EU organic movement calls on Member States to provide reliable data on organic and other Farm to Fork targets

As the first trialogue on the Regulation on Statistics on Agricultural Inputs and Outputs (SAIO) takes place on 3 February, IFOAM Organics Europe calls on the Council of Ministers of the EU to enable systematic data collection on organic agriculture. This regulation will cover statistics on agricultural production, agricultural prices, nutrients, and plant protection products, but the EU Council’s position introduces provisions that would limit the collection of data on organic farming.

Take into account the organic farming data

For IFOAM Organics Europe, restricting the amount of data collected on organic would be a missed opportunity. The organic food and farming movement calls on the co-legislators to seize this opportunity to finally integrate organic agriculture in all statistical categories of the SAIO regulation.

Jan Plagge, IFOAM Organics Europe President, said: “EU agricultural statistics need to reflect the impetus to reach the target of 25% organic farming in 2030 in the Farm to Fork Strategy and the EU Action Plan for Organic Agriculture. If organic agriculture should represent a quarter of EU agricultural land in 2030, we cannot rely on agricultural statistics that do not take organic agriculture into account.”

“Member States need to provide accurate data to properly monitor progress on the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies’ targets”

Eduardo Cuoco, Director of IFOAM Organics Europe, added: “Member States need to provide accurate data to properly monitor progress on the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies’ targets. Given the expected contribution of the organic sector to these targets, it is imperative to create sub-categories on organic farming for each of the statistical categories established by the SAIO Regulation. Furthermore, the future SAIO regulation offers a great opportunity to improve our knowledge on how organic farming contributes to the EU agricultural system. Researchers on organic farming have been asking access to accurate data on organic farming for years.”

Protecting green policies

The availability of organic data is not the only issue at stake in the SAIO Regulation. While the Commission and Parliament proposed significant improvements in data collection on pesticides use, ensuring the availability of accurate and comparable annual data at EU level, the EU Council wants to seriously weaken these possibilities. Reports from Client Earth, PAN Europe and Global 2000 published today show this. IFOAM Organics Europe joins these NGOs in condemning the retrograde position of the Council, which would make progress towards the 50% pesticide reduction target of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy impossible to measure. Member States should not get away with years of failures in reducing the use of synthetic pesticides by hiding their use and refusing to provide data to the EU institutions.

Council’s position would make progress towards the 50% pesticide reduction target of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy impossible to measure

IFOAM Organics Europe calls on the French Presidency of the EU – which will lead the SAIO trialogues on behalf of the Council – to be coherent with its own priorities to speed up the agroecological transition and reduce pesticide use. The French Presidency should ensure that the Council position does not undermine the EU Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy.

Further information: IFOAM Organics Europe

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