10
Jan
Initiative in the European Union Embraces Organic as a Climate Solution, as Fires Accelerate in the U.S.
(Beyond Pesticides, January 10, 2025) [Beyond Pesticides grieves for those tragically harmed by the Los Angeles fires.] As the new year begins with the bleak and devastating reminder brought on by the Los Angeles fires, the nation, and world are reminded once again that dramatic land management changes are necessary to address the erratic weather conditions contributing to the force and effect of the fires and the length of the fire season. This is only the most recent reminder, as Beyond Pesticides and many organizations call for an urgent end to land management practices and inputs that rely on the production and use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers, which contribute to the global climate crisis. Often incorrectly referred to as natural disasters, environmental disasters, including fires, floods, and severe weather events, are brought on or exacerbated by widespread reliance on disruptive chemicals, which played a role in a delayed start to the southern California rainy season, hurricane-force winds, and low humidity levels—all elevated by climate change. As organic is increasingly understood to be a climate solution, OrganicClimateNet last year launched an aggressive effort to build the base of organic farmers in the European Union (EU). Â
As the climate crisis grows exponentially, the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28) adopted an agreement with nearly 200 countries committing to the “end of the oil age.†(See UN Climate Crisis Conference Calls for Phaseout of Fossil Fuels, which Are Used to Produce Pesticides and Fertilizers.)
One of the largest barriers to expanding the adoption of organic farming, excluding costs, land access, and paperwork, is a deficiency of tailored mentorship and data collection to back up agroecological practices that critics may argue fall short of demonstrating climate, biodiversity, and public health benefits. OrganicClimateNet launched on February 1, 2024, as a European Union-based initiative coordinated by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), with its seventeen European partners from fourteen EU member nations to develop a pilot network of 250 organic farmers across twelve EU countries.
This initiative supports the objectives of the European Green Deal, as well as EU Biodiversity for 2030 and Farm to Fork strategies, including the EU-wide target to transition 25% of EU farmland to certified organic by 2030.
In December 2023, The Rodale Institute states in its 2020 report, Regenerative Agriculture and the Soil Carbon Solution, that humans could sequester more than 100% of global, annual, human-caused CO2 emissions if all arable and grasslands were transitioned to regenerative systems, and that “stable soil carbon can be built quickly enough to result in a rapid drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide.â€Â The organization adds to that the importance of shifting to organic regenerative systems, a distinction Beyond Pesticides has emphasized.
The goal of the OrganicClimateNet strategy is to boost domestic organic farming amidst increasing consumer interest in access to regenerative organic food products. In the U.S. context, the Organic Transition Initiative, including the Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP), is a similar avenue for expanding organic capacity, as well as continuing to push for 100% reimbursement of certification costs (Organic Cost Share), among other support policies, as a baseline for funding.
OrganicClimateNET & EU Organic Action Plan
OrganicClimateNET is funded with 4.9 million euros from Horizon Europe and Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research, and Innovation (SERI) through 2028. The project partners are a consortium of organic farmer associations, higher education and research institutions, and farming advisors, including  FiBL Europe (Belgium), Institut de l’Elevage (France), Justus-Liebig-Universitaet Giessen (Germany), IFOAM Organics EU (Belgium), Innovarum (Spain), Instytut Genetyki i Biotechnologii Zwierzat Polskiej Akademii Nauk (Poland), Asociacion Ecovalia (Spain), Luomuliito (Finland), Irish Organic Association (Ireland), Bioland Beratung GmbH (Germany), AGROBIO (Portugal), Asociatia Inter-Bio (Romania), LLKC (Latvia), Italian Foundation for Research in Organic and Biodynamic Agriculture FIRAB (Italy), Stichting Louis Bolk Instiut (The Netherlands), CEET (Estonia) and FiBL CH (Switzerland).
The four overarching goals of this Network according to their website are:
- To engage farmers in climate organic farming;
- To enhance capacity for climate organic farming;
- To develop smart policies & consumer engagement; and
- To foster a climate-neutral and resilient Europe.
The Network will leverage the cumulative capacity of the various partner organizations to organize and develop baseline tools, deliver data and impact reports to policymakers, and communicate with the general public, and incorporate the goals and objectives of related EU-climate, environmental, biodiversity, and food systems-related projects. The six “work packages†represent six phases of the Network’s rollout over the course of the 2024-2028 cycle, including:
- Establishing the pilot network;
- Implementing Carbon Farming;
- Carbon Farming Knowledge Base;
- Supporting Policy Design;
- Dissemination & Communication; and
- Management & Collaboration.
Each of the twelve countries will be organized into national Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (nAKISs). A nAKIS has a national coordinator, hub coaches, and lighthouse farms. The lighthouse farm at each Hub will “serv[e] as a demonstration and test center for project inputs such as training, translated knowledge material or carbon assessments.†The plan is to establish two hubs in each country with approximately 10-12 farms engaged in each hub.
Through OrganicClimateNET’s news page, several hubs have been launched in Romania, Italy, and Poland. For example in Poland, Tomasz Sakowski of the Institute of Animal Genetics and Biotechnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences is the national coordinator working with Bożena Holak (Poland’s hub coach) to develop two hubs in northeastern provinces known to have a robust organic dairy sector. “The chosen hubs will supply milk to the Piątnica dairy, which boasts the largest number of organic milk suppliers in the region,†according to a July update on the news page.
This project comes at a moment when the European Union is struggling to meet its 2030 target of 25% organic, given that the 2022 Eurostat data released on June 19, 2024, finds that just 10.5% of total EU farmland is under organic farming. See previous Daily News here for more analysis concerning some of the factors that contribute to Europe’s lackluster progress.
OrganicClimateNET is one of several EU-funded initiatives aimed at expanding organic agriculture in Europe. OrganicTargets4EU tracks opportunities and obstacles to meet EU and member state-specific national organic targets in the service of fulfilling the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies. There are seven focus countries for agriculture (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Romania) and two focus countries (Germany and Greece) for organic aquaculture aimed at providing diverse data from different EU geographical and bioclimatic contexts, as well as varying levels of development of organic supply chains and consumer demand. Additionally, through the facilitation and curation of Organic Knowledge Hubs, farmers, advocates, journalists, policymakers, the general public, and other stakeholders can access data, studies, and other information relating to crop production, animal husbandry, food chain management, environment and society, and farm management.
Keeping Organic Strong in the United States
OrganicClimateNET’s goals of enhancing peer-to-peer mentorship, data collection and analysis for soil health and carbon sequestration-related outcomes in organic farming, and development of context-specific resources and tools for farmers who may otherwise not pursue organic certification are acknowledged by U.S. organic advocates and farmers as excellent examples of policy strategies that can be applied stateside.
The state of organic knowledge gathering in the U.S. falls short of the European Union’s progress, despite the opportunities that exist. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture has two grant programs for organic farmers and researchers, including the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) and the Organic Transition Initiative. There are also organizations such as Real Organic Project and Organic Farming and Research Foundation (OFRF) [a National Organic Coalition member alongside Beyond Pesticides and other organizations] that offer funding, produce research, facilitate peer-to-peer networks, and provide related resources to build engagement in the U.S. organic farming sector.
The Organic Transition Initiative (OTI), which provides $300 million in funding and crop insurance, as well as network building through the Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP), is the closest equivalent to the European Union capacity-building model. Terry Shistar, PhD, science advisor and board member of Beyond Pesticides, shared testimony to the National Organics Standards Board fall 2023 meeting expressing concerns about the rollout of TOPP and OTI. “[T]he challenges in administering this program have resulted in low participation by farmers because of the very limited window of time for rollout and recruitment. For instance, the time from the announcement of OTI-EQIP [Environmental Quality Incentives Program] funding to the deadline was less than a month, resulting in few new applications,†says Shistar. See the full comments here. See previous Daily News here for more information on OTI and TOPP.
The National Organic Coalition released a press release this week voicing the concerns of advocates and farmers that organic programs were left defunded after government shutdown negotiations in late December 2024 put them on the chopping block. These programs include:
1. The Organic Certification Cost Share Program
2. The Organic Data Initiative
3. The Organic Certification Trade and Tracking Program
See Keeping Organic Strong to learn more about the history of U.S. organic regulations. As mandated in the Organic Food Production Act (OFPA), the National Organic Standards Board is required to hold public hearings twice a year for open comment periods on organic standards, including updates from subcommittees on a plethora of focus areas including the sunset of materials on the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances, equity and barriers to access organic certification, development of new regulations, among other areas.Â
Contact your Senator and U.S. House Representative to support S.5084, Safe School Meals Act, which would expand funding for organic school lunches, fully compensate organic farmers for certification fees, and prohibit paraquat, glyphosate, organophosphates, and other toxic chemical residues in food procured for the National School Lunch Program.
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Source: FiBL
