L'UE veut un rôle plus important pour l'agriculture bio

Christopher Stopes, president of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements' (IFOAM) EU branch, noted that good soil is of key importance, as food production depends on high amounts of organic matter in soil.

Urs Niggli, director of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), said organic farming actually builds up soil fertility and matter, and that organic agriculture's environmental services are "huge".

In addition to better soil fertility, organic fields also have a 30% wider variety of species, a 50% greater abundance of beneficial animals and an abundance of bees compared to conventionally farmed fields, Niggli continued.

They also have increased capacity to hold water and higher water content in the soil, he added.

Organic farming target?

Organic products represents 2% of the EU food market and 2% of EU farmers have opted for this type of farming, noted Jean-François Hulot, head of the organic farming unit at the European Commission's agriculture department.

There is currently no specific target at EU level for organic farming, nor is there a budget or payments, he said.

Having a target for organic farming is "not a stupid idea" as there is already strong demand for one, Hulot said. But if such a target were established, "we would put into question the market-driven approach of agriculture," he warned.

Food security

As participants debated the role of organic farming in ensuring food security, Marco Contiero, EU policy director for sustainable agriculture at Greenpeace, argued that there is far too much emphasis placed on the assumption that we need to increase food production by 70% by 2050. Since this assumption was accepted as general knowledge, the debate has wrongly focused on how to increase production, he said.

Meanwhile, there are much more important issues related to food security, like how to develop drought-resilient farm systems, not just drought-resistant crops, he continued.

Ladislav Miko noted that intensive agricultural production is only a couple of decades old and nobody knows "how long we can continue producing intensively," as such farming degrades the soil while remaining dependent on soil quality. "But I know it will have an end," he said.

Current organic yields remain far below those of traditional farming methods, which use fertilisers and pesticides.

Meanwhile, Jean-François Hulot argued that "we should not think that organic farming will always have lower yields. This can change".

As organic farming requires less input of expensive petrochemical products, Miko even suggested that organic food might become cheaper than "traditional food" once oil prices increase as oil supplies begin to dry up.