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On 22 January 2004 the European Commission held a ‘European Hearing on Organic Food and Farming Towards a European Action Plan’ in Brussels. Sessions covered the place of organic farming in European agriculture and in the wider European society. The main purpose of this hearing was to gather experiences and views from the widest possible range of stakeholders. Furthermore, Franz Fischler, the EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries, announced that the Action Plan on Organic Farming would be published in April this year. In his speech, he outlined three priorities concerning the market, the role of public support and the role of standards. The Commissioner supported a common EU-wide label for organic food products as an “essential instrument to increase the visibility of organic produce, and increase consumer awareness”. The second important set of actions that he identified was public support for organic production, including new measures such as an animal welfare measure for which organic animal husbandry methods could qualify and a new food quality chapter to help develop the demand side. He also mentioned the necessity to update standards, as organic farming must react to new scientific and technical developments and respond quickly to changes in consumer demand. The hearing raised the need to develop animal welfare, environmental and other standards not covered so far and aim “to find ways to adopt a more scientific working method, based on consulting independent and transparent expert opinion”. However, an issue of concern raised by both environmental groups and organic farmers relates to the co-existence of organic and genetically modified (GM) crops. Specifically, the groups criticised that the recently released co-existence guidelines by the European Commission did not establish thresholds for GM contamination of organic crops.
The Action Plan based on the output from the hearing, will be submitted as a Communication to the European Council and Parliament.
“European Hearing on Organic Food and Farming,” EU PRESS RELEASE, 22 January 2004; “Fischler pledges EU Action Plan to boost organic farming,” EURACTIV, 27 January 2004.
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