Organic: a concept for the future

IFOAM-EU recently held its 10th European Organic Congress. The two-day event was officially opened by Martijn van Dam, Dutch State Secretary for Economic Affairs. Van Dam sees the agricultural transition as offering very good opportunities for organic products, calling organic farming “a concept for the future”.

Opportunities

Companies in the organics sector are “pioneers in creating a more natural way of producing food. Consumers reward that by increasingly opting for organic products. That is also inspiring the conventional food sector to improve sustainability. But the organic sector can only keep pioneering if it keeps developing. Above all, the opportunities to do so lie in achieving a better balance between imports and production, saving energy and water, and reducing carbon emissions.” 

‘Consumers are increasingly opting for organic products’

The Netherlands is lagging behind

Bavo van den Idsert, Director of Bionext: “Organics is booming in the whole of Europe and its growth is on course to account for between 20 and 30% of the total EU agricultural land and food revenue over the next decade. In countries such as Denmark, southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden the share already stands at an average of 10%. The Netherlands is lagging far behind with just 3%, yet as the world’s number two food country in all other respects we have the potential to become very strong in organics too. If we are to achieve that, a couple of policy changes will be necessary, in particular through targeted measures to stimulate the transformation and sales of organics through information and education. The benefits for the environment, biodiversity, animal welfare and hence for Dutch consumers will be enormous.”