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IFOAM, the worldwide umbrella organisation of the organic agriculture movement with 740 member organisations in 103 countries has official consultative status with the UN/CSD as well as with FAO. IFOAM actively promotes organic agriculture systems at the international level, e.g. at the FAO/SARD den Bosch Conference in 1991, the UNCED conference in 1992 with its subsequent CSD meetings and in the context of the Codex Alimentarius Commision guidelines for organic agriculture.
Sustainable agriculture? - Commitment and progress is lacking
The growing ecological and socio-economic crisis of agriculture continues to result in the marginalisation of farmers worldwide, but mainly in Third-World countries at an increasingly alarming rate. This state of affairs is caused mainly by the ever quickening impetus of globalisation, its attendant hi-tech industrialisation processes and reconfiguration of powerful market forces. The actions taken by international organisations and governments to remedy the situation often remain too rhetorical, meagre and fragmented. The commitment to sustainable agriculture made at the Earth Summit still lacks more concrete movements towards implementation on all public sector levels. Often old and non-sustainable concepts of agriculture development have just been renamed or get simply "green washed".
The world will grow organically
Organic agriculture is experiencing rapid worldwide growth through the
creative energy of thousands of grassroot organisations, farmers and traders.
In some countries we also see astonishing support from the public sector
and governments. A lot can be learnt from countries like Finland, Sweden,
Switzerland and Austria, where organic agriculture has already a 6 to 10%
share in total farming and farmland. Many good examples also exist in developing
countries. For example in Uganda thousands of farmers practise organic
agriculture especially for cotton production. Ten thousands of "campesinos"
in Mexico have sound incomes today and good perspectives for the future
because they grow organic products such as coffee and sell it in the fair
trade and organic market. In Egypt the best selling herb teas are certified
organic and are sold in 9,000 shops and pharmacies. In Asia, countries
that have a developed organic agriculture, include among others Japan,
India, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. The few examples in the "taking stock"
document (case studies 12, 14 and 24) give only a very little glimpse on
the contributions of the organic movement to "Sustainable Agriculture and
Rural Development" (SARD). All over the world one finds "organic"
growth rates in the range of 20 - 30% annually. If this rate of growth
continues within a decade a number of countries will have the majority
of their land and food markets in organic!
MFCAL - Organic agriculture has incorporated the "multifunctional"
framework
From its very beginning the organic agriculture movement has been built on what we call "holistic" concepts incorporating the "Multifunctional Character of Agriculture and Land" (MFCAL). These concepts are reflected in IFOAM´s membership, which besides organic farmer associations, includes also processor, trade, consumer, environmental and training organisations. The SARD approach aims for sustainability that "concerns land, water, plant and animal genetic resources, is environmentally non-degrading, technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable". Organic agriculture with its holistic principles has a record of consequence and excellence in implementing the SARD aims. In fact, issues such as long-term soil fertility, maximum use and recycling of renewable energy, locally adapted techniques, fair wages, and viability of rural enterprises have always been key elements of organic management.
Conclusions and proposals for action
Too much confusion has been created by not clearly defining, in operational terms, the concepts of "sustainable” agriculture. The lack of workable indicators is perceived as a major gap, yet sustainability indicators have been developed in physical (organic) and social-economical (fair trade) terms. For over 20 years IFOAM has expertise in organic standard setting (e.g. for production, processing, cotton/fibres) and is now registered by ISO as an international standard setting body. Organic farming, with its ecological standards and quality guarantee system through certification and accreditation, is the most precisely defined and controlled form of agriculture. It’s logical, therefore, to conclude "organic agriculture is sustainability put into practise”.
To give the environmental and social components of the MAFCL framework a real chance, it will be necessary to increase the efforts in introducing environmental and social accounting (based on internalisation of costs). Appropriate incentive programmes for conversion to organic agriculture have to be increased- always based on organic production standards. Given the voluntary character of organic agriculture, it´s important to stress that ultimate responsibility for setting our ecological and social standards must stay within the private sector. The government’s role should concentrate on enforcement mechanisms of these standards. Expanded free trade without organic standards will only accelerate environmental and social "dumping", the mining of soils and the further destruction of whole ecosystems and rural communities.
On 29 January 1999 the FAO Committee on Agriculture (COAG) adopted a report, which concluded among others "that many aspects of organic farming were important elements of a system approach to sustainable food production" and recognised "the environmental and potential health benefits of organic agriculture and its contribution of innovative production technologies to other agriculture systems and to the overall goals of sustainability”. The fact that COAG supported the proposal "to give the practise associated with organic agriculture a place within sustainable agriculture programmes" and that it endorsed "the development of an organisation-wide and cross -sectoral programme in organic agriculture” provides a good platform for the debates and documents of the upcoming CSD review on agriculture.
The organic movement as represented by IFOAM expects FAO and the upcoming CSD session on agriculture next year: