By Jim Manson, Journalist
Within just a few days of Russia launching its invasion of Ukraine a new frontline opened up as a fierce debate over Europe’s food security ignited. Fears that the conflict could place major stresses on supply chains and lead to food shortages across the continent, grew rapidly. With access to Ukrainian (and Russian) food and feed exports dramatically closed off, and serious disruption to energy and fertilizer supplies threatened, EU institutions mobilized to agree an emergency response.
Ukraine: A food war on two fronts
At exactly this moment of maximum anxiety, agri-industry lobbyists are piling pressure on European Governments to delay or reverse key EU sustainability pledges contained in the flagship Farm to Fork initiative. Green groups say their tactic is plain: to promote a false dichotomy between sustainability and food security.
The war in Ukraine impacts organic on two main fronts. First, is how it affects imports of vital food and feed crops to organic markets worldwide. The second, is the wider implications for food and farming policy at a time of extreme ecological precariousness.
To understand the first impact, we need to appreciate just how important Ukraine’s organic production is to Europe. According to European Commission data (2019), Ukraine is the single largest supplier of organic products to the EU, and second biggest globally. The vast majority of organic cereals, for example, are imported from Ukraine (32 % of wheat, 77 % of other cereals). It is a major grower of organic oilseeds, and producer of oilcakes. Ukraine is also a significant producer of organic medicinal herbs, aromatic plants and honey.
Ukraine is the single largest supplier of organic products to the EU, and second biggest globally
But it is for altogether different reasons that organic now finds itself at the center of a fierce debate on food security. The war is piling pressure on farmers across Europe who have been hit with soaring fertilizer, feed and fuel costs. But instead of reading this as an urgent signal to build a more resilient and ecologically sustainable agriculture system, loud voices in the food industry, and in politics, are demanding further agricultural intensification.
In early March, the European Commission announced that it would hold an emergency meeting of European agriculture ministers to look again at key objectives in its Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies. The fear in the Commission was that the war would significantly dent Europe’s capacity to produce food. Even the pro-organic agriculture commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, warned that sustainability objectives «may need to be revisited if food security is endangered.
Exploiting tragedy
“Food security” is term that has added potency in time of war. And it is a phrase that is being weaponized by powerful agri-industry groups as they use fear to try to roll back the EU’s ambitious program for a transition to greener agriculture. “The European farm lobby has wasted no time to exploit this tragedy for their own economic gain,” the wildlife NGO Birdlife International noted.
Ucrania exports wheat to Europe
The organic sector is highly alert to these maneuverings. Ahead of the crucial meeting of European agriculture ministers, the prominent Danish organic commentator and IFOAM World Board member, Paul Holmbeck, warned: “The war in Ukraine is being used as a battering ram by classic agri-industry lobby interests. They want more pesticides and the ploughing up of nature set-asides. But this completely ignores the fact that our greatest food vulnerability is due to using so much land to produce food for animals, instead of people.”
Volkert Engelsman, CEO of European organic produce importer Eosta, has warned that the crisis is being used by the fertilizer and pesticide lobby “to bombard the Farm to Fork policy and reverse progress towards sustainable agriculture by several decades.”
Farm to Fork gets renewed backing
To the considerable relief of the European organic community, on March 23rd the European Commission formally restated its commitment to the Farm to Fork strategy (including the 25%-organic-by-2030 target for EU farmland), when it announced a set of emergency measures aimed at safeguarding European food security.
But there was frustration, indeed anger, at the Commission’s decision to postpone major pesticide reforms, which would set a binding 50% reduction in pesticide use across the bloc by 2030. Important biodiversity targets were also placed on hold.
Agribusiness uses food safety as a weapon to try to roll back the EU’s green transition agenda
After the European Parliament later gave its support to Farm to Fork, as it approved the Commission’s measures, IFOAM Organics Europe said it saw the development as a “positive political signal, especially considering the weeks of intense lobbying to undermine the EU’s ambition to make agriculture more sustainable.” But it said it regretted the concessions made on biodiversity and pesticides.
The Ukraine crisis shows no sign of abating, and its impacts will potentially be long-lasting. The Green Party in the European Parliament has warned that “systematic attacks on the sustainability goals of the Green Deal” will continue to be waged by vested interests. But others believe that the flawed logic of the agri-industry’s demands for a relaxation of environmental standards is being successfully exposed. The UK-based Soil Association argues that “now is exactly the time to end farming’s reliance on chemical fertilizer.” And IFOAM Organics Europe’s president, Jan Plagge, says the war may be the determining factor that finally breaks farming’s dependency on all chemical inputs: “It forces us to fundamentally rethink our food production system to make it more independent from external inputs, less input intensive and more resilient.”
Source: Bio Eco Actual, Independent European Organic Press
To view source article, visit: https://www.bioecoactual.com/en/2022/05/04/war-in-ukraine-organic-in-the-spotlight-as-food-security-debate-ignites/
Organic & Non-GMO Insights June 2022
