According to the IFOAM EU Group (www.ifoam-eu.org), climate change, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, water pollution and increasing pressure on natural resources, such as soil nutrients and fossil fuels are amongst the most pressing challenges for society. Agriculture and food production play an important part in both causing harm and offering solutions to meet these challenges. The EU with its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has a policy instrument available, of which best use must be made to shape agriculture towards best practices that allow meeting the above-named challenges.
Policy support favouring organic farming and specific tailored policy instruments are complementary, effective tools to tackle environmental challenges under the European Unions Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Whereas specific agro-environmental measures can help tackle problems one by one and are in particular useful to react to specific local problems, the concept of organic farming offers a holistic approach to meet several environmental challenges at once, while at the same time also supporting animal welfare and delivering high-quality food. Due to synergy effects, an efficient European-wide control system in place and organic food being a quality label with an enhanced market value, structurally supporting organic farming is not only an effective, but also a cost-efficient tool to reach sustainability objectives within agricultural policies.
Source: IFOAM EU Group
Further information
- IFOAM-EU.org: Homepage of the IFOAM EU Group
- IFOAM-EU.org: Organic food and farming – a system approach to meet the sustainability challenge
- IFOAM-EU.org: Publication list
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