Pouvons-nous utiliser des cookies pour améliorer votre expérience ? En sélectionnant « Accepter », vous nous indiquez que vous acceptez tous les cookies, comme expliqué dans notre déclaration de confidentialité.
Some people doubt if the EU can achieve its ambition of 25% organic agriculture by 2030. Even if the demand is there, many farmers are manacled to huge loans and to a system that promotes externalisation. But according to Volkert Engelsman, CEO of Eosta, a real shift can be accomplished with strong fiscal signals. EU-Commissioner Frans Timmermans recently said that financial institutions (like Rabobank) will have to write-off some of their investments in intensive agriculture, because they are basically stranded assets. With fiscal measures and write-offs, it can be done. We can't afford not to.
25% organic in 2030 will be a challenge. For countries like Austria or Sweden the goal is within easy reach, but in most of the EU it seems far away. In the Netherlands, one of the biggest agricultural exporters of the world, less than 4% of the agricultural area is now organic. And the reformed Common European Agricultural Policy (CAP), which regulates the distribution of billions in subsidies, sadly failed to adopt any significant change in 2020.
If farmers are not rewarded for green services, how can they go green? Many farmers are deep in the red. Frans Timmerman, vice-president of the European Commission, has therefore suggested in a Dutch tv-program that financial institutions will have to write off loans to farmers to make a shift to more sustainable agriculture possible. Previous investments in practices that threaten biodiversity and the climate just don’t make sense anymore. “I’m saying to Rabobank what I say to all financial institutions: look at your books. Which loans do still have a future?”
Volkert Engelsman, General Director of Eosta, has advised the European Commission on behalf of OPTA, the European organic trade organisation earlier this year. He suggested taking serious fiscal measures, linked to True Cost Accounting, to create a level playing field in the market between companies that externalise social and environmental costs, and companies that work more sustainably. Some options: taxes on artifical fertilizers, pesticides and imported feed; VAT reductions; or even a fundamental change of the tax system like the Ex’tax Project.
According to Volkert Engelsman (and many in the organic sector) there is no alternative: “The new normal after Corona will be healthy, fair and organic. Where there is a will, there is a way."
La saison des raisins d’outre-mer débute mi-décembre, mais la planification commence dès maintenant. La demande de raisins bio reste forte et nos producteurs souhaitent savoir suffisamment tôt quels volumes réserver pour leurs programmes. En définissant les programmes en amont, nous pouvons mieux sécuriser les volumes bio et disposer d’une base plus solide pour proposer ensuite des offres compétitives.
Situé au bord de la rivière Oranje, dans la province du Cap-Nord en Afrique du Sud, Carpe Diem est depuis de nombreuses années un partenaire de confiance pour nos raisins biologiques. Son propriétaire, Gog van der Colff, a repris l’entreprise familiale en 2000 et a délibérément opté pour la culture biologique en 2006. Ce qui a commencé comme une initiative qui n’a pas convaincu tout le monde au départ s’est transformé en une exploitation biologique avant-gardiste produisant des raisins, des noix de pécan et des raisins secs.
Cette année, El Niño a clairement un impact sur la saison des mangues en Amérique du Sud. Des températures plus élevées et des régimes pluviométriques inhabituels affectent la floraison et rendent la disponibilité et les dates de récolte moins prévisibles.
Droit d’auteur © Eosta | Webdesign : Pencilpoint - créatif en forme & contenu