Climate change and organic farming

Consumers and legislators in the EU are pushing for food production methods that neutralise carbon emissions. What impact will this have on food availability, costs, exports and imports? Lindi Botha asked Michaël Wilde, director of Bionext in the Netherlands, a body that represents the organic food industry.

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Do you foresee that food production in the Netherlands will decrease due to more stringent regulations from the Green Deal? 

Would it be a bad thing if it did? If we consume less meat and dairy products then it would be beneficial. Some 80% of our agricultural land is used to produce animal protein, of which most is feed for livestock. This is not the most efficient way for us to get our protein and we are running into a lot of problems in the Netherlands as a result. We have a huge problem where the soils are so full of nitrogen it is running off into the water systems. We are European champions in biodiversity loss and 99% of our water is polluted.

Although we are getting a lot of ‘cheap’ food, the external effects are negative. We are all in agreement, including conventional farmers, that we need to change the way we grow and consume food. The Green Deal stipulates that we need to reach a 50% reduction in pesticide use, and a 20% reduction in synthetic fertilisers by 2050. These are goals we are very happy about.

‘WE CAN’T EXPECT MUCH FROM CONSUMERS; INSTEAD WE NEED TO REDUCE THEIR CHOICE FOR BUYING NON-GREEN’

In the Netherlands, organic farmers make up 4% of the farming sector, and our goal is to get to 15% this year, and eventually 25% as per the Green Deal’s specifications. That leaves 75% of food production that can be farmed conventionally.