The European Parliament saves the integrity of the Farm to Fork strategy but concedes on biodiversity, the European umbrella organisation for organic food and farming, IFOAM Organics Europe has said.
A resolution on food security was adopted in the parliament yesterday (Thursday, March 24), which, the organisation said, is a positive political signal.
IFOAM Organics Europe welcomed the EU’s support of the Farm to Fork strategy to achieve a more resilient and independent agriculture in Europe. “Especially considering the weeks of intense lobbying to undermine the EU’s ambition to make agriculture more sustainable,” the group said.
However, the organisation criticised that the parliament made concessions on key elements for biodiversity, supporting a temporal authorisation for the use of pesticides on ecological focus areas.
The president of IFOAM Organics Europe, Jan Plagge said that incentives and support for farmers to upscale existing agroecological solutions should be the priority of policymakers. He added:
“It is possible to produce healthy food in sufficient quantity without synthetic pesticides and fertilisers while preserving biodiversity.”
With support of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the EU Farm to Fork strategy, Plagge added, carbon can be stored in soils, and food production can be made more resilient to the effects of climate change.
Practical agronomic solutions already exist to achieve these goals, Plagge said, while ensuring both food security for all Europeans and beyond, as well as profitability for farmers.
The Farm to Fork strategy remains the relevant policy to adapt the EU farming system to the current and future crises, according to the president of IFOAM Organics Europe.
“The war against Ukraine raises legitimate concerns over price increases and availability of certain agriculture inputs, namely cereals for animal feed and synthetic fertilisers.
“It also forces us to re-think our food production system to make it more independent from external inputs, less input-intensive and more resilient,” he commented.