Revision of organic rules in EU

A new project called Organic Revision, which is financed by EU's sixth framework programme, is to contribute to the revision of EU regulations for organic agriculture. The project, which started in March 2004, has partners from a number of European countries under the leadership of the Danish Research Centre for Organic Farming.

There are three, quite different, forms of contributions in the project: it will give an overview of different organic rules, work with organic values, and investigate specific problems for organic practice.

Overview of organic standards

There are many different sets of organic standards and regulations in Europe, often more than one in each country. Therefore, the new project will provide an overview of these rules and how they differ from the EU regulations on organic agriculture. A database of rule differences will be created and the information will be made publicly available on the Internet.

In the EU, there is a general interest in removing unnecessary barriers to free trade within the Union by harmonising the organic rules. On the other hand, organic stakeholders want rules that are adapted to regional differences, because organic farming is dependent on local conditions such as soil, climate, nature, culture, etc. Apart from this, there is a desire to simplify regulations, since they are becoming still more complicated and sometimes it is hard to make sense of them.

Core values in organic farming

The interests in harmonisation, regionalisation, and simplification are difficult to combine, but the project seeks to fulfil these wishes by focusing on the values behind the rules. Researchers will conduct an empirical inquiry into the values of organic farmers and other stakeholders by way of focus group interviews, and examine the relation between basic organic values and more general ideas and theories about values and ethics. One of the purposes is to determine a set of well-substantiated core values that can play an explicit role in the revision of the organic regulations.

A greater emphasis on values can enable rule simplifications and make the rules more meaningful. And if the values can be 'harmonised', that is, if a set of core values can be agreed upon, then this can form a basis for regional adaptations in the regulations. The work on determining a set of basic values is done in cooperation with the work on rewriting the principles of organic agriculture that is taking place in IFOAM in 2004 and 2005.

Independence of conventional agriculture

The project will also contribute to a greater independence of conventional agriculture with regard to seed and feed. The work includes investigations of problems with seed-borne diseases, selection of varieties with sufficient quality characteristics for organic farming, and recommendations on necessary deviations from the general prohibition of use of conventional seed and propagation materials.

Furthermore, the project investigates the options for achieving 100% organic rations for organic livestock by identifying constraints related to restrictions in the availability of limiting amino acids for pigs and poultry in relation to animal health, product quality, productivity and economics, and by examining various strategies to deal with the restrictions.

Further information

More information can be found on the project website, http://www.organic-revision.org

IFOAM's work on rewriting the principles for organic agriculture can be followed on http://ecowiki.org/IfoamPrinciples