Glossary
3.3.3 EU balance in crude protein
Figure 23 summarises, in million tonnes of crude protein, the four flow charts of the preceding paragraphs. It shows the relative importance of the exchanges of pulses (limited exchanges), soya bean (major importance of imports), other oilseeds (significant production) and dried legume fodder (high domestic consumption of the EU production), imported and exported from the EU.
Figure 23: PRP protein balance in the EU in 2016 (Million tonnes of crude protein, own calculation based on DG AGRI, Terre Univia and Ciqual data)
This chart shows that once converted into crude proteins, the EU demand is covered at roughly equal level by two main sources: 16.8Mt of internal production and 15.7Mt of imports. However, only 1.2Mt are exported. It is thus clear that the EU has a high dependency on PRP imports for its crude protein supply and particularly on soya bean.
3.4 The case of organic and GM-free PRPs 3.4.1 Organic productions
3.4.1.1 Organic pulses
Organic pulses cover 0.6% of the global pulse areas, corresponding to almost 530,000 ha in 201665, with 72% located in EU and 14% in North America. The world organic pulses area has been multiplied by six since 2004 (FIBL and IFOAM, 2018)66. The main organic pulse producers are France (86,000ha), Canada (57,000 ha) and Poland (56,000 ha), followed by Italy, Germany and Spain. Otherwise, the countries with the largest percentage of organic pulse areas are Austria (57.6% of its pulses areas are organic), Italy (44.1%) and Denmark (40.0%). (FIBL and IFOAM, 2018).
In the EU, organic pulses cover more than 380,000 ha, representing 7.3% of EU organic arable area in 2016 and 17.9% of the whole EU dry pulses area. This high share highlights the importance of pulses in organic crop rotations.
Data concerning the EU share of each organic PRP crop was not available in detail. Table 6 shows the percentage of organic area of dry pulses out of the total production of dry pulses for the MS studied as CS. Even if data is scarce, field beans appear to be well developed in the organic segment, partly due to their use for self-consumption and the importance of rotation in this system that prohibits the use of chemical fertilisers 67.
Table 6: Area share of organic production of dry pulses in CS Member States in 2015
% Broad and
field beans Field peas Rapeseed
AU 62% 33% 0.4%
DE 33.2% 6.4% 0.2%
ES No data
FR No data No data 0.4%
IT No data
PL 0.1%
RO
Source: CS and Eurostat, 201568
3.4.1.2 Organic oilseed
At a global level, organic oilseeds69 represent less than 0.5% of oilseed areas with 785,600 ha in 201670.
65 These figures are underestimated because there is no data about three main conventional pulse producers: India, Niger and Nigeria.
66 A part of this increase may be also explained by the growing availability of data. (FIBL/IFOAM).
67 As with all legumes, beans are mainly used in organic systems, beside their production, to fix Nitrogen from the atmosphere.
68 Austria data corresponds to 2016.
69 In this chapter oilseeds correspond to soya bean, rapeseed, sunflower and linseed crops.
70 These figures are underestimated because there is no data available for Brazilian production.
Figure 24 shows the share of each oilseed crop in the global organic oilseed area, showing that the main area is soya bean (560,457 ha) but representing only 0.5% of the global soya bean total area (conventional and organic). Soya bean is followed by sunflower (104,032 ha71, representing 0.4%
of the total sunflower area), rapeseed (85,960 ha – 0.3%) and linseed (35,159 ha-1.3%) (Julia et al., 2017). These figures show the very scarce development of oilseeds in the organic segment.
Very little detailed data was available per crop, except concerning organic soya bean.
Figure 24: Organic oilseed areas in the world (2016; FIBL)
At a global scale, the main producers of organic soya bean are China (250,000ha – representing 47%
of total organic soya bean area), India (117,000ha – 22%), the U.S. (51,000 ha – 10%) and Canada (15,000 ha – 3%). These four players represent around 82% of the entire organic soya bean area (Julia et al., 2017).
Figure 25 shows global organic soya bean area and production are increasing, which is mainly driven by European consumer demand.
“Organic soya bean area is mainly located in Asia (71%) and can be broken down into 13%
in North America, 11% in Europe, 3 % in Latin America and 2% in Africa (Julia et al., 2017).
In the EU, organic oilseeds cover more than 224,000ha (+6% than 2015) and organic EU oilseed area represents 1.9% of the organic EU area in 2016 and 1.9% of the total oilseed EU area. France and Romania together represent
47% of the organic oilseed areas in the EU. Figure 25: World organic area and production evolutions of soya bean between 2008 and 2015 (International
trade center, FIBL, IISD)
Despite this fact, there are wide differences between MS organic oilseed areas, which are for example very low in the UK but covered 16% the oilseed in Austria in 2016. Otherwise, sunflower is the main organic oilseed production in the EU (78,180 ha in 2016). Romania is the largest producer (with 22,372 ha), followed by France (18,583 ha). Sunflower is followed by soya bean (72,710 ha in the EU) and rapeseed (49,791).
France is the top producer of organic soya bean with 24,615 ha and Romania is the first for rapeseed (12,811 ha).
As shown in Table 7, in comparison with the other crops under study, rapeseed is almost not developed as an organic segment, mainly due to difficulties in managing diseases and insects without chemical inputs. Sunflower organic share depends on MS, and mainly follows the organic oil market.
Soya bean has a large organic share in Austria and France, going for food use; this share is lower in Romania and Italy due to a smaller demand.
Table 7: Area share of organic production of oilseeds in CS Member States in 2015
% Rapeseed Sunflower Soya bean
AU 0.4% 8.9% 29.0%
DE 0.4%
ES 1.4%
FR 0.4% 3.0% 16.5%
IT 2.4%
PL 0.1%
RO 2.3% 12.3%
Source: CS and Eurostat, 201572
71 The main global organic sunflower producers are Ukraine, Romania and France (Agence Bio).
72 Austria data corresponds to 2016.
71%
13%
11% 5%
Soya bean Sunflower
Rapeseed Linseed
0 200 400 600 800 1000
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Organic soya production Organic soya area
3.4.1.3 Legumes harvested green
We didn’t find any data on organic forage legumes in IFOAM, FIBL and Agence Bio France documents.
However, according to the data of the CS, as shown in Table 8 below, the organic share of legume fodder harvested green depends a lot on MS: it covers 1.8% of the total leguminous fodder harvested green area in Spain, compared to 70% in Austria.
Table 8: Area share of organic production of legume fodder in CS Member States in 2015
% Legume fodder harvested green
AU 70.0%
DE 31.3%
ES 1.8%
FR No data
IT 9.5%
PL
RO
Source: CS and Eurostat, 201573