The organicbio) The sector boomed last year, with people cooking at home due to closures, restaurant closures and more farm purchases.
Beer and frozen goods are among the fastest growing areas, with more people turning to organic food as everyday items.
However, it is not all rosy, as farmers are unhappy with France’s decision to cut maintenance aid to existing organic farmers and divert funds to those who turn their land organic.
This involves EU money in the framework of the next funding phase of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), starting in 2023.
The president of the organic farmers union FNAB, Philippe Camburet, said that countries will now have more power to decide how to allocate aid and that France’s plan is “unacceptable.”
He said that farmers provide a continuous benefit to the environment, so expect continued help, as the costs compared to conventional methods are too high to be worth it.
“The yield is lower and we cannot make customers pay in full, as the price would be twice that of non-organic food,” he said.
He said a public consultation is expected in September before the final plan is sent to the EU at the end of the year.
Direct purchase increases the number of organic farms
More people go bio, in part linked to the growing number of organic farms, and many offer direct selling.
With almost 10% of France’s total agricultural area and 6% of the annual purchasing budget, it is much more conventional than 10 years ago.
It is still below what those in organic and ecological movements would prefer, but France’s total biological land use is roughly the EU average, and significantly more than that of the UK, which was 2.8% last year. .
Laure Verdeau, director of the official organic promotion agency Agence Bio, said France can meet its demands for organic milk, meat, poultry, eggs and wine.
“We import 33% of our organic food, but half of it is products that cannot be grown here,” he said.
“The pandemic was a factor that caused people to change their shopping habits in 2020, buying more locally and more organically.
“The number of organic farms is growing and now it is around 50,000, and people are going directly to get products.”
He said this growing number of organic farms is a better measure of success than the total area of bio farmland.
However, Loïc Madeline, secretary of the federation of organic farmers FNAB, said that the change was slower than expected. “Most of the farmers are older and it is difficult to make a big change, although younger and more open are arriving.
Loïc Madeline joined a naked nationwide protest over planned cuts in organic aid
“The number of organic farms is increasing, but many are small, with 17,000 less than 20 hectares.
“However, they are also ‘local’ to more people as a result.
“People do about 55% of their organic purchases in supermarkets, but a third is in specialized stores and the rest directly from the farm.” Madeline said a key goal now is to convert bigger farms.
“Every hectare that goes organic protects our water, limits people’s exposure to pesticides, keeps our ecosystem healthy and preserves the health of farmers. Europe’s objective is to protect biodiversity and biological aids ”.
He said he was very disappointed that France was cutting aid from the Common Agricultural Policy and said farmers needed help both during and after the change.
He added: “Money is being paid to prepare the processing industry for organic production, but without the farmers, there is nothing to work with.”
The CNRS national research body recently produced a study showing how organic agriculture could form the basis for a “more balanced cohabitation between agriculture and the environment” by 2050, although it said some habits would have to change, in particular, less consumption of animal products.
Sébastien Loctin of Biofuture, which groups together several organic companies, is calling for the labeling rules to be reversed so that there is a ‘chemical production’ label on non-organic food and not a specific label on organic food, as there should be rule.
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