For more than 20 years, European policies for organic farming have been developed on a number of levels. The first scheme to specifically address organic farming was introduced in Denmark in 1987, shortly followed by other countries. Germany introduced conversion aid under the EU extensification programme EC Reg. 4115/88 in 1989. Similar schemes were also implemented in France and Luxembourg. As part of the MacSharry reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 1992, the introduction of agri‐environment programmes provided a unified framework for supporting conversion to and maintenance of organic production across the EU. The rationale of this support was based mainly on the contribution of organic farming to two Community policy objectives: protection of the environment and reduction of production surpluses and therewith saving of public expenditure. Thus supporting organic farming was a means to an end and not a policy goal itself. The importance of organic farming in the context of the CAP changed however towards the end of the 1990s mainly as a result of a changing CAP. While the “old CAP” was mainly focused on encouraging better agricultural productivity, maintaining incomes of farmers and ‐ to a certain extent – reducing negative environmental impacts of agriculture, the CAP of the EU has become substantially broader in the last fifteen years. This is first of all due to an increased complexity of the enlarged EU compared to the EU12. More importantly in this context is however the fact that the CAP had to respond to various new challenges such as increasing loss of biodiversity, water pollution, climate change, income disparity, rural development, food safety and quality, changing consumption patterns, budgetary restrictions as well as opportunities and policy implications of a more liberal agricultural world trade. Through this shift of emphasis, which was effected in 1999 by the “Agenda 2000" reform, organic farming goals and CAP goals were increasingly coincident, in particular with respect to the environment, resource use sustainability, animal welfare, food safety, nutrition and human health, financial viability of agricultural holdings and social justice. As a result, the expansion of organic farming has itself become a policy goal in several EU countries.
In order to achieve a substantial expansion of organic farming – as targeted in several countries ‐ additional policy instruments were required. Since processing and marketing of organic products are of crucial importance to a sustainable development of the organic sector, various demand oriented and communicative support measures have been implemented. In a number of countries and regions, the development of organic farming has been facilitated by organic action plans that comprise clear targets and identify specific development needs of the sector and bundle a mix of supply‐push and demand‐pull measures in a coordinated way (Häring et al., 2004, Lampkin and Stolze, 2005, Stolze et al., 2007). Thus, the organic policy framework has developed from a one‐ dimensional focus on area support to a more integrated approach since the late 1990s, which addresses the dual market and public good role of the organic sector (Stolze and Lampkin, 2009). However, this changing role of organic farming within agricultural policy has not taken place in all EU Member States to the same extent and is subject to ongoing changes. This reflects the fact that an expansion of organic farming is for policy‐makers often one option or strategy among others. As a result – irrespective of the fact the EU‐Commission implemented an organic action plan for the whole EU in 2004 – the degree and the type of support for organic farming differs today substantially
between Member States. It is therefore not surprising that organic farming has developed very differently across the EU as shown in the Figure 1.1 – although this is not only due to different policy environments but also, for example, a result of different geographic conditions and market potentials (see e.g. Bichler et al., 2005 or Bichler, 2006).
Figure 1.1 Share of organic area in total utilised agricultural area (UAA) in EU Member States
between 2000 and 2009 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 0 % 5 % 10 % 15 % 20 % Western/Northern EU states 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 0 % 5 % 10 % 15 % 20 % Mediterranean EU states 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 0 % 5 % 10 % 15 % 20 %
Central and Eastern EU states
Belgium Denmark Germany Ireland France Luxembourg Netherlands Austria Finland Sweden EU‐27 EU‐27 EU‐27 Belgium Denmark Germany Ireland France Luxembourg Netherlands Austria Finland Sweden United Kingdom Greece Spain Italy Portugal Cyprus Malta Bulgaria Czech Republic Estonia Latvia Lithuania Hungary Poland Romania Slovenia Slovakia EU‐27 EU‐27 EU‐27
In view of the importance of agricultural policies for the development of organic farming and the large room for manoeuvre of individual Member States in this policy area, Part A of this report aims to give a comprehensive overview of the implementation of public support measures addressing organic farming in all EU Member States since 2007, i.e. since the beginning of the current rural development programme period. Schemes from three different funding sources are taken into account:
First, support schemes of the rural development programmes (RDPs) funded under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), i.e. CAP Pillar 2
Second, support schemes funded under the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF), i.e. CAP Pillar 1
and third, national or regional state aid measures, i.e. measures that are not funded by the EAGF or EAFRD.
Information and data presented here are mainly based on the results of a written survey of experts in EU Member States, who are either responsible for organic farming and/or RDP policies at the national/regional Ministries for Agriculture or who have had a longstanding involvement in economic and policy research in the field of organic farming and have detailed knowledge of national or regional organic policies, contact to relevant organic stakeholders and access to country specific data. The questionnaire sent to these experts requested the following information on policy measures addressing organic farming: scope and action of the measures, the form which the focus on organic farming takes, level of grants or payment rates and public expenditure related to organic farming. Subsequently, survey results were checked for plausibility and statistical accuracy. Furthermore, responses were cross‐checked against available on‐line sources including Eurostat, DG Agri data as well as data from previous studies in this field. Data problems were discussed with key‐ informants directly by means of phone interviews. Based on the information collected, a national inventory of organic support policies was drafted for each country, which was finally validated by the national experts and used to compile the information of Part A of this study.
Part A is structured as follows. In Chapter 2, public policy measures addressing organic farming under the current rural development programmes are described and reviewed. Since agri‐environmental programmes under Axis 2 of the RDPs are the most important instrument to support organic farming, this measure has been given particular emphasis. In addition to this, detailed information is given on relevant Axis 1 and 3 measures. This is followed by a review of CAP Pillar 1 measures (Chapter 3); i.e. specific support to organic farmers under Article 68 of Council Regulation 73/2009 and contributions to producer organisations under the Common Market Organisation (CMO) for fruit and vegetables. National/regional measures which are not (co‐) funded by the EAGF or EAFRD are reviewed in Chapter 4. In some countries, these national/regional measures are combined with RDP measures to national or regional organic action plans. For this reason, a brief overview of implemented action plans is given Chapter 5. Based on the information on public support measures addressing organic farming, a typology of support systems is presented in Chapter 6.