach represented “a step backwards” for the organic sector.
Details concerning support for organic farming do appear to have been deleted from Article 10, although the text does state under Article 4 that “Member States shall provide support to farmers in each of the following environment and climate priority areas”, and included in the list below is “development of organic farming”.
Dóra Drexler, president of IFOAM Organics Europe, commented: “The proposal for the Council’s approach removes the explicit mandatory support for organic farming from a key part of the future CAP. Member States now have an opportunity to send a clear political signal: support for organic farming cannot be optional. A resilient and competitive European agricultural sector needs a common and predictable commitment to organic farming.”
“Supporting organic farming is an investment in Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and strategic autonomy,” added Eduardo Cuoco, director of IFOAM. “This was for instance demonstrated again this summer, when organic farming generally fared better compared to other practices. The future CAP must support the resilience of the European agri-food sector, including by supporting organic.”
IFOAM said the European organic movement was calling for the future CAP to maintain a “clear and common commitment to supporting organic farming” across all Member States. It called for 30 per cent of the CAP budget to be ring-fenced for agri-environmental and climate measures, including support for organic farming, arguing that these are vital investments in the resilience of EU agriculture.
The organisation also called on Member States to maintain their financial commitments to organic farming and avoid any reduction in support.
